When The Fic Hits The Fan (fanfic one-shot/story collection)

[Strigoi Grey]

Mostly a collection of one-shots exploring "What if...?" scenarios for series I like, though arcs are also possible.

* * *

Introduction: So what's this all about, anyway?

* * *
Disclaimer: the acronym for the title might or might not be your reaction while reading this. I don't make any guarantees for your sanity; I can barely guarantee mine. Also, I don't own any of the stories involved here. Do you think I'd be here if I did?

Ahem...so, I was originally planning to post this, and the crossover collection, after I finished at least the main plotline for my original fantasy story, The Scholar's Tale. But, due to how long that is taking, in terms of both writing ST and my other projects and irl stuff, I decided, why not go ahead? It's not like I have a planned storyline to advance (yet). On that note, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update, but I'll try to do so at least as often as I get an idea.

Chapter suggestions are welcome, but I can't guarantee I'll turn them into chapters. I probably won't know every series people will bring up and, to be blunt, if someone brings up a series I don't like for me to write about, I probably won't force myself to do it.

Note:, despite the jokey title and introduction, this isn't meant to be (entirely) a comedy story collection.

Currently planned chapters:

-Pocket Monsters: Trazyn the Infinite entering a phase of capturing dangerous beings in Tesseract Labyrinths in order to throw them at people use them in battle (and because they're neat); (Warhammer 40,000); (Pokemon references, not a Pokemon crossover. There are no crossovers in Ba Sing Se this thread);

-Trifecta: What if John Taylor and Eddie Drood met Owen Deathstalker at the Adventurers' Club in the Nightside? (undecided on the time period, but post-Daemons Are Forever, so that Eddie has already met Giles Deathstalker); (Greenverse: Deathstalker, Nightside and Secret Histories);

-Chipped Cog; Whatever is Yuji doing post-EOS? (Jujutsu Kaisen);

[Strigoi Grey]

The Books (Warhammer 40,000; parody/crack)

* * *

AN: Did you know that (to my knowledge, at least) Leman Russ has written the most books out of the Primarchs? He apparently has a series with at least twenty-one volumes, another with at least fourteen, and at least one unrelated book. For some related quotes, see his Lexicanum page.

Magnus, the guy you'd expect to be known for that, has the Book named after him as his claim to fame. It's...funny.

* * *

Ahzek Ahriman, once heir of the Achaemenid Empire, First Captain of his Legion, almost jumped as he heard his father's eye snap open.

Abrupt as it had been, no mortal would've caught it; but Ahzek was Astartes, and one of the most skilled users of Warpcraft among his brothers besides. In fact, only his father surpassed him when it came to the Art.

Said father was staring into space at the moment, looking poleaxed (and that was something Ahriman was familiar with, though last time Magnus had taken a power halberd to the face, during a gruelling Compliance, he'd looked more composed). He had been sitting on the floor of the Sanctum that bore his name, the metaphorical heart of the Photep, a golden sun under him. His arms, crossed under his chest in meditation, were now slack, the Primarch's hands on his knees.

He clenched them. Turned to look at Ahriman.

The Captain, despite the aura of disbelieving exasperation radiating from his Primarch, kept his footing, and met his father's gaze as Magnus' features settled into a flat expression.

'That mangy barbarian played us all,' the Crimson King declared, biting out each word.

Ahriman was not one to let surprise show, when he could help it. 'Sire?'

Magnus shook his head, his mane of red hair twisting as he rose and began pacing the length of the Sanctum. 'Don't you understand, Ahzek? It's all been a smokescreen, since the start of the Crusade. All that...Feral World cretin behaviour. A deception.'

Ah. He was talking about the Wolf King. Not a brother the Cyclops loved much. 'How has Lord Russ deceived you, my Lord?'

'Deceived us all,' Magnus corrected, not looking at his son. 'Besides, perhaps, our father.' Ahzek saw his eye widen, go from copper to gold. 'This might all have been a test. To see if I could see beyond appearances and my misgivings, and...' He shook his head again, muttered.

Then stopped. 'My son. I have recently heard of a book series meant to educate Imperial Commanders, appropriately,' he looked sickened as he said the word, 'Meditations on Imperial Command. I have not read them myself, yet, since I have had other volumes to occupy my time, but I have just heard of the author.' He had, the Primarch meant, heard it across the ship, with his bodily or subtler senses. 'Now, when I heard about the series' title, I thought that maybe Roboute had written them. Or Rogal. Malcador, maybe. Or even the Emperor, beloved by all. Men known for such things.'

Ahzek nodded carefully. 'Primarch Russ does not come to mind when one thinks of prolific authors,' he remarked.

'Exactly. That's his point!' Magnus exclaimed, then began explaining. 'He knows many within the Imperium see him as an unwashed savage, an image he does little to counter and much to encourage. For,' Magnus rolled his eye, 'the military value.'

The Sixth Legion did appear to be bullheaded primitives to those who did not know them, but Ahriman remembered his recent encounter with the Space Wolf Primarch. He had talked like a genius imitating a savage. 'Ah,' the Space Marine said. 'And to...keep attention off his writings until they are released?'

Magnus looked at him like he'd called Curze sane. 'What? No. It's not like anyone would expect that - why should they? And that's the rub.' Magnus put the fingers of one hand together. 'Ahzek, that savage is trying to show me up using my passions.'

What? 'My Lord, I don't think-'

'No, no, don't you see, Ahriman? It's camouflage - that buffoonish manner he affects, those ridiculous wolf pelts he and his sons wear, like some hunters out of Old Earth's prehistory. It's all meant to deflect attention, from these taunts of his he thinks subtle, I mean. Taunts directed at me.'

The Primarch was looming over him now. He had a way of doing that, could grow to dwarf Titans, but even if he'd been the size of a baseline man, Ahzek would've felt tempted to look up. 'Leman Russ,' the Fifteenth Primarch said stiffly, 'has written tens of widely-perused volumes, all under my nose. And I never noticed, because I was too busy sneering at how stupid he acts!'

'Sire, I-' Ahriman stumbled as Magnus' glare dared him to contradict his words. 'That is, I don't think that was his intention. Taunting you - I do not think your brother is trying to surpass you as an author.' The Lord of Winter and War usually disparaged his brother's scholarly and sorcerous ways, but he hadn't brought up the Book of Magnus as a stepping stone, something to beat. 'I think he simply...enjoys writing, my Primarch. And is perhaps trying to educate the Imperial elites. Maybe even redeem his reputation as a brutish warlord.'

Magnus stared down at him, eye shifting through a rainbow of colours. Where the other would have been was sometimes smooth flesh, other times a puckered scar, as the Primarch's moods took him, was now a ragged socket, as if something taloned has just torn out the eye, though no blood flowed. 'You might be right, at that,' Magnus murmured. 'You might be right. He's going to leave me behind, at this rate. He already has!'

That was the beginning of Magnus the Red's period of isolation, during which he penned several thousand volumes pertaining to all pursuits of Imperial society, from civilian and military command at all levels to sewing, gardening, animal husbandry, engineering and more besides. He, Magnus had vowed, would not be surpassed by an author whose contributions to society were done out of spite, rather than a love of knowledge.

Ahriman was the one who had to explain it to his brothers, a task he wouldn't have envied had it fallen to anyone else. They took it as gracefully as could be expected, though Ahriman did not appreciate the greater responsibilities as acting Legion Master, nor the sidelong glances his brothers sent him. As a close confidante of the Primarch and a powerful future seer, they'd expected him to see it coming.

While Primarchs did not require much rest or sustenance, if any, for they were of the Great Ocean as much as the Materium, there were still people who wanted or needed to see Magnus, though they got used to dealing with Ahriman, out of necessity.

Once, Lorgar Aurelian, standing in the doorway to the Cyclops' writing room, joked that maybe he should take a break from crusading and put something to paper as well.

Magnus looked up enough to scowl at him, and say, 'He's going to leave you in the dust too, Lorgar.'

The Urizen, who had apparently come to share something "eye-opening" with his brother, had to be escorted away, with all due politeness - and haste. Given Magnus' current mood, he wouldn't welcome distractions.

With Magnus deep into his work, when the Flesh Change returned, he asked his father to place the Thousand Sons in stasis or any other method of quarantine he felt was best, until a solution could be found. During this period, the Primarch wrote a book about Warp afflictions, psychic and physical.

Eventually, with the Emperor's plan entering its next phase, it was time for Magnus to sit the Golden Throne, his spirit flying unbound above the tides of the Othersea while new-generation ships plied the recently-opened Imperial Webway.

The Primarch had to be all but dragged from his writings, and who better than one of his brothers to do that?

'You did this!' Magnus accused halfheartedly as he and Leman Russ walked up the steps leading to the Throne. 'You planned for me to become ensconced within my chambers, so you could write who knows what else, before I could finish everything I had planned and publish them. And now I won't be able to write anything anymore-'

Russ grunted. 'Magnus, what the Hel are you talking about?' And pushed his brother into the Throne.

The Crimson King, it had to be said, took to his new role with aplomb: it was, after all, as close to a perfect life as a psyker could get. And the Emperor was always close, in body and mind, to speak with him. Efforts were being made to give the Thousand Sons new, better bodies, and the possiblity of raising a new Legion if nothing worked was mentioned. Magnus grimly told his father to do everything he had to, and returned to his tasks: the Imperial Webway was a marvellous accomplishment, but the Golden Throne required a powerful psyker to operate and thus allow access to the otherworldly labyrinth, at least until improvements could be made.

All in all, Magnus was quite content with his lot. And if some carefully laid plans had been unravelled on the way, well, such was life.

That is not to say that, on the day Leman Russ happened by, to leave his brother a copy of his newest volume, which explored how people's self-styled, jealous rivals cut themselves off from the world in order to win competitions only they perceived, the Crimson King took it well.

But all claims that he screamed are baseless slander. The function of the Golden Throne required all his attention, after all.

(The book quickly spread across the galaxy. The Primarch Perturabo, while irritated by the concept in ways he did not deign to explain, took the message to heart and devoted himself to civilian architecture after the Great Crusade was over, becoming renowned for his ability to mix form and function. The Lord of Iron often claimed such praises were empty flattery meant to gain his favour, but he did not ask people to stop.)

[Strigoi Grey]

Eons To Go (Should Death E'er Come) (Invincible)

* * *

AN: A while ago, I began thinking about Viltrumites in settings like Star Wars, WH40K and others with large time scales (just examples to illustrate this, any crossovers will be in another story), and thinking "Man, these timelines go way back. Like, a Viltrumite born before the Republic would probably be dead by the time it collapses, right?"

Then I thought more about it and realised that, no, that's impossible. Viltrumites don't age slower until x age, they age slower the older they get. This means that old enough Viltrumites will be effectively frozen in time, with years passing like seconds as far as their bodies are concerned after some point. And since we never see Viltrumites die of natural causes, only violence and the Scourge Virus, they'd basically become ageless in their old age. I don't think they need sustenance either (the cannibalistic alternate Mark mentions getting hungry but not weaker in isolation, and I'm guessing thirst would be the same, as in mostly psychological effects), though I'm not sure about sleep. Viltrumites can only hold their breath for two weeks and fighting wears them down, so I suppose you could kill one by working them to death (though given their endurance, that's basically still violence).

We do see Nolan talking about Viltrumites living for millennia, but if he's never seen any die except in the aforementioned ways, what else could he say? That statement of his about Mark living to see Earth crumble into dust and blow away might not be as hyperbolic as I initially thought, though Mark would probably look and feel (the Viltrumite equivalent of) 70-80 at that point.

* * *

Derix was pleased to see one more target's bullseye turn into a small crater as the hyperdense projectile rebounded off it and back to his palm. His skin, already dark by default, was becoming jet-black due to the speed and friction of the impacts, but he was not concerned: between his endurance and the Empire's technology, he'd recover quickly, and anyway, this was useful practice in case he ever had to turn space debris into an RKKV aimed at a small target.

His friend, Khiven, was also training his precision and dexterity, albeit for melee: the shapeshifting substance he was trying to pin down was meant to be formed into a cat's cradle and kept that way, but it was fast as it was slippery, an kept sliding between and over his fingers.

'Man,' Khiven groaned, not for the first time. 'I'm never gonna get the knack of this damn thing.'

Derix snorted, placing the projectile in an antigravity pocket on his belt. 'Not with talk like that you won't.' The once-grassy field had been riven and flattened by shockwaves, and unlike his alread-healing hands and forearms, wouldn't recover by itself, not for a long time.

'I can talk however I like,' Khiv retorted grouchily, 'I'm still gonna be dead and rotting by the time I manage to stop this pain in the ass.'

Derix rolled his eyes, sitting down next to his friends with his arms across his knees. 'Sure, if you bite off more than you can chew in the meantime.'

'...What's that supposed to mean?'

Derix looked up to see Khiven puzzled. 'I'm talking about fights, man. Unless you piss off all your neighbours again or get into a fight with Battle Beast's nth-great-grandkids or something, you'll never have to worry about kicking it.'

Khiven scratched at his short, reddish facial hair (Derix had never felt generous enough to call it a beard). 'You're sure? I mean yeah, we live a lot, but we've never...'

'Can't exactly measure living forever, right?' Derix asked drily. 'Maybe if one of our ancestors survived from when their powers appeared to now and died after Empero Mark took the throne, sure, we'd be sure of our lifespans. But short of that or precognition, I think we're here to stay, nawmean?'

His friend seemed unconvinced, so he went on. 'Think about it. It took us nearly a century to reach our prime once we hit our teens and started flying, yeah? So our aging slowed down several times since we got our powers. By the time we're a couple thousand years old, it'll be more like a hundred times slower than when we were kids.'

Derix ran a hand over his shaved head at that, smirked at the other Viltrumite. 'Well. Guess I'll have to track your greying to know where I'm at, huh?'

Khiven flipped him off the planet. Watched him return, blueshifted - and mildly irate following the explosion upon landing and getting out of the crater that left; the Viltrumite equivalent of jogging back into a room after being shoved into the hallway. The two flew away to the other side of the world, where there was enough air to talk. It was more for the change of scenery: Viltrumites could communicate mind to mind through implants, like most civilised species. 'You really needed to do that?'

Khiven looked aside, frowned. 'Maybe.'

Derix sniffed. 'You're lucky this place is uninhabited-'

'You're sure that's not the side effect of you showing up?'

'-but anyway, you don't get to lash out at me just cuz you've got sausage fingers. I ought to kick your ass later.' Derix crossed his arms. 'Douchebag. Right, so as I was saying, years will feel like a couple days by then, you know?' He blinked, licked his lips. 'That concerns me.'

'Huh?' Khiven grunted. 'Why that? I'm a lot more bummed out by the fact I'll look like a geezer until heat death, according to you.'

'According to facts. And I just realised the universe is gonna have to deal with millennia of your middle-aged crisis once you realise how freaking lame you are-'

Khiven's attempt to put him in a headlock left the planet covered in craters, each bigger than most countries from pre-Imperial Earth, and their shoving match tilted a tectonic plate until it was jutting out of the world like a monstrous mountain. It would soon begin to collapse, and had partly crumbled during the shifting anyway.

Derix gave his friend a flat look. [Happy?] he thought. [Now I have to hold my breath on top of having to see you look like you accomplished something.]

Looking far too pleased with himself, Khiven replied, [It's just a matter of time, cue ball. Maybe it'll turn out someone wanted to settle that rock and we'll get to help with terraforming. We haven't had anything worthwhile to do in forever.] He flexed an arm. [Besides, don't act like you don't already have to hold your breath around me.]

[Nah, you don't reek that badly.] Derix mimicked waving something away from his nose. [You're not wrong, though. About getting to see the universe cool down in your old age. It's probably not gonna be heat death exactly, I don't think that could happen if there were enough of us around-]

[Neeerd.] Khiven pretended to cover a yawn. Before he lowered his hand, he was pushed through an asteroid. Many million tons of mostly iron flew apart so fast they became vapour and the two Viltrumites focused on hovering in place to ride out the explosion. They were both chuckling by the time it ended.

[Geez, shut up and let me finish, alright? I swear you heard about that asskicking and are so scared you wanna speed it up, like that'll hurt less.] Dirrex put a hand on his hip. [Like I was saying, you're not wrong, actually. Remember those history holos about Conquest and Thaedus? It's been a while since I brushed up on stuff about Argall's Empire, but weren't those two there from the start? Like, I'm fairly sure Thaedus already looked like a prune back when Nolan was in diapers and didn't change by the time that guy was getting grey hairs.]

[Probably closer to ten thousand years than a thousand, naw?]

[Yeah, yeah.] Derix nodded. [At that age? I think our bodies basically freeze, man. Stasis, except we can still move.]

Khiven looked away, tapping a finger on his thigh. [Not gonna lie - wish there'll be more of us by then.] Many worlds already teemed with trillions, for Viltrumites could interbreed with almost any species, and the Empire as a whole had more citizens than any world could fit.

[Viltrumites? Why, so you can lie to kids about how badass you were back when you had hair?]

[You're already bald!] Khiven raised his hands as if to throttle Derix, but the other Viltrumite only smirked, wagging a finger.

[Nah, nah. I cut my hair so punks like you can't pull on it during fights. But you? You're gonna look like Conquest in no time, just wait.]

[Screw that, bro. I'm shaving my hair too before I go for that look.] Khiven met his eyes. [I was saying, I hope there are more of us by then because, how permanent is anything else? Anyone? How much stuff we build will remain anywhere besides our memories? And other species die out and fade even if not one's looking to kill them. Sure, we have kids with them and they'll eventually be just Viltrumites with this or that ancestry, but something is still kept, right?]

Derix'x expression became serious. [Hey, dude. You shouldn't worry about things that far into the future, ok? You don't know what'll happen, nobody can. Our engineering's already improving - remember that armour they did a demo for last week? Supposed to let a kid fight a Ragnar even if they've only had powers for a day. Heard they got some Geldarians to come take a look at it, and those guys know their stuff. Heard next generation's gonna be even better. Maybe they're putting a Tech Jacket spin on it. Shapeshifting for weapons, I don't know] He smiled. [But even if that doesn't take out, it's like you said: we're gonna remember. And like I said, we're not going away anytime soon. Not on our own.]

Khiven rubbed the side of his neck. [Suppose Viltrumites can go crazy 'cause they've seen too much stuff? I saw this documentary once about people flipping after a few centuries because they had too many memories or old ones got erased to make room and they forgot their past, can't, uh, remember exactly.]

[Appropriate. I think I know the one you're talking about, but wasn't that one about people who started mortal and got introduced to immortality procedures? They weren't really built for that...we've been practically ageless once grown since we started recording history.]

A brief silence - of thoughts, for there had never been sound in the void of space to begin with - followed that. It was Khiven who broke it, and he was smiling. [Speaking of changes - you know how the Empress resurrects herself every century, once she dies of old age?]

[No! She's going to let herself stay dead?]

[What the hell, man! No! I was gonna tell you about this agelessness serum they're working on. You know how we've been able to isolate Viltrumite traits for a while? Strength, flight and so on?]

[They're making those?] Derix was puzzled. [I thought all models predicted the consumers getting addicted and cranky unless they took regular doses, which they'd need to in order to keep the powers.]

[Well, that might not be so far off anymore. Maybe we'll even get an upgrade that turns the people injected into Viltrumites, huh? Permanent powers, no side effects.]

[I think that might happen anyway,] Derix replied. A lot of species wanted to get it on with Viltrumites, for their descendants' sake if not the act itself.

[Sure, but this could speed it up if we manage. It could even let kids adjust from the start instead of having to feel stifled until they hit puberty, ya know?] Khiven stroked his chin. [And I'm thinking, if they're rolling this out, they must've improved something, right? Maybe the effect is permanent, or at least it doesn't make people crave more if it fades. And if it works, why wouldn't Eve use it? Wouldn't have to go through that crap every hundred years. I know it can't be nice for Mark to watch, even if he knows it's all safe.]

[Maybe she'll manage to get rid of her mental blocks? That way she can fix herself and anyone else whenever, easy.]

Khiven laughed quietly. [Guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we, Derix?]

[Yeah.] Derix stared into the distance, at the stars. They had never seemed so...ephemeral. [Guess we'll see.]

[Strigoi Grey]

Superhuman (DC Comics)

* * *

AN: This chapter compares and contrasts Superman and some of his enemies. I didn't have specific versions in mind while writing this; the story is more about the archetypal traits the characters' various incarnations share. It's based on an idea I once shared with Mr. Parasite in one of our private conversations on SpaceBattles, and which I thought might be interesting to expand.

* * *

Kal floated high above the North Pole, the Fortress of Solitude unfolding like a crystal flower miles and miles under him.

He'd built it atop the icebergs he'd pushed together, reinforced with the technologies of his lost world. The key to this home away from home would've sunk through the ice, otherwise.

When he'd first flown here, still testing his power, it had mystified him, how much light he could find, in this coldest of places. It was not too different from how one could receive kindness from the most unlike of people.

Batman (because the previous thought had brought this to mind) had once, during their early partnership before the League had been founded, handed him a file detailing his powers and the best martial arts to learn and combine with them in order to become a better fighter. The section detailing his super senses had also contained a footnote in which Bruce had described how he considered them, and the processing speed that let him handle the input, perhaps his most impressive attribute.

Clark had disagreed, explained why. In the years since, Bruce had ended up agreeing with him.

It wasn't about the senses, in of themselves, or the speed, the strength, the heat vision. What really made him Superman (and Kal was not trying to brag) was being able to keep doing good despite perceiving all the world's evil at once, all day, every day.

He'd seen good cops turn jaded the more they worked, until they stopped seeing the good in people or caring about anything more than stopping criminals. He understood why, appreciated their efforts. He could not, honestly, begrudge them the cynicism.

But he still disagreed. He'd never thought like that, hoped he never would.

Not too long ago, at a get-together between the Justice League's founders and their sidekicks, Robin had started talking to him about how many of Batman's rogues thought in ways not too different from his, but twisted. The boy had implied he was happy Superman didn't have to deal with such enemies, that the closest he had were Bizarro, Zod and their like, who were closer to him in terms of powers than thinking.

"They're your Sinestro, y'know," the kid had said, gesturing at Green lantern. "Your Reverse Flash."

Clark had smiled, shaken his head. Back then, he hadn't agreed with the idea, though he hadn't quite been able to explain why. But since, he'd studied his enemies more, and Superman or not, it was still unsettling how much they embodied the paths he might've gone down, in his worst moments.

* * *

Superman hovered above the Lexcorp tower with his arm crossed, frowning lightly as he saw Lex being led to the MPD van and driven away.

'He'll be back in a day,' he sighed. He hadn't had time to gather proof linking Luthor to the plan to poison Metropolis' water: by the time he returned from the offworld mission, faster than he would've flown if not for the bad feeling, it'd been all he could do to beat down the robots guarding Luthor's lackeys, remove the altered water across the city and replace it so people wouldn't go thirsty. Meanwhile, Luthor, alerted about his arrival by the sensors he'd scattered across the city for this very purpose, had issued a statement declaring the LexCorp scientist who'd allegedly concocted the plot--the chemical mixture introduced in the water supply had been meant to make people more susceptible to Luthor, and thus more likely to work for him and treat Superman as an enemy-rogue.

It had been followed by gushing praise for Superman, who was so eager to fight alongside one of the cities' industrial titans for the sake of keeping its people safe. That had been utterly unnecessary and likely thrown in because Lex had felt like having a laugh at him. It had been untrue besides: he hadn't worked with anyone on the company while foiling the plot, but against them. Were people really going to believe he'd returned because Lex had sent a signal calling him back to Earth? Evidence Lex had done so had certainly been manufactured, but...

Clark rubbed the bridge of his nose, stowing another sigh. Had be been pushing too hard about Lex being arrogant and concerned only with success? Would people have been moved less by the apparent show of humility if not for that?

Luthor had only been detained on a suspicion, and not that he'd been involved, but that he might have had access to the resources and means to manufacture the addictive chemicals, and wouldn't it only be fair to tell the public if you're working with dangerous things, in case they might want to move away, Mr. Luthor?

The snake was going to say that he was so sorry about not being more forthcoming, have the scapegoat painted as the ringleader-Great Krypton, he'd already done so, all it took was the news spreading among more people-and be back in his office, free to try and ruin more lives, in no time.

Clark's fist clenched.

What drove people to act like this? He reflected that his life and Clark could've been taken as a deception, like Luthor was so fond of, to get him the average human life he'd wanted, the one he'd thought he would have before his powers had kicked in. Lex would've said that he was using people, pretending to be what he wasn't in order to gain acceptance, because how many humans could truly relate to the Last Son of Krypton?

Of course, he thought, Lex would never do anything that could be construed as him humbling himself, so maybe not the sort of trick he's fond of.

The drive for success, though...Kal felt he understood that, to a degree. He'd contemplated ramping up the production of his Superman robots at the Fortress, so he could have someone to stand in for him while he went to sundip, to grow stronger. Working with the League had introduced him to too many monsters for him to feel he could handle anything, like he'd used to when he'd started out.

But he'd dismissed the plan at the time, and it still held little appeal for him. Spending all his free time growing more powerful and nothing else might've been more efficient, but what would be left of his human side? Always away from earth except to fight and rescue, in the sun, he'd have no time to be with Lois, or to talk to the other Leaguers, his parents...how many people would be let down because he wasn't certain of his strength?

Not to mention he still needed moments for himself, every now and then. Sure, sunlight gave him everything a meal and a good night's rest would have, but that didn't mean he'd outgrown the way he'd spent over a decade of life. Clark still felt human, despite everything.

He'd hold that close to his heart. There was, he thought, no need to change yet.

* * *

Darkseid was a force of nature, not just some tinpot dictator who happened to be stronger than most.

The first part wasn't entirely metaphorical: Clark knew enough about how existence worked to understand that sometimes, concepts coalesced to the degree of forming avatars, or empowering people to be their mouthpieces, their champions in the world of matter and phenomena. The Spectre was that for the being billions would've called God; why would tyranny not have an embodiment?

Apokopis had been driven back, the half-formed breach in reality that Uxas had tried to manifest his throne-world through in its natural size sealed. The humongous planet would've destroyed Earth's system, at least, just by manifesting, to say less of the armies filling that industrialised hellscape. Now, it was time to rebuild.

As Clark dusted his hands off, he mused that the ability of superheroes to punch most problems' living daylights out was useful, in some situations and up to a point, but on days like this, he was much more thankful for how many of his friends could expedite the recovery efforts.

Earlier, Firestorm had taken over the refilling of lakes that had evaporated across the northern hemisphere, freeing Superman from having to fly after icy comets and bring them down to Earth. Kal had thanked the fused hero, and joined Flash in racing across the globe to bring displaced people back to their homes (if there were still any; Green Lantern had been the one to point out they'd need shelters as much as field hospitals for the injured, and had quickly followed through by forming several), or designated safe areas if those were gone or inaccessible.

They'd pulled through, the League and smaller super-teams clashing with Darkseid's elites while Earth's more conventional forces had held off the Parademons, by the skin of their teeth, when they'd been unable to evade or escape them. It'd not been a coordinated effort, and not just because of the invasion's suddenness: each country had been looking out for itself, and it had taken some time and, in several cases, prompting to get them to link up for a global defense effort.

Not for the first time (not even the first time after this debacle, in all honesty) Kal weighed alternatives. He'd seen world governments, to be sure, on other planets and other realities' Earths. Those in the second category were all too often ran by tyrants, and even where malice was absent, global orders meant one person could hurt billions, or more, through incompetence, through some mistake.

Did such arrangements ever make things run more smoothly, though? In some cases, where evil and more mundane corruption were absent, they did help people coordinate across the world. Made large initiatives faster. But the path to getting there...

How many such worlds had a Superman among the leadership, if not outright in charge? How many had-as far as most sapients were concerned-all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent leader?

Apokolips did.

Clark knew it was insane to compare himself to Uxas in anything other than power, in regards to which they were more or less matched, as his mending ribs could attest. He knew the New God had never even bothered to pretend he was making necessary sacrifices or working towards some end that would justify his means, not that it would've made him any less monstrous: he simply wanted power, always more power, more control. Darkseid, Superman though, looked at free will other than his the way most people looked at slavery. It was abhorrent to him even in concept, so that both the phenomenon and any memory of it had to be erased.

Even so...

Clark had thought about officially working on a greater scale than the personal many times. It was one of the reasons he'd been happy to see the League become the United Nations' premier metahuman force. But beyond that, he'd thought about putting his powers to use in ways that were less flashy but no less important than saving people from natural disasters and punching out monsters.

Going after the causes rather than the symptoms, so to speak. Some of the problems that were jobs for Superman would never appear if scarcity were to be removed. If everyone had a place to live and no worry about tomorrow, a community to share their life with, fewer would turn to injustice. There would always be crooks in for it for the thrill, not to mention monsters who were not driven by anything less than their own impulses, but several other causes for crime would be nipped in the bud.

Would bringing about such a state to things require force? Kal thought it'd likely be necessary at some point. Just because so many people loved Superman didn't mean they'd roll over and hand their sovereignty to him. But for most, what he'd done and could would be enough to get their support, and that was the sort of power that had him more nervous than being able to break planets like walnuts.

He'd seen the other side of that debate, too. From Luthor, the most often, the mad genius cursing him for stunting mankind's growth by simply being there. Didn't he understand that if people thought some living god was going to save them no matter what, they were never going to develop the drive to excel? Struggle pushed people to be better, Lex would say, and listening to him, one wouldn't even think he was raging at no longer being the most capable and famous person around, he sounded so reasonable.

One day, at STAR Labs, he'd jokingly offered to power their new, experimental turbine, arguing he could power the world for longer and quicker than any of their planned power sources. But Emil Hamilton had told him they weren't looking for a Kryptonian to act as a living battery.

'Of course any of your species could power Earth,' the professor had said. 'No one's ever disputed that. But this isn't about leaning more on you, Kal; it's about what mankind can do when we put our heads together. We'll call if we need help, but we believe...'

He hadn't been serious, but he'd agreed with the initiative. People standing on their own feet didn't mean they couldn't call for help, and he had full confidence in those involved in the endeavor.

In the end, he was not so superhuman that he couldn't be called humanlike. He still needed time to catch his metaphorical breath, to arrange his affairs so he wouldn't go mad or become numb. Bruce had warned him about what being a workaholic meant for people like them, and Clark didn't want to burn himself out by tackling disasters twenty-four/seven. That would leave a worse Superman than the world deserved, and he'd always strived for fairness.

And if they ever needed Superman, he was always one call for help away.

* * *

That anyone could see so much of the universe, of other living beings, as a Kryptonian and still look upon genocide with anything other than disgust was one of the reasons Superman considered Zod one of his most dangerous enemies, in a way.

The general talked a good talk about reclaiming the species' heritage and finding a new world for Krypton's survivors, now that the old world was lost and its people almost gone due to their leaders' refusal to evacuate until it was too late. But once anyone listened for more than a few minutes, without being cowed by the Kryptonian's power, it was easy to see it barely differed from Nazi rhetoric, only with all of Earth, all of mankind-not that Zod would've shied from wiping other planets clean of life-as the subhumans squatting on land they didn't need.

It wasn't always that direct. "The humans are despicably weak, Kal. They need to go. We'll build Krypton's legacy atop their graves." Sometimes, they needed to be sidelined so that Kryptonians could regain their lost glory, with the implication they'd fade away in the background. Recently, before he'd put him and his lackey in the Phantom Zone, Zod had offered a different option, during the fight.

Clark had still refused. Breeding mankind into extinction, for hybrid children would certainly be more Kryptonian than not, and completely so in terms of upbringing if Zod had his way, might be less directly violent than ripping them to shreds and glaring them to ash, but it would still be a sort of destruction, and one that would have people treated like livestock for generations.

Unacceptable. There might be more Kryptonians, or something like them, one day-Kal had seen enough futures where people almost like him kept the peace across galaxies-but if that was to be, it would take form with the consent of all involved, and no superpowered bigots browbeating people to do their part.

Maybe it was because he'd never known Krypton in person, unlike Zod, but Clark was not so attached to the idea of his world of birth that he would trade his home for it. He wished it hadn't ended like it had, that he hadn't lost his birth parents before he'd even known, but it was an abstract sort of grief, not the sort he could honestly put his heart into.

He'd dreamed about something like Zod aimed for, albeit a saner, healthier version. Spreading Kryptonian technology, techniques and culture across Earth, reviving the broken planet in spirit. Becoming a surrogate father to recreate his species in part. But even those imaginings stopped quickly, because he could not bear the thought of them.

Overtaking mankind's imagination by pushing Kryptonian ideals onto them? They'd take to the concepts, of course, if it was superman talking, if there was a chance they could achieve something like his power by tinkering with the remnants of his birth world's industry. It'd always saddened Clark how inventions that could change the world overnight were almost always stolen or hijacked by villains, when they didn't just spurn the same into creating twisted counters to those devices, either because they needed better technology to continue their plans or because they wouldn't let themselves be made to look bad by some heroic gadgeteer.

It was almost like someone was conspiring to keep Earth less advanced than it should've been. He ought to go talk to Batman about it, one of these days, or the Question.

Becoming the father of a new species of human-Kryptonian hybrids? It was doable, easy even, but Clark could not picture himself putting women he'd never met through that, whether they agreed or not. What justice was there in a child born with even a fraction of his power not having someone to teach them how to handle it? And if he did it, and filled the Earth with such mixed descendants, and guided them, when would he have time for everything else?

No. Zod was insane, though dangerously functional, the archetype of the imperialistic martinet who would quickly find ways and reasons to dispose of "useless mouths." No matter how beautiful or efficient the paradise he promised could be, Clark knew it would be built over mass graves.

"New Krypton" was not worth that.

* * *

Doomsday was a living, deathless weapon. Doomsday was a monster.

Superman had only ever hesitated to put the creature down because what killed it made it stronger, each death granting new immunities, more power, to the resurrected behemoth. One of the few executions he'd never blink at seeing through, yet it was ever only a setback.

Imprisonment did little more than stall Doomsday, as well. Anything that could push it to become better did, and the antediluvian Kryptonian nightmare was not above hurting itself ripping at the walls of any holding cell in order to trigger its hyperactive adaptation.

Clark reckoned this was more or less what his detractors saw whenever he cut loose.

Oh, he was no rampaging freak, razing cities to the bedrock whenever he could, but he didn't have to be, when the potential was there. An alien more powerful than what most people could imagine, acknowledged by every country's citizens and beholden to no single government? He was a nightmare to many world leaders, he knew, as much as the Manhunter or any Flash.

Clark knew it was fear talking, uncertainty...but all the attempts to talk him into being an US agent or soldier were about as palatable as the suggestion of an implanted, lead-coated kryptonite bomb set to detonate as soon as he did something outside the norms it had been programmed to expect.

He liked to think the bomb thing had been sarcastic. Though, these days...

He knew rage. In terms of that, he was as human as anyone born of Earth, and would've been far more terrible were he to unleash it. There'd been times, most often during clashes with one of his nemeses, though not always, when he'd seen red, and not because of heat vision. Days he'd wanted to hit something until his temper cooled, but he knew the universe wasn't built to handle that sort of thing.

When his father had died, the cancer to advanced to excise it without killing him anyway, a younger Superman had been reminded that his power, great as it was, was not limitless. He'd gone into space later that day, after handling family matters, past Pluto, past the Oort cloud, because he hadn't trusted himself to spend too long on the world that had taken his father away from him, and not just because of what he might do. Kal knew words could hurt as much as anything, and that people were quick to say things they didn't mean after losing their tempers.

When he thought Manchester Black had killed Lois...the psychic had not got the chance to become one of his long-running rogues, after he was imprisoned, with the parts of his brain that enabled his powers seared by beat vision. But Clark would've done that anyway, to end the danger of him and the Elite before it could grow too great, by pushing other superhumans to kill because it was easy. It hadn't been a choice made because he'd been beside himself with anger.

Clark had breathed a sigh of relief when he'd realised his senses had deceived him, had been deceived. Had the death he'd seen been true, his life would've turned darker that day, his joy dimmer. But it wouldn't have made him go back on his words to Black.

Murder was not the solution. Showing people they could be better, until they stopped needing to be inspired and made the world a place of dignity and justice for all, was his dream. It was the best legacy Jor-El could achieve after sending his son hurtling into space.

He'd wondered about such things, after his first clash with Doomsday, when they'd ripped each other apart. The closest thing to a father it'd ever had was the scientist who'd cast its infant self onto primitive Krypton, to be tempered in that crucible until it became the ultimate survivor, the sort no death could keep down.

Kal had seen the messages his birth father had left him, of course, the recordings. His hopes that his son would find a new world to call home, maybe make it a better place just like he might become a better person than his ancestors. And he knew them to be sincere now, that there hadn't been any hidden desires for the Last Son of Krypton to become a walking apocalypse after being cast into the void, ruining whatever place he landed in as a last spiteful gasp of his dead world.

There'd only been fatherly love and concern behind that decision. It was, Kal thought, proof of the way people were treated being just as if not more important than what they were.

Clark looked down at the shrunken, misshapen thing floating before him, at the wounds the other Leaguers sported that matched his. Hopefully, sending Doomsday's limbless, headless husk into the Phantom Zone would buy them more time to find a permanent solution than the last death they'd dealt it.

* * *

It was easy to dismiss Bizarro as an imbecilic thug, between how the clone talked and how quick he was to break things for Luthor, or otherwise do his bidding, but it wasn't all he was.

As Superman looked at his unnaturally pale doppelganger, who was radiating cold from his glowing blue eyes and literally spitting fire as he paced across his cell in the Fortress of Solitude, he once more sent thanks to whoever was listening for having been found by his parents. Experiencing life as humans did for over a decade had done wonders for his empathy, he liked to think, and beyond serving as something useful to fall back on when he lost his powers, it was also a cherished time. Unconditional love was one of the greatest treasures anyone could be offered, and it kept him grounded no matter how high he flew.

Beyond that...had he landed not much farther away, he might've found himself in the care of the government, cooped up in some military or experimental black site and trained to be the ultimate WMD, always looking for enemies to point himself at. He'd have never learned to relate to people, or see them as anything more than assets or obstacles. It would've been a cold life, if it could've even been called that.

Bizarro, in what had passed for his childhood as B-0 in LexCorp's laboratories, had never been shown love, that most important thing to any growing being. The purpose of his existence as the anti-Superman, Luthor's knockoff Kryptonian enforcer, had been impressed upon him instead, and though Bizarro wasn't always fighting at his creator's side nowadays, he hadn't truly escaped his roots either.

Being treated as a tool since birth, told he existed for nothing more than furthering one man's ambition and killing another, had obviously not been the recipe for healthy development. Even now, without Luthor breathing down his neck every moment, Bizarro still strived to impress him every chance he got, like some oversized, overpowered maladjusted child with a distant, neglectful father.

And he still wanted to get rid of Superman, hopefully take his place as well.

As Clark understood, Bizarro didn't want to replace him in the eyes of his friends and the world and work as a superhero for the experiences in of themselves, though whether he'd truly enjoy either was beyond his ability to guess. Maye beyond Bizarro's as well: the clone's mind was a tangled, confused thing, and J'onn had gotten a headache peering at more than surface thoughts.

No, it was because he wanted to "be Superman", in that way animals and people instinctively wanted to survive without really understanding what that would entail. Being treated the way Clark was would matter to him more than the treatment itself.

Clark was not unused to this sort of obession.

Not on his own part, but he'd seen enough abusive relationships that had left the victims acting in fixed, unhealthy ways even after contact with the abuser ceased. Maybe, even if Bizarro stopped caring about Lex or even began hating him, he wouldn't get over what he'd been told growing up. Clark hoped he would, for everyone's sake, but if he could've hoped solutions into existence, no problems would've been left.

Were Bizarro smarter...no, that wasn't right. Were Bizarro's mind more humanlike, he might've tried to spread his "counter-Superman" image, to create a brand with himself at the centre. Build a following, a cult. People were, sometimes, depressingly quick to follow those they perceived as more powerful than them, especially when they felt unsure or threatened. The amount of people who put themselves in danger for a chance to meet with him never ceased startling him, in the worst ways.

As soon as the crystal cell unfolded, Bizarro dashed forward faster than most starships, fist cocked back. The projector had finished booting up by then, however, so he was still in that pose by the time the photo-like form of his new prison took shape.

"Sorry, pal," Clark said. "But it's the Phantom Zone for you, until I find somewhere you can belong."

Maybe they could build something like that. A "Bizarro world" of some sort, or they could find an alternate reality. He'd have to ask around.

* * *

Despite what some people thought, Superman didn't just coast through life, knocking enemies down in one or two punches and laughing off every other problem. Some issues couldn't be brute-forced, no matter what he could do; many of those would only be made worse by such an attempt. How many border wars had he been tempted to end by disarming every soldier and dragging the leaders to the table, before making them a treaty to stop the conflict and never start another one?

Or, whenever nuclear tensions escalated, it would've been so easy to just grab every bomb and throw them all into the sun. That would've been a joke of a solution, though, because without the threat of MAD, countries would fall back on to who was conventionally strongest, and the most advanced and industrialised nations would rip through weaker neighbours.

And those were only the large scale problems. Some people couldn't be talked out of suicide, or hurting others, or the world around them., no matter how scared they were of a Kryptonian opposing them. Failures like that stung, in a way not managing to stop more globally impactful events did not, because they were more easy to grasp.

In terms of his rogues? Many of those who didn't have the same powers as him had different ones that could match his, or technology that removed the need for inherent power. There were schemes he couldn't flex his way out of, no matter how much sunlight-fueled muscle he put into it.

And then there was Mxyzptlk.

Even when facing Darkseid or Doomsday or even a team of Kryptonians hellbent on destroying everything he stood for, no matter how outmatched he might feel, Clark never felt powerless. Never like the average person after being singled out for torment by Zod or some other monster with the power to match their cruelty.

The gap between humans and Kryptonians was much, much smaller than between him and the imps of the fifth dimension.

Mxy was not evil, the way some of his other rogues were, but he didn't spare a thought for who got hurt while he had fun, and not just because he could easily fix anything, anyone, he broke while looking for ways to alleviate his boredom. The imp, as he'd explained to Clark before, saw all parts of reality less complex than his home realm as something of an interactive comic, and so had no more remorse putting people in scenarios he considered hilarious than a child messing with stick figures would have.

"C'mon, c'mon, Supes! How're you gonna reel 'er in if you're not even casting a line, eh?" The seemingly diminutive higher-dimensional being puffed on a cigar whose dimensions never changed no matter how much he smoked as he hovered cross-legged. Scowling, Clark took another flying leap across the ever-shifting interior of the warped building, while the Lois lookalike moved after him, uncannily fast, despite there being nothing to animate her green kryptonite body.

Nothing besides Mxyzptlk's will, that was.

"You're not going to get anything out of this,' Kal warned as he dodged another grab, before speeding up a few floors. 'You can't possibly get us to play house for you when I'll keel over poisoned after minutes around her at best."

Mxy's scoff was accompanied by a lifelike smoke image of Superman in a dunce cap. "You don't get it, huh? It's a, whatchacallit, a visual metaphor for how you're ruinin' yourself pining over the human next door. You're never gonna get anything done in the what, half century she has left? And then you're gonna mope around for a few centuries and be too busy whining to move on to anything more interesting. Move on, move up! Bah, what was I expecting, you're just a space bumpkin anyway."

Clark's costume was suddenly replaced with mud-stained overalls, while straw hat now leaned over his eyes, no matter how much he tried to rip it apart or off.

"See, that's another of them metaphors. Art imitates life." Mxy chuckled as Clark tried to fly through the wall and outside only to end up in front of the first floor's entrance, with the kryptonite golem right in front of him. "Back where you started. Now, what's that tell you, spit curl?"

Clark should've expected some nonsense when the imp had promised today's game would end as soon as he won, no need to make him ssay his name in reverse.

He knew how easy it was to stop taking things seriously when handling them required no effort. He'd played in enough human games to know he could've reigned supreme in any with the smallest fraction of his powers, and most other fields of human endeavor would've also been child's play for him.

That didn't make them any less meaningful for those who did struggle to be the best they could-swimmers didn't stop caring about their sport because fish could do it better-but he understood why Mxy might treat everything so casually. No one would suffer consequences unless he willed it, much less himself.

But did he truly care? Clark imagined Mxy's home dimension must've been boring if he spent so much time in the comic-world that was mundane reality (not that time applied to him unless he wanted it, either), but that didn't make the latter a place he was more invested in. Just something more interesting than whatever he did at home.

Clark supposed that if he ever lost his mind and started treating humans as action figures, the thing would quickly lose its charm, because there were only so many reactions you could get out of people faced with beings powerful beyond their comprehension. The trouble with that was, if Mxy ever got bored of them too, what if he wiped the slate clean?

Would he hesitate? Did anyone Clark knew even count as a person in his eyes, or just a character? If they were both meaningless compared to his fellow imps and powerless to resist him, what was there to stop him from erasing existence as they knew it and finding something else to entertain himself with?

"Oi, what's that mopey look on your dumb mug for?" Mxy snapped his fingers, frowning, and several other kryptonite facsimiles of Lois appeared, in various colors. "There ya go. Now you can stop complaining about how you can't even stand next to her without falling apart, like that's not the whole point! Ugh...try the other ones, why don'cha? See for yourself what you get out of slumming it. Why don't you go for Wondy anyway, I know I would..."

This, Clark reminded himself as he resumed dodging, was much better than the alternatives. No matter what form they took, Mxyzptlk's games were better than him flipping the board.

* * *

Superman opened his eyes and began flying down to his Fortress. Not one for one matches, but he found himself, had he walked more crooked paths, when he remembered several of his enemies. Brainiac, obsessed with preserving cultures no matter what, robbing people of choice; Lobo, reveling in his power and effective immortality as people ineffectually tried to stop him from doing whatever he wanted; Parasite, becoming like others because who he was wasn't enough...

Clark shook his head with a smile as the Fortress opened for him, Krypto bounding up in a leap that would've cleared a football field.

"Yeah, I'm ready for a walk too, boy," he admitted, scratching the dog behind the ears. "Wanna play fetch? We'll need to go deeper into space if I'm going to find a neutron star for you to knock around, but I know this system..."

All in all, he was happy with who he was. And maybe, one day, he could help some troubled souls shed the worst of themselves.