seriousfic

Title: Duality
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,851
Characters/Pairings: Superman, Supergirl, Lex Luthor, General Zod, Metallo
Previous Part: 29
Next Part: 31
Summary: When Superman and Metallo fight, the question isn’t who will win. It’s how much of Metropolis will be left.

During

Barbara closed her locker, still a little unsure how she’d managed to escape from the ‘rents for her life. She only had a few glorious hours of school left before she had to face the music, so she was determined to make them count.

“Hey,” Dick greeted, leaning against the locker next to hers. “You hear Superman’s fighting a Terminator or something? Roy’s got the livefeed from Lex News on his laptop, if you wanna watch.”

“That’s okay. All the best parts are gonna be on Youtube later. Right now they’re probably just showing seven angles of a bunch of smoke.”

Dick shrugged in agreement. “Don’t tell me you go in for that sports team rivalry ‘Gotham-Metropolis’ thing. ‘Who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman.’ It’s stupid.”

“I don’t hate Superman. How could you? I just… I’ve got enough on my plate. Hey, do you want to meet my parents?”

“No,” Dick chortled. “Why?”

“My dad found out about us. He wants to meet you.”

“Oh.” Dick blinked, suddenly very serious. “When?”

“I believe his exact words were ‘don’t make me go look for him’. But it’ll be fine, once he sees you’re not some twenty-something pervert…”

Dick waited for her to finish the thought. “Yes?”

“It’s just his job, he sees the worst in everything. It has him jumping at shadows. But he’ll calm down, once he sees how mature and responsible you are.”

Dick coughed. “Uh, Barbara, I’m neither mature nor responsible.”

“Fake it. He’s expecting you at seven o’clock. Don’t be late. Really, don’t be late.”

***

Before

If Lois Lane’s usual arrival at the Daily Planet was a tornado, this was a typhoon. The morning crew saw her tattered clothes, her bruised husband, and her young son locked in her arms. They wisely got out of the way.

Perry White got to the Planet so early and left so late that visitors to his office usually looked for a bed. Lois just set Jason down on his desk and fell into the nearest chair. Richard followed suit, though he had the foresight to bring coffee. Lois gulped it down.

“Perry. I need a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Watch Jason. Get him somewhere safe, not the police, they won’t be enough. And I need to borrow a gun.”

***

Now

“There’s nothing here!” Kara cried in frustration, smashing her fists down on the console. The crystal fractured and then quickly healed. “The only way the archives know to stop a Kryptonian war machine is to remove the power source, and we can’t. If only Vril was here…”

“Keep looking,” Superman said, floating toward the Fortress’s skylight.

“What are you going to do?”

“My job.”

***

At 6 AM, right on the dot, a man in a long overcoat and Homburg hat stepped into the lobby of the Daily Planet. He waited, absolutely motionless, for six minutes. Then a security guard approached him. “Can I help you, sir?”

Metallo smiled with chrome teeth. “Yes, as a matter of fact you can. You see, there are too many bullets in this gun.” He pointed an MP5 at the guard and held the trigger until he was dead. The lobby fell into silence except for tears and panicked breathing. Metallo stepped in front of the revolving doors, observing all those who’d hit the deck. “What’s the matter? Waiting for Superman to save you?”

“Drop the weapon, Corben.”

Metallo turned. Superman was hovering outside, arms crossed and jaw set.

Metallo crushed the gun in his hands. “I am the weapon! I’m the gun pointed at your head, the sword of the avenging angel!”

“Then I’m beating you into a plowshare.” His eyes lit up like thunderclouds full of red lightning and then solid heat lanced into Metallo.

Metallo’s coat flashed into ashes and he was driven back several feet, his heels literally digging into the floor. The heat was so intense that the nearest civilians got sunburnt indoors.

His metal body glowing red and his skin further burning away, Metallo’s chest hatched like some alien egg and Superman struggled to stay airborne through a coughing fit. Metallo grabbed the revolving door’s push-bar and threw the entire thing, knocking him out of the sky in a hail of glass.

Metallo prowled toward his fallen foe, his red-hot feet setting the carpet on fire. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“He’s got me!” Kara’s Arctic Breath followed her shout, hitting Metallo with near-absolute zero.

Sparks flew from his body as the Kryptonian technology struggled to compensate for the extremes. His power supply was disrupted; the glowing green lights beneath his skin and eyes flickered. Finally, his chest protectively sealed up like a sarcophagus. His green eyes blazed back to life. “You think you can burn my hate away? You think you can freeze it?” He transformed his left arm into a cannon, spectrally lit by the Kryptonite that powered it. He fired a blast that nearly took Supergirl’s head off. She hit the ground with the face of an old woman.

“Metallo!” Superman landed down the street, pavement cracking. “You’re fighting like a machine. Come over here and face me like a man!”

“But of course.” He walked toward Superman. His cannon turned back into a fist.

Kara saw the impending collision like a car crash in slow-motion. “Kal, no!”

“Clear the area, Supergirl. This is between me and… Luthor.” He looked at Corben sadly. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

“Save your sorrow for yourself!” Metallo rushed forward, suddenly sprouting bright green claws. He slashed right through Clark’s S-shield, then swung his arm like a futuristic scythe for Superman’s throat.

Kal-El caught it, twisting the wrist to avoid the wriggling insect legs of Metallo’s claws. Metallo transformed and struck with his other hand. Superman caught it too. They were locked together, Superman steadily weakening from the Kryptonite while Metallo was as tireless as a machine.

“Drown in my hate!” Metallo screamed hysterically.

Superman fell to one knee. “You forgot something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m Superman.” And with his legs coiled, Kal-El flew. Metallo panicked, pedaled his legs fruitlessly as they ascended into the stratosphere. Superman put his foot on Metallo’s chest. “Time I give you the boot.”

He stretched his leg out, sending Metallo flying toward the horizon. He became a little speck, and that little speck flashed red, then it grew rapidly. Superman dodged out of the way as Metallo flew past, his lower body one giant jet engine.

Metallo shouldered into the globe of the Daily Planet like a football player hitting a tackling dummy. Rivets popping, the monument toppled from its perch. Superman caught it. Metallo caught him, hitting him from behind and powering him into the Daily Planet building. They stopped at the printers, exploding rolls of paper.

The globe hit the top of the stairs that led up to the Daily Planet. It rolled downward, rings snapping off, as if it were chasing the onlookers who’d dodged in landing.

Kara flew in, put her back against it, and dug her heels into the steps. It turned the stairs handicap-accessible, but she stopped the globe.

Metallo battered Superman mercilessly with a catwalk. Every blow chipped away at the makeshift club, so Metallo used the last six feet to drive Superman into the rollers of a printing press, which he pushed through the wall to the ground forty stories below. He jumped after it, crushing the wreckage under his six newly-formed legs.

“This is where I draw the line for all humanity! This is the day mankind fights back! You can coddle us, you can deceive us, but you can never crush the human spirit!” Metallo shuddered as several bullets sparked off his chassis.

“MPD!” Sawyer shouted. “Stand down before I bust out the heavy artillery.”

A fleet of police cars and spec tanks had practically filled the street. Behind the captain, riot-geared commandos were aiming bazooka-like weaponry.

“Race traitors,” he hissed, pointing his cannon at the cops.

Superman jumped in front of the fired cannon so fast it was like he just appeared there. The green beam hit him and then, a horrible moment later, passed through him like water through wire. The police had taken cover in the interval, stayed down as Metallo sprayed bullets from his other hand.

“Metallo, for God’s sake!” Superman cried. “You’re killing your own people!”

“You think these sheep are my people?” Metallo kept Superman under the beam like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass. “My people are men, who refuse to be duped by your lies. My people have the strength to be the predators nature always wanted. How does it feel to be at the mercy of a superior being?”

“Like this!” Kara screamed.

The Daily Planet globe hit Metallo like an unchained wrecking ball. Even as he broke through it, Supergirl was on him, fists pistoning, eyes flaring, breath chilling. Chunks of his machine-body flew off as Kara laid into him. In the midst of her onslaught she paused, cried “Kryptonian germs!”, and licked his face.

Metallo blanched as she ripped his arm off and took it to his chest like a baseball bat. On her 30th swing, his chest flew apart like an animal had taken a big bite out of his midsection.

“That’s how we deal with predators on Krypton!” she said, not noticing that her nose had started to bleed.

Freed, the Kryptonite in Metallo’s chest seemed to glow twice as bright. Metallo’s arm slipped from Kara’s fingers. Metallo smiled and wrapped his Kryptonite claws around her dainty throat.

“Metallo… Corben… stop!” Superman’s voice was weak, hoarse. He looked like he could barely stand. His wounds had torn open in places and stained his blue suit black. His spit-curl fell off with a clump of hair. “Please, stop. Before I have to do something I’ll regret.”

“You want me to surrender? Humanity will never surrender! Humanity will never fall!”

“No. Just you.”

Superman’s eyes flashed red. Two laser beams of heatvision, thin as needles, shot like arrows into Metallo’s left eye. The transparent alloy of the camera lens shattered as the lasers punched through it to the adamantine casing that held Metallo’s brain. They went in and out the other side. It wasn’t the gray matter they displaced that did the damage. It was the heat. Metallo’s brain sizzled, killing him instantaneously. Lacking input, his body shut down.

On his last leg, Superman stumbled forward and pulled Kara out of his death-grip. She threw herself against his chest, crying, sobbing when she felt the slickness of his blood against her cheek.

“It’s alright,” he said, leading her gently away from Metallo’s body. “It’s over now.”

Static hissed from Metallo like a dial-up modem connecting, becoming a nail-on-chalkboard shriek as the body reconfigured itself. A leg shifted up and became an arm, the disembodied arm grabbed hold of an ankle to become a leg. And the face melted and reformed like clay, becoming a silvery replica of a familiar face.

“Son of Jor-El! At long last we are reunited.”

“Zod,” Kal said tersely.

“Daddy?” Kara muttered.