The broadcast that reached every screened device connected to Internet shook the entire world: Lex Luthor, philantropist, speaker and overall tycoon, being actually a monster who had ruined and destroyed countless lives in his pursuit of power and the destruction of Superman, and not just by inadvertently creating villains. The fact that I, Doom Slayer, had been the one who revealed this to them only added to the shock.
Then, there was what Luthor did after that: give himself to the justice system, give LexCorp and all of its assets to Wayne Enterprises (not sell, give), and make explicitly clear he would never, ever do anything again, feeling utterly remorseful for what he had done in the past, even apologizing to Superman in public and thanking me for showing the error of his ways before I threw into a cell.
They believed that I actually managed to realize what a monster he had been, to make him change his ways. Foster's opinion of me got even better. Wally even thought I had something akin to the Penance Stare that had made Luthor suffer every last bit of pain he had committed to others, and I didn't correct him.
The truth of what we did to Luthor is both far simpler and complex... and disturbing.
Luthor, unfortunately for him, was the kind of man who no matter the results, would keep coming and going no matter how much people like Clark wanted him to change, and brainwashing could be undone. That's a risk I didn't want to take, not in this universe.
Then there was also the fact he knew the secret identities of my allies. If someone were to capture him and pry into his mind for information (and unlike John, his mental defenses were rather useless)... Again, that was a risk I was unwilling to take. Sadly, despite his crimes, we didn't know if people would like for us to kill him: after all, he wasn't some thug or subaquatic terrorist, but a man who had very good publicity. Some would try their damnest to defend him and slander me, no matter his crimes.
Fortunately, John had the perfect solution for our predicament, one that didn't involve killing Luthor. Given he also still wanted to rip torture Luthor, then cut off the top of his head and eat his brain out of sheer hatred, that spoke volumes of his restraint.
That, or weighed between killing him and doing everything sans killing him to ruin his entire being, his sole reason of existing, and decided that the latter option was more satisfactory and petty.
So, instead of merely brainwashing him with either science or magic, we literally took his brain and duplicated it, filling it with a new personality that was essentially all the goodness Luthor had on him taken from him, condensed and then enhanced with lots of guilt, empathy, and overall a lack of what could be considered evil. John told me that this would also permanently change his soul which was, of course, a bonus for the both of us.
No, we never told the others we did this. Karmic as it was, that would have irrevocably destroyed our relations with most of them.
As for the original brain? I gave it to Grundy to do whatever he wanted with it. It had no body nor a mouth, but you can bet it screamed in pure terror when Grundy buried it in a plant pot. Yes, it died.
Oh, right, I forgot about Grundy. He finally began to show signs of the Green. John guessed that it happened like that because there were no plants in Mars that he could control (although that doesn't explain why he couldn't back at Slaughter Swamp). Logical, Garfield had been living among animals for all his life and so he didn't need some 'awakening' or something like that to use his power.
Naturally Bruce was understandably wary of the fact that one of the world's most powerful creatures had begun to become even stronger, but I reminded him that Arella had chosen him for a good reason. He still didn't seem so sure, so I had to promise that if Grundy stepped over a line, I'd put him down. I was lying through my teeth however.
Finally, there was the 'purple-haired skank' that had mindraped John for information. It turned out that Luthor had been mind-controlled by her to some point, what with not remembering making a deal with the Demons Three or even ordering the would-be kidnappings. She had to be moderately powerful too, given that John wasn't known.
I had an idea of who this woman was despite having one barebones description of her: Tala, the witch that, in the cartoon continuity worked for Project Cadmus, and a pupil of Felix Faust.
She was also powerful enough to resurrect Darkseid out of spite for Luthor. Now she knew about the others, and while John swore he didn't reveal anything about Rachel, I was still unsure. Worse, because the only physical information I had of her was her hair color, VEGA couldn't pinpoint her location, and she seemed to have a unscrying spell to keep herself away from prying eyes.
At least until John stated the obvious solution... and the need to get more payback on the ones who had handed him to Tala in a silver platter.
"NO MORE! PLEASE! PLEASE!!!" Abnegazar screamed as Slayer began to slowly crush his crotch. His arms and legs had already been torn out, and Constantine had outright screamed about it at first, but this was what made clear that he wouldn't merely return to Hell if he didn't speak.
His brothers could do nothing but watch and scream in horror, trapped in their summoning pentagrams, as the giant of a man began to slowly rip Abnegazar apart, piece by piece, knowing they'd be next unless they spoke.
"I'LL TALK, I'LL TALK
"Then start talking, bitch!"
Demons or not, Abnegazar and his brothers were still beings of flesh and blood. Therefore, they could feel pain if afflicted with the proper spells. Most of all, though, they hard heard of me and my exploit, and so feared me.
Therefore, the torture and I and John put them through after summoning, then capturing them worked.
And yes, that was the end of the Demons Three. You don't bring John Constantine to a torture chamber and not expect him to make sure you can't do that ever again. Them being demons helped.
So, now we had a complete physical description of Tala. Even though she didn't appear in any database, that'd be enough for VEGA to find her, it'd just take some time. Still, the discovery and the lead still didn't change the fact someone out there knew the identities of Superman, Batman, Flash, Spartan and Wolf Princess, and knowing the last two would be nothing compared to what would happen if the other three came out.
None of the heroes took the news well, and once more, it was Bruce who was the most incensed that, somewhere in the world, there was someone who knew who he was by night and his family and friend's identities, and who not even my AI find in a short time, and the only one who might have a better lead had just started her own career as a magician. Nonetheless, they acknowledged that nothing more could be done at the moment. Besides, we showed them an image of Tala.
Tala. This brings us back to the topic: why did she do it? Who or what was she working for? Not Cadmus, nor other secret organization. John guessed she was in cahoots with Trigon, but I wasn't so sure given what little I knew of her. So, why did she do it?
The truth ended up being being far from it... but also close to the one we were searching for.
LexCorp possessed technologies that would have helped the entire world, but because of its CEO those that weren't weapons of some kind were either left to gather dust or guarded so that no one could use them. Bruce and I promptly began searching through those that had more benign applications. Unlike before, he didn't raise a fuss when I took some of them, knowing that they'd be safer and away from those who'd use them for evil in the Fortress.
But the one that was... was also the thing I had been testing on Mars for several months.
The knowledge to achieve nuclear fusion.
Lex's engineers and physicists had finally managed to unlock the secret of nuclear fusion, but despite Luthor being Luthor, he didn't do anything with it that could make him even more beloved, and in fact feared it, to the point he actually had the people involved killed. The problem, of course, was that it had been commissioned by one of the most hated men in the world, and people being people, they would refuse to accept something so powerful made by someone so evil.
But what if Doom Slayer was the one to offer such a gift to humanity?
It was time for Earth to take the next step.
Another short, released early chapter because, well, read the paragraph below. So, the 'giving fusion to Earth' seems to have reached its turning point, even though it didn't come from the tests on Mars... but that's still nothing compared to the discovery of a third party represented by at least Tala that wants to stop our heroes in their tracks... for one as of yet unknown.
Those who only like the latest chapters, could you also please like the previous ones?
Finally, I'm putting the story on hiatus. No, I'm NOT going to abanding it, not with everything I have planned, it's just that I've been writing this non-stop for half a year, and even after lengthening the posting days it got a bit overwhelming, I want to focus a bit more in Seeds of War and YET ANOTHER (yeah) D&D self insert (Tales of Savagery, this time not a reincarnation SI; it's only two chapters long, though), and besides I'm going to need some time to see how to write the next arc.