The Silhouette and The Forge
Chapter 76

We stood across from one another for a brief moment. One second the tension felt like the weight of the world on Batman and me. Next, we were in motion, nothing but living blurs.

Batman thundered across the floor, leaving dents and craters, tossing batarangs that had a near-invisible edge that extended beyond the base blade. All of them were dodged with preternatural grace as if Smith knew where they would be before they had already been fired. He snagged two out of the air and cut a shallow gouge into a metal fist, he sidestepped, and the other he pierced me through my hardened outer layer.

His attempt to bisect me was stopped when he pivoted and backed away from our coordinated attacks that cratered the floor for several meters. I rushed towards him, duplicates appearing and rushing towards him.

He wasn’t confused when the illusions managed to harm him and push him back, and despite the number advantage, he was keeping up, managing to block, dodge, and counter everything like it was some choreographed fight scene with him completely surrounded.

An arm overextended with a grab, pulling it into another copy, a leg sweep jumped over, and the attacks meant for him when he was vulnerable were all blocked or dodged by twists and turns of his body and sent any attacker flying back.

The various illusions got back up and continued the assault while we got into position. The copies of me rushed mindlessly towards him, no longer attacking but instead aiming to grab him. He slithered his way out of one’s grasp and front-flipped, then leaped off the back of the copy, clearing the group before they detonated in flames from the spell being modified.

Fire and smoke rushed through the chamber with alarms going off now with flashing red lights as the fire suppression system kicked in, snuffing the flames out. The white powdery substance, almost like snow, rained down around us as we battled it out.

A flurry of punches, jabs, and finger thrusts targeting the vulnerable parts of the Android body Smith inhabited with my decay spell on them were effortlessly evaded. The Cobra Commander android, like the others, had an ability that made it stand out and completely unique, like all the others. His was a highly advanced tactical probability engine. It was advanced enough that it was almost capable of seeing the future by taking any and all factors and variables around it into account and could accurately gauge what would happen and how it would happen.

He was meant to be a means to keep people in check and assist me in ensuring the future battle against Darkseid would turn out in our favor. Whether that was from battlefield analysis during a raging battle in space or acting as the commander of all our forces directing them from a command center.

While his power along with the other modifications done to him gave him an edge should he ever be in a fight himself, he was not meant for a direct combat role. It was a waste of his ability to use it for something so minor as a simple fight like this.

What helped keep me and, by extension, Bruce in the fight was my awakening letting me see Smith's tactical readouts. It's like playing split screen in Modern Warfare 2 against a friend, and you peek at their screen to see what they are up to. Smith was likely aware of this since his data showed it was reevaluating me, and he couldn’t figure out why we were still standing when we should have been taken care of some time ago.

A pair of blades slid out of his shoulders, and he pulled them, holding the two dueling sabers that were far from ordinary blades as he carved through the floor, consoles, and anything tossed his way by my chakra threads. Batman kept his distance and fired a volley of missiles, realizing we needed to end this when a prompt on the viewport appeared showing a countdown for the next shot as the station moved over its next target-- Washington D.C.

The missiles sailed through the air, leaving smoke trails, with Smith leaping up, kicking me back, and cutting my threads with the other sword despite not seeing them. He leaped off one missile like a stepping stone and skipped along a few more before pressing down harder on one he had just landed on, tipping it up and over back toward Batman.

The others came towards him as he used the swords and cut through each of them, sending them toppling towards me. Leaping back and moving around as the explosions rocked the room, walls were blown through, and debris was sent flying, some even impacted the viewport, and to my annoyance, it remained intact.

One of the few times I hoped Light’s and the Engineer's work was shoddy enough for some explosive debris or shrapnel to make a crack so the vacuum would suck out Smith. Batman raised the suit's arms as flaps extended out from them like pseudo shields, tanking the explosion from the missile, and rushed out of the smoke right towards Smith.

Metal bolas came flying towards Smith from the suit's compartment that he cut through without even slowing down. He rushed past the fist and slid under it, swords held up, cutting through the suit's legs, sparks forming where the edge bit deep.

Smith flipped off the ground before slamming both swords into the back of the suit. I let out a sigh of relief that Batman had enough sense to adjust his position in the suit, having avoided the worst of the blades with minor cuts to show for it.

Lightning from a spell coated my hands before lightning coated my form with Jet taking effect inside of me. Commander Smith pulled back and evaded just in time when the electricity snapped out to one hand, almost taking it were it not for the perfectly timed retaliatory strike that was aimed for Bruce’s spine, aborting the strike and instead forcing the suit to move in time. The strike instead hit one of its arms, severing it at the elbow, leaving behind leaking fluid and sparking wires. Batman wasn’t out of the fight just yet, with him firing away at him, forcing him to create some distance from Batman. 

“This isn’t working. We don’t have time for this.” Batman said it far too calmly, but I knew he was keeping himself in control. He was absolutely horrified if we failed here and now. Far too much was at stake for this to end now when we were so close.

“Any ideas on how to stop it?” Batman said, with Smith placing himself at the exit. 

“I do.” A quick message showing the plan made Batman question if I really was insane like most of his rogues' gallery.

“That’s your plan?” He said leadingly, hoping there was more than that. The guy who had given him and the League the runaround for once came up short and was going to do something so foolish and reckless out of desperation.

“Smith has shut down any means to deactivate the weapon. We get to the navigation controls, and we can stop it from hitting anyone and then take the station out.”

“Do you actually believe I am going to let you do that?” Smith cut in, with me going blow for blow, each side step, evasion, or block, and the few hits that landed were minor steps in an ever grander tapestry woven in our chess match on the board.

Each move or action is done with deliberate purpose, each of us trying to outdo the other. Each move was done well in advance in an attempt to leave the other behind, as only one can be the victor. Smith was so assured of his victory even if he didn’t properly understand how I was now capable of doing this.

The android's power was both Smith’s greatest strength and also his greatest weakness. I was piggybacking off of it and using it against him, making the fight turn into a much longer clash that otherwise would have ended in as few moves as possible, like a brief exchange of gunfire, instead turning into a full-on war that had to be meticulously planned for each stage.

Smith himself hid it well, but I knew he was getting frustrated. From both me using the same power against him and how I was managing to do it. It didn’t help that his stolen power still couldn’t comprehend how this was possible and couldn’t find a counter. Bruce himself should have been taken out of the fight so many rounds ago, yet he was still here despite the suit becoming more damaged as the fight went on.

We moved through the station with Bruce mostly acting as support, and his suit might as well have been an extension of my body. My control and grip on it had improved enough so it was fighting without delay, and I didn’t need to worry about Bruce getting hurt from the speed at which it moved, courtesy of my control being strong yet gentle enough to not compromise him.

A metal fist slammed into the floor where Smith had been trying to fend off the suit and fight me simultaneously. He growled before with a slash, managing to attack the arm before disengaging when I got close with a chidori, almost taking his head off. 

The suit’s remaining arm wasn’t responding to me or Bruce any longer. I knew Smith had planned to slowly cripple the suit while keeping me from getting a kill shot on his body. It was like a high-stakes game of Yu-Gi-Oh! meets chess, and both of us saw the other's options and what they might do and planned accordingly.

Every step, attack, and anything at all was planned out and executed with precision. Smith was confident he could still win this, while he remained frustrated at where I had gotten this new power from. Probably thinking it was just me withholding more knowledge and power in his eyes, and it further reinforced that he and his siblings' rebellion was warranted when I didn’t trust my own enforcers.

While that thinking had merit, it also went both ways. I trusted them enough to do what an enforcer does-- enforce my will and what I needed done. They don’t need to know more than that, just as a grunt worker at a warehouse doesn’t need to see what’s going on in an accountant's office for the higher-ups of the company unless they know how to read the numbers. Otherwise, do as you are told unless you have reason to suspect they are stiffing you.

That’s not to say I expect people to fall in line, it’s why I allowed Smith and the others to ask questions, and I answered to the best of my ability, but their line of thinking and reasoning made me concerned. We fought through the station, with the suit taking significant damage and slowing down. 

Smith had pulled out various hidden weapons across the android's body, from more high-frequency blades to firearms, he finally did something that I couldn’t predict after putting me in a precarious position.

One moment I was keeping him held off while Batman charged ahead near the sealed doors that led to the navigation room before, with a pop not unlike that of a doll's head coming off, Smith's arm moved through the air, charging right at Batman.

That wasn’t in the androids' schematics… They modified it. Other parts of his body came apart, all floating in the air with his torso shifting into a turret with three barrels sticking out of it and opening fire. The rounds weren’t life-threatening or shells for a Caster Gun, instead, they were annoying to deal with because of the high impact and fragmentation that would disperse my body and tear it to pieces, slowing me down enough to stop us. 

Batman on his own would not be capable of taking on Smith alone. For as much as people like to bring up the ever iconic prep time when it came to discussing Batman fighting various characters across media, it would only help him so much. Like the iconic fights where he battled against an evil Superman, he stands no chance. He is just a man, a capable and resourceful one, but a frail human man when standing beside beings who may as well be gods in their own right.

His arms flew towards the suit, which, even with my control growing, had sustained too much damage, and rerouting power to parts of it could only compensate for so much. I was freaking out mentally, questioning how Smith had managed to hide this from me and managed to knock the board onto its side without me knowing.

Every machine and piece of technology spilled its secrets before me, even Smith. Yet he somehow found a way to withhold things from me. Like the added mechanisms to Cobra Commander's body. Batman had enough sense to realize it was time to get out of the suit that was about to become an Iron Maiden.

The arm that still held a dueling saber soon shifted when it neared the metal Batsuit, various blades and other such weapons coming from hidden panels across the limb, all of which were flying and zipping through the air, slicing through batarangs and other projectiles like a hot knife through butter.

Batman shot forward out of the suit, with it turning and ignoring the various daggers, knives, and short swords piercing its frame, and the only reason they didn’t go any further in was that the hilts and handles prevented them from doing so. The suit sparked and whirred, groaning as it rushed back towards Smith, with the rest of his body parts fighting me, keeping me from getting to Batman.

His head fired lasers that melted through the enhanced metal the Engineers had cooked up, his torso fired those bullets that would make a Space Marine blush when compared to their Boltors, breaking through the floor and walls, causing who knows how much internal damage with the muffled explosions from the bullets detonating and the various power systems flickering alongside the various forms of illumination.

Smith’s floating legs shifted into flying rockets, with the exhaust leaving a pale green smoke trail that made me realize what they were. My knowledge of plants and various chemical concoctions told me all I needed to. Poison.

It flew past me, and my attempts to shoot it down were not successful. Smith moved it so erratically, as he didn’t even bother going along with what the advanced predictive algorithm told him to do. He had learned to use it and when not to, just to throw me off kilter, any sense of what he was doing was now lost along with his revealed capabilities to hide things from my awakened senses.

The boot-clad foot shifted, and a panel opened where the toes should be before a series of red lasers spewed out toward Batman. He flipped and rolled along the floor, evading most of them before he grunted with a grimace when one hit his shoulder and went out the back of his cape, making him stumble back first against the doors that he quickly entered the code to open when he had given him all the relevant information when he was still in the suit.

A trio of batarangs flew towards it, only to get shot out of the air. Each batarang detonated, showing they were explosives, with the leg flying through the smoke and firing away. Firing where Batman had last been seen and assuming he had run through the open doorway trying to stop him from preventing the orbital laser from destroying Washington D.C.

The only visible part of him was his cape, which was in the doorway, and it got blasted. Now filled with burning holes where the lasers went through it before it fell to the floor, unmoving. The leg continued forward before turning to come and attack me.

Smith chuckled. “A shame your friend couldn’t be saved, I was willing to spare him, Father, but like you, he doesn’t know when to stop for his own good. It's a shame to lose him, he was the best example of what humanity could be if they set aside their selfish natures.”

If only Smith could see my real face and the smile I had. You and I are not the only ones that can surprise others. Going through handsigns faster than a bullet flying from a gun, a wave of water rushed out, but Smith paused, not understanding why I would use an attack that couldn’t hit him. 

Another wave of my hand sealed the metal around the doorway into the navigation room shut, and Smith used what control he had fighting me in the digital realm as much as he did in the real world with the surveillance inside the room. Another set of hand signs formed several water clones.

Each of them used various jutsu, forcing Smith and his various body parts, turned into weapons, back down the massive corridor. A few clones were taken out by flying high-frequency blades or lasers hitting them, and they reverted back to water splashing down into the small river the floor had become, and one of his legs and a hand doubling as a flying saw blade were taken out courtesy of fire, water, and lightning jutsu.

The cameras inside the room showed Batman alive and well without his cape as he worked fast trying to gain access to the navigation controls of the station. He was currently having some trouble but, to my surprise, making quick work of getting past some of the changes Smith had made to the system.

It showed Batman may not have been fully capable of physically closing the gap between me and him, but he more than made up for it with that glorious mind of his. Smith himself was not pleased, desperately trying to get past me while activating some forms of security in the room.

The station didn’t have anything much beyond a few turrets on the outside in case the Justice League came for the space station. But it did have various robots on it for maintenance and cleaning purposes. One such machine walked out of a metal slot that opened up on the wall.

It looked like a sleeker version of the Assaultron, with a red glow between the joints along its frame. “What a mess you’ve made.” Was all it said as its hands turned into blades that were meant to clean off any hardened gunk or cut their way through any debris.

Batman turned in time to avoid the strike that split right through the monitor he was using. He thankfully had others to use but was occupied trying to not get skewered. Despite the machine being advanced compared to most robots made by the average scientist on Earth, it was a cleaning machine at the end of the day. 

It wasn’t meant for combat, and the fact Batman could hold his own against it and was managing to damage it courtesy of a batarang used as a knife cutting into its photoreceptor and a surge of electricity sparked out of it before it toppled over in a smoking heap.

He turned to look at the destroyed monitor and controls before moving towards the next, only to stop when six more of the machines came out, each with a sway to its steps. His eyes narrowed as he muttered to himself. “You have got to be kidding me…”

I was fighting Smith for control of them tampering with their movements, making them get in one another’s ways, but I could only do so much when I was already spread so thin. Fighting his various body parts was no easy task.

He had been using the data from the predictive algorithm like a light switch, using it one moment and then turning his back on it the next. Several times he almost managed to carve through the doorway, and with numerous maintenance drones and cleaning bots coming in as backup, this made it far more difficult than it already was.

The machines were easy to handle, the issue lay with how many there were. Dozens of them were already dismantled, and my clones were replaced with any that were destroyed. My concentration slipped for a moment, and one of the machines Batman was fending off while trying to use one of the control consoles in the chamber managed to move faster than he anticipated while kicking back one trying to spray him with cleaning chemicals and a rotating hardened steel wool that would shear skin off.

Without my meddling, it moved fast enough, having managed to cut through his armor near his shoulder, making him wince when blood dripped out and the machine stumbled past him. It turned around only to get an explosive batarang to the head that hit it, and two more behind it turned to scraps. 

He was fighting for his life, flipping around the room with the few terminals left getting destroyed. Smith's voice was filled with smug satisfaction. “At this rate there won’t be any controls left to pilot the station, and you can’t fight me for control over the rest of the station without compromising your control. Not when Batman and your own well-being are at risk.”

Using some chakra threads and a chakra scalpel together, I had the cords slice through the rest of the machines I could see for now and had them wrap around the various parts of Smith. The chakra scalpel and the threads were a dangerous combination and not something easily done. Only combined with my newly gained proficiency in jutsu and my potential unleashed did I have the capability to use them together.

The threads were sharp enough to cut most things, but unfortunately not enough to withstand a high-frequency blade since its vibration on contact would be more than enough to disperse the threads.

But I didn’t need to worry about cutting Smith or his body and machine army. I turned from him toward the far back wall, all the remaining clones around me joining me. Smith grimaced, realizing at last that there was a plan but not what I aimed to do.

He took out several of the water clones while evading the few that continued to use chakra threads laced with chakra scalpels. Despite the high-frequency blades easily severing them, that didn’t mean his body could take such a strike with impunity. His body was durable like all the androids I had designed, but he was far from invincible.

Several clones fell apart, but the time I needed had arrived. Behind each of us, the water that had made up the floor was used to create seven water dragons who stared down Smith, who hadn’t given up and still continued to charge at me and the clones. The remaining clones were destroyed, with two of the water dragons falling apart from the barrage sent my way.

Using my fusion power, the five remaining dragons fused into a bigger one. Reaching the limit of what could be done with it, Smith fired lasers and high-explosive shells at me, tearing my body apart and painting the walls and floor with my goop. But it mattered not, with the final water dragon forming, Smith tried shooting it like he did me.

His shells upon contact exploded, managing to form several decompressions in the water construct's body that were quickly filled in with it rushing towards him and the new wave of maintenance bots. The water dragon rumbled forward, the metal walls and floor of the station bending and groaning like a beast from the deepest ocean depths, with the water serpent rushing and crushing anything in its path.

Smith, with his body parts, flew towards the ceiling, avoiding the worst of the attack with the waters' edge only just missing some of his limbs getting swept up in the current with the machines behind him getting washed away and crushed beneath the roiling pressure with a surge of lightning magic combining into the beast. 

Unfortunately, he missed me taking control of the suit and using some thrusters Batman had installed on it and some threads wrapping around Smith's body, he watched in horror as the suit rammed into him and flew down the corridor behind the tide of the electrified water dragon. A mental click, and the suit detonated, sending fire, electricity, and water scattering.

The dragon continued on, slamming into a wall and managing to break through it with a crashing boom that rocked the entire station, with multiple layers broken through before it slammed into the final layer behind it. The last several meter-thick walls of metal was dented and pushed inwards. The wall dispersed the water construct, with it finally breaking apart and water spreading out across the floor of the space station and various systems sparking with the power fluctuating from the electricity spreading out.

Smith, now blackened with only minor damage to show from the explosion, had his Cobra Commander helmet smashed, revealing a nondescript man who looked like a complete dork with his bowl-cut blond hair and unremarkable face. He stared at the aftermath of the attack, contemplating just what I had almost accomplished. He turned towards me. “Well played. I hadn’t taken into account you attempting to vent a substantial part of the station just to try and get me out of the way.”

"Smith, you do realize I didn’t fail in my attack… that was just to keep your attention.” 

Batman was beginning to get overwhelmed now as he was getting desperate, practically emptying his utility belt and tossing all that he could think of at the machines in the room. One hand was on the terminal, trying to adjust the trajectory of the station in Earth's orbit, making the station fly far enough that it could no longer aim at Washington, D.C.

The caped crusader had already contacted the rest of the League, my power allowing his signal to get through the net Smith cast. The various heroes were already on their way. Now if they got here on time is another thing. The Parasyte army stood down when I realized what was happening and that we might need the Justice League to assist.

The Light had been notified of the situation, and several members had been strongly suggested to move assets and themselves to ground in case the station remained operational and started shooting if we either failed or took too long in stopping it.

Smith, now realizing something wasn’t right, turned around in time to see the crater in the wall get sliced open by chakra threads, with the vacuum of space sucking everything out. Smith battled the vacuum as it slowly dragged him towards the hole. Chakra adhesion kept me firmly planted after my body reformed as I slowly marched towards the doorway.

“Argh! This… this isn’t over, Father!" Smith yelled over the roar of the vacuum, now losing the battle against the pull before he was sucked out. A green glow around my hand had the wall seal back up with an Alteration spell. The vacuum now gone, I rushed toward the doors.

Getting inside to see Batman fighting for his life completely surrounded now, close to him meeting his end. I rushed in and smashed through the cleaning bots, limbs easily breaking their solid metal bodies and tearing wires out. The swarm was distracted enough for Batman to flip off of one of their heads and get to the back of the large group.

With the two of us working in tandem, we managed to clear out the horde. Even with Smith still having control over them and fighting me for said control, the machines were just easier to destroy. Not like they could repair the damage done to the control room in enough time for us to stop the firing sequence.

“Stop clowning around and let’s get this station moved far enough so it can’t fire at its target. That should abort the sequence. Then we can crash this thing somewhere remote.”

Batman gave me a pointed look, and I just shook my head. I suppose he didn’t like the clowning-around comment. "Well, if you don’t like it, how about next time you manage to handle the problem yourself? Can’t expect me to always pick up your slack… like how I handled Gotham’s clown problem.”

Batman froze at the terminal before his head snapped toward me while his hands worked fast on the controls. “You're the one who killed him?”

“No… I made the thing that took care of him.”

A silence fell across the room before Batman said something I had never in all my life expected to hear from him of all people. 

“… Thank you.” 

“What?” I rubbed the side of my head where my ear should be, questioning if I heard him right. “You know… I could have sworn I just heard you thank me.”

He remained silent, working fast, his hands a blur of motion. Probably just my imagination and the stress of the situation getting to me making me think Batman just thanked me for having Joker killed. I mean… it would eventually happen if it wasn’t me, Batman would end up snapping and do the guy in. Either that or some Joe Schmoe in Gotham finally decided to do the deed or any number of people who have a long list of grievances with the Joker.

“Alright, we just need to…” I said aloud to my sole companion as the station was about to move across the vast emptiness of space with Earth below us. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Batman looked up at what I was watching through the viewport of the room. Smith just didn’t know when to give up. I knew he wouldn’t be destroyed by the hull breach, but the fact he was flying about in space instead of getting back inside of the station to confront us told me enough of his plan.

“Get out of the room.” At the pointed look he gave me, he was likely realizing what Smith intended to do. “Don’t worry about the controls, I am going to try and force this thing down. You will be my contingency. Take all of these.”

Batman looked ready to argue with me so I made the decision for him when several devices including the Caster Gun were tossed at him. A couple of chakra threads latched onto various parts of his body before picking him up like a ventriloquist with a puppet controller and making him soar through the air before a door opened.

He made it out just in time when Smith’s high-frequency blades impacted the viewport and other sections of the room, causing it to decompress. The door sealed itself shut just when Batman got through it and was about to charge back in to grab me. Smith's body was reassembled with some garbage-looking replacements that looked like they should be in a landfill.

I calmly walked over with the vacuum sucking up everything not attached to the station itself. Smith simply waited out in the cold vacuum of space staring at me, his jaw tense, his eyes narrowed as he watched me. I looked towards the last terminal and, using all of my concentration and control over technology I had at this moment in time, made the station do as ordered as it moved, with Smith's eyes widening.

A hologram showed the current destination was an express trip to the Sahara Desert. A particular portion of it didn’t have many travelers and so far seemed like one of the better places to have this station crash and burn.

Smith floated in once the vacuum had slowed its progress of sucking everything out, all sound was gone as he landed and walked forward. A fireball impacted the last terminal, taking out any physical means of stopping it. The station moved, now out of the angle it needed for the shot of my home country’s capital. 

The terminal melted down, with the vacuum of space doing little to snuff out the flame born of magic, only doing its duty to physics after the flame was gone and the melted metal cooled off.

Do you really think I can’t bypass the lock you put in place? Smith said, across the digital realm, utterly calm, as if this were nothing but a minor inconvenience for him. 

Honestly, even with my power giving me so much control over technology, Smith wasn’t wrong. Even with the lock in place, there is no such thing as a foolproof form of security. Considering Smith had managed to pull a fast one on me and has continued to resist all attempts to shut him down and end this quickly, the lack of anything, along with the attempt to crash the station, was a means to slow him down.

His code in the digital realm was constantly evolving, showing he hadn’t just augmented his old body but his code had been changed too. So if given time, which he had even with me running interference, he might be able to undo the locked-in coordinates and just put the station back into position to resume shooting.

Batman, thankfully, after banging against the doors, had enough sense to see the messages I sent to him when manipulating terminals of the station, directing him where to go and to leave the fight to me since he knew he was just getting in the way. I couldn’t fight Smith on multiple fronts while having a gap in my armor showing a big weak point for him to take advantage of. That weak point was obviously Batman. I couldn’t protect Batman while also being expected to handle Smith at the same time.

I just shook my head, looking at Smith with such disappointment. You still don’t get it, do you? You’ve already lost and you don’t even know it, even with your brother's advanced predictive algorithm…

Smith scowled, his uniform ruined, but the rest of his body beyond the limbs I had taken out before was still in good condition. 

Is that so? Pray tell, how do you intend on defeating me?

He watched me for a moment before he decided to move and managed to get a sneak attack on me, a hand grabbing me that had scuttled along the floor like Thing from The Addams Family. 

Grabbing my leg, and instead of freezing me like he expected, my body fell apart, turning into water that floated in the air, with the few parts that were clumped together turned into a blob of ice that floated around. Smith's remaining hand tightened in rage at the realization I had played him. His emotions from the belief he had victory secured only for me to pull the rug out from under him and the rage that followed had made him easier to fool.

Because I am not inside of the room with you. Get dunked on!

Managed to fool Smith multiple times +100
Saved Batman’s life when he otherwise would have died +100