White light wreathed the lightning, and the bolt carried a vast payload of energy. It moved faster than the retina could even register. Caught flat-footed, Superman took it dead-on.
A thunderous detonation hurled him through the air like a thrown toy. He tumbled end over end, plowing a trench five hundred meters long and one meter deep (about sixteen hundred feet long and three feet deep), wrecking three buildings and countless cars before he finally came to a stop.
Slammed by a powerhouse out of nowhere, Superman wasn't afraid—he was thrilled. He was a fighter who lived for honor. As bad as Superwoman was, he hadn't wanted to fight a woman, especially a pregnant one. He just hadn't known how to land a clean blow. This new enemy came with no such restrictions.
He took stock of the man standing next to Superwoman. Short chestnut-red hair, full beard, powerfully built. Striking presence, even at first glance.
The man wore black half-body armor, a massive lightning bolt emblazoned across his chest, a long cape trailing behind him.
"Magic, then?" Superman flexed his body. The lightning had left him slightly numb, but the energy spike had also pulverized the kryptonite dust still clinging to his skin—an inadvertent gift. His combat readiness wasn't down; it was actually up, restored to peak.
Superwoman's eyes were sharp. She caught it too, and silently called him an idiot. But she didn't dare express her frustration to the terrifying man beside her. She had to keep up the obedient, deferential act.
"The man in front of you is this world's Lex Luthor. He's even uglier in person than in his pictures." Batman's voice came through on the League channel.
Batman had taken over Owlman's Watchtower and was deep in a download of every byte of data he could pull. Naturally, that included intel on this Lex Luthor. Owlman had categorized Earth-3's villains in detail, but Lex's file was incomplete and ambiguous. The tags were: most dangerous, most lethal, most unpredictable.
"For clarity, let's just call him Lex. He used to be part of the Crime Syndicate, but he had a complete falling-out with them. According to Owlman's analysis, Lex has the ability to absorb other people's metahuman abilities for himself. Owlman also believes that ability isn't natural in origin."
"Lex is highly aggressive, highly volatile, and unpredictable in his methods."
"Got it." Superman cut the call.
On the other side, Superwoman briefed Lex on what she knew.
"Excellent. Kill them, absorb their powers, and my evolution leaps forward again." Lex was charged for combat, eyeing Superman like a slab of fresh meat.
Superwoman silently labeled him a maniac. But this maniac wielded immeasurable power and was her current lifeline.
"Cover me," Lex said. A coil of dark energy gathered around him, and he loosed several bolts of lightning from his hands.
Superwoman was happy to oblige. She backed off and watched.
Superman dodged the lightning with a few clean cuts. The instant he closed on Lex, the man opened his mouth, and a faintly visible sonic wave smashed straight at Superman's face.
Caught off guard, Superman shut down his hearing. Too late. Lex's sonic attack came too suddenly. Superman's head went heavy, his footing went light, and a swarm of phantoms bloomed in front of his eyes.
"You're done, Kryptonian! Once I've absorbed your power, Ultraman won't even be able to challenge me anymore!" Every metahuman Lex killed had their abilities stolen by him—rules be damned. That was why the original Crime Syndicate had been a crowded roster, and now only a handful remained. Plenty of villains were willing to backstab; Lex did it constantly, and the worst of it was that he'd grown strong enough to threaten Ultraman himself.
Lex's hands sluiced with corrosive liquid as he reached for Superman's throat.
"Hmm?" In the instant before contact, a streak of yellow lightning flashed past, and Superman was suddenly a hundred meters (about three hundred feet) clear.
Naturally, the rescuer was The Flash. He'd spent half the fight running circles around the continent without doing much, and he'd finally proved useful.
Lex had a shrewd eye. He'd long coveted Johnny Quick's powers and knew exactly what he was looking at.
"Speed Force! That power's mine too." Lex threw back his head and laughed.
"Clark, are you all right?" The Flash carried Superman a stretch farther and lowered his voice.
"It's a sonic attack, like Black Canary's. Set me down—I should be recovered." Superman couldn't have been more annoyed. If a sonic attack hurt an ordinary person at a one, it hit someone with super-hearing like him at a ten.
He hadn't expected Lex to lead with that ability cold. Going in unprepared had cost him. Fortunately, Kryptonian physical resilience was the gold standard. The disorientation was already fading fast.
"Whoosh—" With Lex and Superwoman closing in, Superman suddenly launched himself airborne, turned, and unleashed a blast of freeze breath square at Lex. At ground level, The Flash threw a bolt of lightning at the same time.
Lex sidestepped the lightning, then countered the freeze breath with a fire ability he'd taken off who knows whom. The two opposing forces canceled each other out at high speed in midair. Superwoman couldn't keep watching from the sidelines and lashed her lasso at The Flash.
The Flash exchanged a couple of moves with her and quickly realized she was pregnant. He cursed his luck. He was even softer-hearted than Superman, fighting tentatively. At one point he was getting outmatched.
On the other side, Superman was holding the upper hand. He had the yellow sun feeding him a constant stream of energy. Lex could only draw from his own cells. The exchange was a losing trade for Lex.
Lex noticed The Flash holding back against Superwoman and recognized an opportunity. He pushed Superman back with a few moves, then turned and went after The Flash.
Superman wasn't going to allow it. The fight transitioned from two singles matches into a two-on-two.
Lex was vicious. He didn't care if his ally got hurt. He repeatedly used Superwoman as a human shield to force the heroes to pull strikes, then pressed his own attacks under cover of their hesitation.
His arsenal was massive. Super strength, super speed, super stamina, flight, magic, sonic, vibration, venom, acid, fire, ice, lightning, physical, non-physical, and a handful of conceptual abilities. The whole grab bag, all bundled in one body.
One ability was particularly nasty—it indiscriminately made every living thing within ten meters (about thirty feet) bleed, friend or foe. The whole group was reeling. Barry, deep in the fight, suddenly noticed his body was weeping blood under the suit, running down his pant leg like a rough week's worst surprise. Only the red of his costume kept it from showing immediately.
Superman's body was structurally different from a human's. The bleeding got blocked at the genetic level.
Superwoman, on the other hand, had been mid-tryst with Owlman moments earlier and was barely dressed. Her exposed skin started oozing blood under the ability's effect. She was on track to be the first of them to die. She immediately yelled at Lex to switch to a different power.