SuperHuman - Chapter 2
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Disclaimer: I do not own any franchises mentioned in this story. This is fan-based work of fiction.
Beta: Gerald_of_Revea
-Conner-
‘Did I have much of a choice in the first place?’
I pondered that question as we stood silently in the elevator, Lex taking me to his office in LuthorCorp.
I went with him willingly. I wouldn’t deny that, because I was beginning to regret my decisions. Not because of what he has done, but because of what he might have done.
If I refused, what were the odds he would have allowed me to walk away?
‘30%,’ my mind answered for me, snapping me back to the moment. That was another that I was struggling to get used to.
My brain worked too quickly. Doesn’t give me much time to think deeply before it's already come to its own conclusions. My mind took in all the data that it could recall and crunched the numbers to give an answer.
30%. Much higher than I expected Lex to give me. Too low to make the gamble.
I haven’t learnt to use my powers. Not really. I have super-strength; I have Invulnerability, but those didn’t feel like powers I used. Not when I always had them. It would be like saying having two hands is a superpower.
So there was a 70% chance Lex wouldn’t let me walk away. If persuasion didn’t work, he would go to force. Which meant there would be a fight.
‘50% chance of a fight,’ I blinked, briefly wondering about the other 20%. It was swiftly answered.
Mental Commands.
It happens less often than it doesn’t, but the possibility is still there. Upon hearing certain commands or phrases, Superboy loses all bodily autonomy; an example being the words ‘Red Sun.’
It’s one of the trigger words Lex implanted in the weakest Superboy. When uttered, Superboy froze in place, only coming back to reality 12 hours later.
However, that’s not the worst of the triggers. There’s one far worse.
Aut Vincere Aut Mori; Conquer or die.
‘A goldmine of knowledge,’ I mused, easily able to recall the events of the story thanks to the third’s memories.
A Superboy who joined the Teen Titans, A Superboy struggling with his identity. Lex hacked Superboy’s computer, and after Superboy heard the phrase, he completely changed.
His personality was overridden. He shaved his head with a razor and carved an L into his shirt.
And completely destroyed the Teen Titans.
So when Lex made his offer to join him, it was either join him willingly or unwillingly.
‘Most likely that is,’ I corrected, glaring at the back of the man's head. If he tries to make me shave my hair off, I’m through with him.
A few moments later, we arrived at his floor. When we stepped out of the elevator, I got to see his room in full.
It was one of the most interesting rooms that I have ever seen. At first glance, it was plain. A long, oval-shaped room with two singular lights lighting up the dark room. Both the floor and ceiling were red, and at the end of the room, you could see out into the skyline of Metropolis.
However, that was far from the most surprising thing here.
As the two of us walked to his desk, I had to do a slight double-take when I saw a shark pass by through the glass.
‘I forgot about you,’ I said, narrowing my eyes, while Lex continued nonplussed. Lex Luthor. The only man in Metropolis who had a wall-to-wall aquarium in his office.
Lex didn’t name the shark. The shark is furniture, there to intimidate. To put whoever walked through the doors on edge. It makes them more susceptible to mistakes. To wanting to–.
‘I’m doing it again,’ I frowned, taking the seat in front of Lex’s desk. The man didn’t bother to sit down, instead, looking out of the window, a small silence settling between us.
“I own Metropolis. My technology built it, my will keeps it going, nearly two-thirds of its people work for me, whether they know it or not. It was a model of efficiency,” he paused. “I had plans to own it entirely one day. But those plans have been put on hold,” he said, and I could recall why.
It all began with Superman, his earliest appearance. A battlesuit that was to be sold to the Regent of Kaznia. Sold for ten times what it was actually worth. However, with the U.S. having a trade embargo against the country, they had to sell it in a more secretive way.
Which is why he organized it to be stolen.
Of course, with the technology stolen, the U.S. government would want to know how to counter it. And so, they would promptly spend another few billion dollars to understand exactly what they were up against. However, the Regent of Kaznia never got his battlesuit.
And he never received his billion dollars, all thanks to the work of Superman.
His more ambitious plans were put on hold as his goals shifted.
Defeat or recruit Superman.
“Most saw Superman as a welcome addition to Metropolis. A ‘man of the people,’ whose only goal is ‘to help,’” and he didn’t bother to hide the disgust in his voice. “I suppose I should have realized I was the only person who could recognize what he truly was.” he turned to me, his figure being illuminated by the moonlight.
“A weapon of mass surveillance.”
“That’s not why you hate him,” I countered, and he nodded.
“It’s not,” he easily agreed. “Partially, perhaps, but because of the ‘good’ he did, humanity passed off the bad he could easily do. I didn’t. Like anyone, I care deeply about my privacy; it’s why you couldn’t see into my office before you entered yourself.”
“I don’t have X-Ray vision.”
“...I’m sorry?”
“Superman wasn’t born with it. He didn’t learn the ability until he was sixteen.”
“I see,” he murmured, steepling his fingers. “Getting back to the topic, Superman’s arrival did not cleanse this city. It merely bred a more sophisticated strain of parasite. Rather than fleeing to softer, unprotected territory, society’s dregs adapted to him. They engineered tech explicitly designed to keep the so-called ‘Man of Steel’ at bay, if only for a few seconds. Luminus, Toyman, Metallo. Do you know where these people are now?”
I could make a guess. “They’re not in prison, are they?” I answered, and Lex nodded, a smile on his face.
“Correct. With the death of Superman, they stayed,” he paused, meeting my eyes.
“Which is why I created you in the first place.”
“To be a replacement for Superman,” I finished the thought, making him nod slowly.
“The world doesn't need a new Superman, but Metropolis still needs a protector. So, Superboy, how do you feel about this city?”
That was a more complicated question than I would like to admit.
Objectively, I should care about Metropolis as much as any other city. But I don’t. Superman loved the city. The people more than the location itself. Clark saw it as the place where he could do the most good, though Smallville would always be first in his heart.
Lex loves Metropolis as well, but not for the same reason. He’s possessive. Lex has always been ambitious; before he could rule the world, he wanted to rule Metropolis first. Expand over time. Metropolis, then Gotham, Star City, until he controlled all major cities in Delaware and New Jersey. Eventually, the world would have been mine.
Then Superman showed up.
“It has seen better days,” I answered noncommittally, and Lex hummed.
“And do you want to become its protector?” he asked, getting to the point.
“...Let’s put that idea on hold for now,” I said, Lex nodding.
“Good, because if you did, you wouldn’t be ready,” he said, and he hit a button under the desk. From the ceiling, a large TV started to drop down, camera footage appearing of a place I didn’t want to see again anytime soon.
“Your brutality surprised me,” he commented, a video of my awakening in Cadmus on the screen. “You knew exactly what you wanted. That if even one of the G-Gnomes got into your head, you would be stopped. So what did you do?” he said, and the answer came on screen.
A splatter of blood came onto the camera a moment after I punched the G-Gnome, but I already knew its fate.
Within the first minute of awakening in the world, the first thing I did was kill something.
G-Gnomes. Genetically engineered telepaths created by Cadmus. They taught me human knowledge, unaware that I had other memories in the first place.
When I awoke, the one who was teaching me attempted to put my asleep. He tried to stop my escape. I prevented it in the only way I knew how to.
“Over time, you learned some modicum of control,” Lex said, changing the screen to a later part of my escape. Instead of punching people, I backhanded them, and while the people were hurt, it was nothing that would kill any of them. Just enough to get them out of the way. “But it isn’t enough.”
Lex reached into his drawer and grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, placing them on the table.
“Write your name.”
I scowled, knowing where this was going, no matter how much I agreed with him. Gently, I picked up the pencil, the object fitting uncomfortably in my hand. As the tip met paper, I was barely able to make the first stroke before the graphite snapped off.
“You are strong, Superboy, but that comes at a cost. The world around you is more delicate. Fragile. You need to adjust,” he said, grabbing another pencil from his drawer.
“Until you can write your name, you are not leaving this room.”
-Lex Luthor-
Conner.
The boy had chosen a human name for himself. An ordinary and common name.
A pity; he didn’t think the boy would need one outside of Superboy. Better than calling himself Con-El or whatever nonsensical naming sense the Kryptonians have. Still, he would have preferred a strong name.
‘Darius,’ he thought. It would’ve been a much better choice. Still human, but befitting a Luthor.
The boy was quick on the uptake. He didn’t break another pencil after the first. He was slow writing the name the first time, but on repeat takes he was quicker, slowly starting to become second nature to him.
Soon, the page was filled with the name Conner, from top to bottom, and the boy slid the paper back to him, making him frown.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he found the boy fascinating. The boy changed the hand he wrote with halfway through the page, and it became much more legible. Refined.
It was as if his own handwriting was staring back at him.
“Good.” he nodded, something he couldn’t quite place bursting in his chest.
He needed to take a much more…gentle approach with this one than he originally planned for. Writing was the first step to controlling his strength.  Once he could play advanced piano pieces without breaking the keys, he could be labeled adequate enough.
In time, he would learn his limits, but it was clear from their first game of pool that the boy couldn’t control his own power.
“But you forgot to add in the second name,” he said, sliding the paper back to Conner.
Conner looked confused for a moment, and he had to hold in his annoyance.
Teenagers.
“Need I spell it out for you?” he asked, but by then, Conner got the message. Hesitantly, he picked up the pencil again, a sense of satisfaction flowing through him as the boy listened.
It's time to see how much of that brain was inherited from him as well.
-Conner Luthor-
“What do you remember from my memories?”
The question came out of the blue as the two of us went down the same elevator as before. I was wondering when he would ask this question. Well, more precisely, what memories of Superman did I have.
But I decided to indulge him: “Memories of your childhood for the most part,” and his eyebrow twitched. “Heike, for a start.”
“My fencing instructor,” he mused, anger being replaced with calm. “Skilled. Took me years to defeat her. Anything else?”
“Lionel being…Lionel,” I said, and Lex nodded, understanding immediately.
“The less said about him, the better. What else can you remember?”
“...Well, the most notable one, I’m not sure if it’s even true,” I admitted, making Lex look at me curiously.
“Consider me intrigued. What did you see?”
“You were young. Probably about nine years old at the time,” I said, rubbing my chin. “You were in the middle of a cornfield. But then…you started to float. Like you could see over the entirety of Smallville.”
“The day of the Meteor Shower,” Lex recalled, stilling for a moment. “I’ve often wondered what truly happened that day myself. When I was younger, I truly believe I flew. For two minutes, I never felt more free in the world.”
“And now?” I asked, making him grunt.
“An overactive imagination,” he answered. “I was close to death that day. An out-of-body experience. Memories are known to be unreliable, especially for children,” he waved it off. “That’s all there is to it.”
I stayed quiet for a moment, listening to the elevator hum as it moved between floors.
“There’s also Julian.”
“If you want to leave these walls, you will never bring up that name again.”
‘There it is,’ feeling a wave of calmness. ‘There’s the Lex I know.’
“We’re here,” he said, the bell of the elevator making a chime, the elevator opening up to show a hallway of laboratories on either side.
“Research and Development,” Lex said smoothly, adjusting his cufflinks as the two of us walked further down the corridor. "Most people think R&D is about innovation, about making life better, faster, cleaner. That’s the marketing brochure we send to the shareholders."
He paused, resting a hand lightly on my shoulder,
"In truth, Conner, real R&D is about transcendence. It’s about taking the limitations nature forced upon us and rewriting the blueprint."
There were rooms filled with drones, machines, and battlesuits that were hard to describe. As I saw Lex’s own battlesuit that he used against Superman, I couldn’t help but frown.
“Oh? Bad memories?” he asked, amusement in his voice, but I shook my head.
“I can’t remember a time you two fought,” I admitted, making him look lost in thought for a moment.
“Then why are you looking at it with such distaste?” he continued. “You can’t deny it's a marvel of modern engineering.”
“It’s tacky.”
There was a moment of silence between us after I said the words, making me break the silence.
“It’s bulky. Intimidating? Sure, but it shouldn’t be. Not if you created this for the reason I thought you did,” I said idly, scuffling around the nearby drawers for a pencil. Eventually I found one, along with another slip of paper.
“Green and purple are secondary colors. While it's fitting since it's powered by Kryptonite, the masses don’t care about that.”
My first thought would be to go with the classic colors. Red and yellow have always worked wonders, but I stopped myself.
‘Perhaps a slightly more original design.’ I thought, changing the shading slightly. The red was iconic. It needed to stay, but perhaps trade the gold for silver.
My hand moved quickly, much quicker than it ever had before. Ideas, plans, they all came out in front of me in an instant, but I had to focus.
“People still buy action figures all the time. Superman, Batman, The Flash, all of them are still popular. People buy them. They wouldn’t buy an action figure of you in this, because it’s not appealing.”
‘I need more paper,’ I thought, but dismissed it. A rough draft would do for now, enough to make Lex understand. A few moments later, it was done. For a moment, I stared at my hand in awe, surprised by how quickly it was able to move, but Lex didn’t seem as intrigued as I did.
Silently, he picked it up, his eyes darting around the page as he studied the design.
“An interesting design,” he commented. “Sleeker, lighter as well. However, you are forgetting something. It is a world of monsters you live in. And the suit would be weaker. Much weaker than the current one,” Lex dismissed. “The size of my suit isn’t for show. It needed to be this big to rival Superman.”
“That’s not the point,” I snapped at him. “You are looking at this like it's a matter of powerscaling. That isn’t the battle you’re facing at the moment.”
“And what battle would that be?” he asked, looking more closely at the design.
“Presentation,” I answered, and his lips thinned. “There isn’t a Superman for you to fight anymore. I’m the closest thing to him. Using this suit, do you think you would be able to defeat me, yes or no?”
He remained silent at that, before a small grin tugged at his face.
“I guess we should find out, shouldn’t we?”
It took Tony Stark months to make his Iron Man suit in a cave. With a bunch of scraps.
The technology was much better at LuthorCorp. We have the power; it all relies on Kryptonite, but the individual pieces still needed to be fabricated.
It will take us weeks at least to build even one of them, and even then, I wouldn’t be able to use it.
‘It would kill me first,’ I frowned, looking down at my hands, a previous conversation between me and Lex floating to my mind.
“Conner, list all of Superman’s powers.”
“Super-strength, invulnerability, X-Ray vision, heat vision, super-speed, freeze breath, super-hearing, and flight.” I rattled off. “Did a few months of missing him make you forget?”
“If you take away super-hearing, is Superman still Superman?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“Of course,” I frowned. “It’s a useful ability, but it’s not his famous power.”
“What about freeze breath?”
“Superman is still Superman.”
“Heat vision?”
“Same answer.”
“I agree.” Lex nodded. “Some would argue that his most important ability is his strength. Or perhaps his invulnerability,” he commented, using a welding torch to cut through a sheet of titanium. “I disagree; there’s one ability that made him so beloved. Do you know what that is?”
“Flight?” I guessed, and he nodded.
“The moment he lifted off the ground, he placed himself above us. He made humanity look up to him. If the man could never fly, he’d never be called Superman at all,” Lex said, killing the gas on the torch.
He flipped up his visor, wiping the sweat off his forehead before his eyes locked onto mine.
"For years, it has been man's dream to conquer the skies," Lex continued. "From hot air balloons to supersonic jets, throughout history, humanity has bled, strived, and sacrificed to conquer the world above us. Step by step, we earned every inch of altitude." He said before going stone-faced.
"And then he arrived. No engineering. No sacrifice. No human ingenuity. He simply stood up, floated into the air, and rendered thousands of years of human triumph irrelevant in a fraction of a second.”
He remained silent for a moment.

“How is a man supposed to feel when his life’s work, when humanity’s greatest achievements, are turned into child’s play by a creature who never had to sweat for a single accomplishment?”
He looked at me for answers, but I didn’t think he wanted me to say anything. Just to listen.
“Even in death we live in his shadow, because humanity was weak enough to let him cast one.”
We worked on the new suit for hours, until eventually his free hours caught up with him. He still had a company to run. I didn’t.
‘Not yet anyway,’ I snorted, looking out over into the distance.
After I took a break from making the suit, I left the building, more to gather my own thoughts than anything else. Walking on the streets of Metropolis eventually led me here.
Queensland Boardwalk.
The place has seen better days. There used to be a nearby stall that sold ice cream. Now, the place was still in the renovation stage, having been damaged during the fight between Superman and Doomsday.
I have a lot of good memories here. It was the first place I took–
“I am never going to get used to that, am I?” I groaned, feeling another influx of memories pour my way.
It’s been happening more often than I would like.
I can’t control it. They just choose to appear whenever I hear or see certain things, such as the Daily Planet.
When I see the giant globe on top of the building, I just keep thinking about all the different types of food I’ve eaten up there. Pretzels, sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs…
“I’m getting hungry just thinking about it,” I chuckled, looking out over the water. There are so many foods I wanted to taste; I just haven’t had the opportunity yet.
“Clark?”
I recognized her instantly.
The woman was beautiful. God, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Dressed in a fitted purple blazer, a short grey skirt, and black high-heeled pumps, I could never forget a woman like that.
“Lois?” I answered, my mouth moving quicker than I wanted to, and I felt another influx of memories.
The times the two of them went out for lunch. Working together on stories in the Daily Planet. The teasing. The constant attempts to one-up each other.
Superman having to save her because she got herself in a situation she couldn’t handle on her own.
‘Oh, that is not something I wanted to see.’ I scowled, turning away from the woman, feeling as if I’d violated her privacy.
But in that moment, I really wished I had X-Ray vision, just to confirm she wore the same black lace–
‘Snap out of it!’ I tried, but it wasn’t working. Both Clark Kent and Lex Luthor had feelings for the woman, though the former more than the latter.
For Clark, it was love. Genuine and pure love. For Lex, she was one of the few women in the world he saw as ‘worthy’ of him. Status, beauty, intellect- it was like a group of checkboxes that fitted his ideal woman.
“The napkin, at Biboo’s,” she asked, making me still. “What was your last secret?”
The memory came instantly to my mind before I could stop it. It was the day Clark died. Just before he went off to fight Doomsday, he revealed the truth about his secret identity. But that wasn’t his last secret.
“That I love-” I started, only to snap my mouth shut.
Despite how well my brain seemed to work, it seemed to do absolutely everything to prevent me from helping myself in this situation.
“You have the wrong pers-”, I started to say, only to be interrupted when the woman wrapped me in a hug.
“Don’t you dare lie to my Clark,” she hissed through sobs. “Say it. Tell me what you were going to say,” she repeated, but I remained unmoving.
“Lois, take a good look at me,”  I said, trying to push her away. “I’m not him; I’m too young to be him. You know that, right?”
Superman is dead, but he will come back. He always comes back; the narrative demands it.
I’m not going to put him in that situation.
“Then how did you know!” she snapped, not believing me for a moment. “If you aren’t him, how did you know his secret?” she pressed, and I remained silent.
I didn’t have a good answer for her, and I was struggling to find one. I couldn’t tell her the truth either, not if I wanted to be put under a microscope.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
“Goodbye, Lois.”
I started to run.
Faster than I ever had before. The people around me became a blur as I dashed through the city. The cars slowed down; the city came to a crawl. The world dissolved into a mishmash of colors as I moved faster than I ever thought I could.
It lasted only a few seconds before I skidded into an empty alley, my sneakers grinding against concrete as I came to a stop.
Which were currently on fire.
“That’s not X-Ray vision,” I said out loud before I hastily tried to douse the flames, my runners now a burnt mess.
“Damn it,” I groaned, sliding back against the nearby wall, my eyes drifting to the sky.
Who knew running from my problems would be so useful?