Superman. Lex's blood boiled at the sheer audacity of the name. Even if the so-called Superman hadn't picked it out for himself, he hadn't exactly taken the trouble to correct anyone. It was even worse that he'd become something of an icon in Metropolis' skies within mere weeks of showing up out of nowhere. His perfect smile graced the pages of every popular newspaper; he'd been offered modelling contracts. Modelling contracts. Lex was surrounded by alien-worshipping morons, but hell, if he could save those alien-worshipping morons from themselves, he'd do his best to. He owed it to humanity.
Lex leant back in his chair, and raised his glass to the images of Superman falling to earth, sent directly to his screens from the eyes of his soldiers. Building a robot army wasn't the most creative move on his part, he was the first to admit; but as independently functioning automatons, they were engineered to perfection. Each was armed with a variety of weapons, ranging from conventional phasers to silver bullets. Superman had to have a weakness. Lex was determined to find it.
On edge, Superman flew up to where the robots were hovering. They were flying in rough V-formation. A quick scan with his X-ray vision showed that they were all armed to the teeth. Well, this is strange.
"Hi there," Clark said, pleasantly enough. "Any particular reason you're all flying around armed with laser canons?"
With effort, Lex resisted the urge to fire everything at that smirk currently lining the alien's face, and instead reached over to take manual control with a small hand-held device. Up, down, up, left, a, b. He allowed himself a smile when an assortment of rockets shot towards the red S, and Superman's form was engulfed in smoke. The robots dived after them, targeting and locking onto Superman.
The rockets slammed into his chest, the momentum knocking him backward and smoke temporarily blinding him. He switched to X-ray vision just in time to grab hold of one of the robots heading towards him. He locked a hand around its neck and pulled, hearing the screech of metal as its head came off.
One down, Clark thought, bracing himself against another missile as it slammed into his shoulder. About ten to go. He let the decapitated robot drop onto the roof of a nearby skyscraper and trained his heat vision on another one. The smell of superheated metal and circuits filled the air as its chest fried, and Clark has his arms locked around the legs of another one within seconds, pulling it apart as well.
With a wince, he saw the two robots that he'd taken out were tumbling towards the streets below, and went into a dive to catch them. I need to get away from downtown, or someone's going to get killed.
Four types of radiation, no; nitrous oxide, no; heat, no; chloroform, no; cocktail of exotic spores, no; cold, no; lasers? No. Damn. They were his favorite. Lex flung the controller at the wall and returned the robots to autopilot with a decisive flick of a switch. Of course Superman had to be invulnerable to every trick in the book. Lex had given him a robot battalion, and his curl was still in place. His curl, which should by all rights have looked ridiculous but which managed somehow to look flattering on him, was still in place. Stupid damn curl. Time for plan B, for better or for worse. As for the robots-- it wasn't all a loss. He'd gleaned valuable footage from their training exercise.
The screens were blinking out around him one by one, images of that inhumanly perfect being buzzing into static. Lex picked up the phone and began dialing.
The fight with the robots had taken him to the outskirts of the city, which let him destroy them with a little more ease. The last one was dangling from his hand, still firing bullet after bullet at him. Clark had to hand it to whoever designed these robots; it took a lot to shut them down completely. He was about to do just that with a well-placed blast of heat vision, but something made him pause.
He usually didn't look beyond the visual spectrum, besides when his X-ray vision came in handy. Radio waves were beautiful to look at, but they filled the sky like some massive version of the aurora borealis, and weren't very useful for fighting crime. The atmosphere kept most of the other kinds of radiation off Earth. But regardless of how much he used it, Clark could see all along the electromagnetic spectrum, and he squinted at the robot.
It was getting its orders remotely, and Clark could see the long signal of the radio wave stretching away from it. He scowled and blasted it apart, zooming after the signal and following it through the smog of other radio signals in the sky. It led him to the LexCorp tower. He burst through the window, glass shattering around him.
Lex settled the phone back into its cradle and swivelled around in his chair, fingers woven together. "Alien. We meet at last. I'd say I was charmed, but the fact that you've broken my window like any common hooligan with a few rocks and too much time on his hands takes the edge off of the effect."
He stood up, stepping carefully around the glass, as if his primary concern was preserving the soles of his shoes, rather than the presumably angry superpowered alien that had just broken into his building.
"Lex Luthor," Clark said, and he was proud of how steady his voice was. In his memories, he heard himself saying Lex's name hundreds of times, years of emotion and friendship behind it. But this wasn't Smallville, and they weren't kids anymore. This wasn't the same Lex he'd known, but even knowing that, it still hurt some part of him to know that Lex had been controlling the robots. He steadied himself and raised his chin.
"There's no polite way of saying this, so maybe blunt is best: why are you sending robot soldiers after me?"
Lex's face split in a wide smile. "Guess. Go on, guess."
He felt an irrepressible laughter bubbling up inside of him at the look on Superman's face. Clueless, overpowerful. Not a good combination, but it was all Lex could do, and laugh he did.
"You really don't know, do you," he said, still smirking as he regained control of himself. "Frankly, I'm surprised the US Government didn't step in before I did. I expected them to try to exploit you, use you, and then to try to destroy you when they discovered they couldn't."
He tilted his head at Superman, meeting those intense blue eyes unflinchingly. "Fine. I'll state the obvious, Superman. I don't like you. I want to see what you're made of before deciding what to do with you. And right now, Superman, things don't look too good."
"Mr. Luthor, I'm not sure what exactly I've done to you," Clark said, keeping his voice even, "but I'm only here to help Metropolis. I'm sorry if I haven't passed whatever test you've set for me, but at this point, I'm not feeling particularly friendly either."
He let the glass from the windows crunch under his boots as he walked over to Lex, using his height to loom above him.
"Whatever the point of this little experiment was, I advise you not to do it again."
"Just who the hell do you think you are?" Lex said, unruffled, as if he was asking for the time of day. "We don't need your help. We can't fly, or pick up cars, and we may not be a perfect society, but we're not some helpless orphaned child who needs the moral guidance of a self-declared guardian. We're human. Join the police force if you care so much."
With that, he waved a hand dismissively, and turned back to buzz up some unfortunate to sweep up the glass.
Superman grabbed Lex's arm, turning him around so that they were face to face. He could feel his heat vision sparking behind his eyes, and he wondered if Lex could see the reddish glow.
"Listen, Luthor," Superman said. "I don't really care if you don't like me. That's a shame, but I'll live. But if your games put people in danger again, I'm going to the police."
"Oh no, Mr Superman sir, you wouldn't, not the police," he deadpanned. His lips curled up as he looked up at Superman, but his eyes didn't lose an ounce of the challenge they held.
He tightened his grip on Lex's arm, letting him feel a little of his strength. Lex hadn't gotten any less fearless, and in this case, that wasn't a good thing.
"It probably wouldn't slow you down much," Clark agreed, voice calm but eyes still sparking. "But enough visits from Metropolis' finest will make people pay attention, and they'll start to wonder. You're not the only one who can use public opinion as a weapon Luthor."
Since he'd started being Superman, there had been a lot of suspicious, borderline psychotic rumors being spread about him. Not through the Daily Planet, thank God, but that didn't mean Metropolis wasn't hearing them. Clark had figured that at least some of them were spread out of malice rather than ignorance, and as unappealing at the idea was, Lex being behind it would make sense.
Lex snorted derisively. "I'm not doing anything about public opinion, if that's what you're implying. Not everyone in this city's a blithering idiot, and you're absolutely wrong to expect everyone to kiss the ground your blessed boots tread upon. Try seeing things from our side, the human side, alien, and you might just redeem yourself. For now--"
He jerked his arm out of Superman's grip, brushing himself off as if his mere touch had spread invisible filth.
"--keep your goddamn hands off of me, and get off of my property."
Lex leant back in his chair, and raised his glass to the images of Superman falling to earth, sent directly to his screens from the eyes of his soldiers. Building a robot army wasn't the most creative move on his part, he was the first to admit; but as independently functioning automatons, they were engineered to perfection. Each was armed with a variety of weapons, ranging from conventional phasers to silver bullets. Superman had to have a weakness. Lex was determined to find it.
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"Hi there," Clark said, pleasantly enough. "Any particular reason you're all flying around armed with laser canons?"
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One down, Clark thought, bracing himself against another missile as it slammed into his shoulder. About ten to go. He let the decapitated robot drop onto the roof of a nearby skyscraper and trained his heat vision on another one. The smell of superheated metal and circuits filled the air as its chest fried, and Clark has his arms locked around the legs of another one within seconds, pulling it apart as well.
With a wince, he saw the two robots that he'd taken out were tumbling towards the streets below, and went into a dive to catch them. I need to get away from downtown, or someone's going to get killed.
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The screens were blinking out around him one by one, images of that inhumanly perfect being buzzing into static. Lex picked up the phone and began dialing.
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He usually didn't look beyond the visual spectrum, besides when his X-ray vision came in handy. Radio waves were beautiful to look at, but they filled the sky like some massive version of the aurora borealis, and weren't very useful for fighting crime. The atmosphere kept most of the other kinds of radiation off Earth. But regardless of how much he used it, Clark could see all along the electromagnetic spectrum, and he squinted at the robot.
It was getting its orders remotely, and Clark could see the long signal of the radio wave stretching away from it. He scowled and blasted it apart, zooming after the signal and following it through the smog of other radio signals in the sky. It led him to the LexCorp tower. He burst through the window, glass shattering around him.
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Lex settled the phone back into its cradle and swivelled around in his chair, fingers woven together. "Alien. We meet at last. I'd say I was charmed, but the fact that you've broken my window like any common hooligan with a few rocks and too much time on his hands takes the edge off of the effect."
He stood up, stepping carefully around the glass, as if his primary concern was preserving the soles of his shoes, rather than the presumably angry superpowered alien that had just broken into his building.
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"There's no polite way of saying this, so maybe blunt is best: why are you sending robot soldiers after me?"
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He felt an irrepressible laughter bubbling up inside of him at the look on Superman's face. Clueless, overpowerful. Not a good combination, but it was all Lex could do, and laugh he did.
"You really don't know, do you," he said, still smirking as he regained control of himself. "Frankly, I'm surprised the US Government didn't step in before I did. I expected them to try to exploit you, use you, and then to try to destroy you when they discovered they couldn't."
He tilted his head at Superman, meeting those intense blue eyes unflinchingly. "Fine. I'll state the obvious, Superman. I don't like you. I want to see what you're made of before deciding what to do with you. And right now, Superman, things don't look too good."
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He let the glass from the windows crunch under his boots as he walked over to Lex, using his height to loom above him.
"Whatever the point of this little experiment was, I advise you not to do it again."
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With that, he waved a hand dismissively, and turned back to buzz up some unfortunate to sweep up the glass.
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"Listen, Luthor," Superman said. "I don't really care if you don't like me. That's a shame, but I'll live. But if your games put people in danger again, I'm going to the police."
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"It probably wouldn't slow you down much," Clark agreed, voice calm but eyes still sparking. "But enough visits from Metropolis' finest will make people pay attention, and they'll start to wonder. You're not the only one who can use public opinion as a weapon Luthor."
Since he'd started being Superman, there had been a lot of suspicious, borderline psychotic rumors being spread about him. Not through the Daily Planet, thank God, but that didn't mean Metropolis wasn't hearing them. Clark had figured that at least some of them were spread out of malice rather than ignorance, and as unappealing at the idea was, Lex being behind it would make sense.
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He jerked his arm out of Superman's grip, brushing himself off as if his mere touch had spread invisible filth.
"--keep your goddamn hands off of me, and get off of my property."
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