The Watchtower vibrated from the energy as Brainiac's massive skull ship closed the distance. Through the viewport, the vessel loomed larger with every passing second—a nightmarish fusion of bone-white metal and pulsing green circuitry that seemed almost alive.
"Get into positions. We have to work together and keep him occupied so he can't think. " Bruce commanded, his voice cutting through the tension.
Barry smiled nervously. "Fighting an alien android is not how imagined my day would be going."
Arthur smirked . "None of us did."
Diana pulled out her sword. "Staying in home is sounding better now."
Cassie grinned. "Come on sis! We get to fight rather than being stuck at home!"
Alphonse chuckled lightly. "You are just a brute Cass. I pity the guy who marries you."
Cassie smirked and gestured at Kara who was standing next to Alphonse. "Don't get cocky just because you got a girlfriend now, nerd."
Alphonse and Kara both blushed and tried to evade.
"Um...we aren't..." Kara stammered.
"Hey, we aren't like that Cass... not yet." Alphonse added the last part as he saw Kara give him an annoyed look again.
The Justice League spread across the command deck. Clark hovered near the center, his new armor gleaming silver and blue under the emergency lights. The suit felt different—lighter yet stronger, and he could feel it absorbing sunlight faster and strengthening him.
Diana stood to his left, her enhanced armor a masterwork of Amazonian aesthetics and divine craftsmanship. Cassie took the right flank, practically bouncing with anticipation despite the situation.
Arthur gripped his trident, electricity already dancing along its prongs. The new armor felt strange—he could sense the conductivity woven into every fiber, waiting to channel power he'd never wielded before.
Hank phased partially through the floor, testing his range. For the first time in decades, he didn't feel that instinctive fear of fire. The armor gave him freedom he'd forgotten.
Victor interfaced with the Watchtower's systems, pulling up tactical displays.
Barry vibrated in place, his usual nervous energy amplified. "So, uh, anyone got a plan besides 'hit the scary robot really hard'?"
"That's usually my plan," Cassie grinned.
"It's a good plan," Diana agreed.
Bruce was already analyzing trajectory and approach vectors. His new armor made him feel invisible—even Clark's X-ray vision seemed to slide off it without catching. "Victor, status?"
Cyborg's hands moved across holographic displays, his new armor integrating seamlessly with the Watchtower's systems. "All defensive systems online. His ship is slowing down. He's... scanning us?"
"Analyzing," Alphonse said from his workstation. He hadn't suited up yet, still focused on his console. Kara stood beside him, her golden armor catching the light as she looked at him working.
"He's smart right? Smart people always analyze before engaging. He's cataloging our powers, comparing to his database."
"Alphonse, can you access Brainiac's ship systems remotely?" Bruce asked.
"I'm trying. His firewalls are adapting in real-time. It's like fighting a chess grandmaster who can see fifty moves ahead."
"How long until you can access his ship?"
Alphonse was already working, his holographic interface expanding around him. "I need at least 10-20 minutes. Maybe sooner if Cortana can directly access it."
"Then you stay back and work on that override," Diana said, her older sister instincts kicking in. "We'll handle Brainiac. I know how you hate fighting."
"I'll protect him," Kara said immediately, moving closer to Alphonse.
Cassie grinned. "Aww, how cute—"
The hull exploded inward.
It wasn't a breach—it was an invasion. Brainiac's robotic tentacles punched through reinforced steel like it was wet cardboard, each one as thick as a man's torso and crackling with green energy. They snaked inside with horrifying speed, and then he came through.
Brainiac floated into the command deck with an almost casual grace. His skeletal form gleamed with technological perfection—chrome bones wrapped in circuitry that pulsed with sickly green light. His head was elongated, skull-like, with three connected glowing circles where eyes should be.
Alphonse muttered. "He augmented himself cybernatically. Pretty cool."
Kara glared at him. "Stop praising the enemy!"
Brainiac casually observed them.
When he spoke, his voice filled with disdain came, perfectly modulated yet utterly devoid of humanity.
"Primitive beings. You have demonstrated unexpected capability by damaging my vessel."
Those three eyes swept across each hero in turn, analyzing, cataloging, dissecting. "I shall study your nervous systems extensively before adding your cities to my collection. Your defiance has earned you the honor of being conscious during the process."
"Yeah, hard pass on that," Barry said, then blurred into motion.
Barry moved first because Barry always moved first. To everyone else, he simply vanished. To him, the world slowed to a crawl as he accelerated past Mach 5.
He circled Brainiac in a tight spiral, landing precisely calculated strikes—solar plexus, neck joint, knee actuator, power conduits he could see pulsing beneath the surface. Dozens of hits in the span of a single heartbeat.
Brainiac's force field shimmered with each impact, absorbing the kinetic energy like water accepting rain.
"Subject: Speedster. Current Velocity: Mach 5.8, increasing. Impact force: 2,847 pounds per strike. Insufficient to breach primary shields."
Brainiac's head tracked Barry's movement with perfect precision. "Probability of shield breach at current velocity: 0.00003%."
"Okay, that's just rude," Barry muttered, skidding to a stop.
Clark didn't give Brainiac time to capitalize. He shot forward , his fist carrying the force of a meteor strike.
The impact created a visible shockwave that rattled equipment and made everyone brace themselves.
Brainiac's head snapped back from the blow. For a moment, he seemed stunned.
Then his hand shot up and caught Clark's follow-up punch, stopping it cold.
"Kryptonian physiology confirmed. Subject: Kal-El of Krypton. Power level: Impressive for your age."
Brainiac's grip tightened, and Clark actually winced. "Initiating subjugation protocol."
Green radiation began emanating from Brainiac's palm—the same deadly energy that had destroyed Krypton's people. Clark felt it immediately, that familiar weakness starting to spread through his limbs.
But his armor flared . Runes inscribed along the surface began glowing, and the Kryptonite radiation simply... stopped. Dispersed. Neutralized before it could poison his cells.
Brainiac's eyes flickered. "Unexpected. Kryptonite immunity achieved through magical shielding. Recalculating threat assessment."
Clark smiled, "Today's just not your day," and headbutted him.
The impact sent Brainiac tumbling backward, and Kara was there to meet him. She slammed into the android from the side with her full strength, her own protected armor allowing her to fight without fear for the first time since Brainiac captured her.
"That's for Kandor!" she screamed, striking again. "That's for my city! My people!"
Each blow was powered by rage and grief and the desperate relief of finally being able to fight back. Brainiac crashed through a bank of computers, his body leaving an imprint in the metal.
Diana and Cassie attacked in perfect synchronization. Years of training together meant they moved in perfect sync.
Diana's sword, forged in Themyscira and enhanced with Alphonse's runes, actually managed to cut Brainiac's outer shell. Sparks flew and ichor-like fluid leaked from the wound.
Cassie followed up with a punch that would have leveled a building, catching Brainiac in the chest and sending him skidding across the deck.
"Divine metallurgy detected," Brainiac analyzed even as he fought. "Olympian origin. Enhanced with runic magic. Unexpected synthesis of mythological and scientific principles."
He caught Diana's next sword strike with his bare hand. The blade bit into his palm but didn't sever it. "Analyzing composition. Attempting replication—"
Arthur's trident pierced through one of the tentacles still connected to Brainiac's body. Electricity coursed through it—not just electricity, but the power of the ocean itself channeled through Alphonse's superconductor armor.
The feedback made Brainiac's entire body convulse. Systems sparked. His eyes flickered.
"Electrical attack: 2.4 million volts. Attempting to redirect to primary capacitors—"
But Arthur's armor was already absorbing the redirected current. The superconductor design meant electricity flowed through it without resistance, feeding back through the trident with triple the force. Arthur gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
"Atlantean powers combined with advanced materials science," Brainiac's voice actually carried something like interest. "Unexpected variables continue to accumulate. Adjusting primary knowledge."
Hank didn't waste the opening. He phased, his body becoming intangible, and flew directly through Brainiac's torso. As he passed through, he shifted his density at precisely the right moments—becoming solid just long enough to disrupt circuits, then intangible again before Brainiac could counter.
Fire erupted from Brainiac's core—an automatic defense mechanism. Hank had been ready for it, expecting to flee, but his armor held. He felt the heat but it didn't burn him, didn't trigger that primal Martian terror of flames.
He could fight through fire. Hank grinned.
The realization made him bold. Hank reformed on the other side, having disrupted several key systems, and immediately phased back for another pass.
"Martian physiology. Typical weakness to fire negated by protective armor." Brainiac's analysis continued without pause. "Adaptation noted. Updating countermeasures."
Bruce moved through the chaos like a shadow. His stealth armor bent light around him, making him effectively invisible even to Brainiac's advanced sensors. He appeared behind the android, explosive batarangs already flying.
He had to ask Alphonse to make them bat shaped, despite his protest saying "It's not optimal or scientific for throwing!"
The explosions were shaped charges designed by Alphonse—not maximum destruction, but maximum disruption. They detonated against Brainiac's back, each one targeting a different system node that Alphonse had identified in his scans.
Minimal damage, but maximum distraction.
"Stealth technology superior to database records," Brainiac noted. "Subject: Batman. Tactical analysis: Primary threat despite lack of metahuman abilities."
"Whaddya know, Batman is always the prime target for evey alien invader." Barry chuckled as he ran.
"Seems fair. He is the brain of this team." Diana smirked.
Victor coordinated everything from his station, firing plasma blasts from the Watchtower's weapons while his own cybernetic systems launched their own attacks. His new armor made him feel... complete. Protected. For once, he wasn't worried about being hacked or overridden.
"His shields are down to 68%!" Victor called out. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!"
And they did. For those first few minutes, the Justice League fought with perfect coordination. Every weakness Brainiac had exploited in the past had been compensated for. Kryptonite didn't work. Fire didn't work. His superior analysis hadn't accounted for Alphonse's enhancements.
They felt like they were actually winning.
Diana's sword cut deep into Brainiac's shoulder. Cassie's fist created another crater in his chest. Clark and Kara struck in tandem, their combined might actually cracking his force field.
Arthur's electricity disrupted his systems faster than he could repair them. Hank phased through him repeatedly, each pass causing more internal damage.
Barry landed thousands of strikes that, individually meaningless, began to add up to something significant. Bruce's explosives kept him off-balance, unable to mount a proper defense.
Brainiac stumbled backward, his movements becoming jerky. His voice glitched: "Dam-damage levels: approaching criti-critical thresholds. This is—unexpected. Im-impossible."
At his console, Alphonse worked frantically. His fingers flew across holographic keyboards, lines of code cascading down multiple screens. "Cortana, run protocol Omega-7. We need access to his mainframe before he adapts."
"Running analysis," his AI responded in a smooth, feminine voice. "Brainiac's firewalls are adapting but not fast enough. Estimated time to breach: three minutes, forty seconds."
Kara kept fighting fiercely, her enhanced senses watching for any threat.
But she kept glancing at Alphonse, at the intense focus on his face as he worked. He'd made this armor for her. Had protected her. She felt her heart beating faster every time she looked at him.
For that brief, shining moment, it seemed like the battle would be short. Like Earth's heroes would triumph decisively.
"Multiple opponents with compensated weaknesses," Brainiac's analysis continued. "Prior intelligence on Justice League capabilities: outdated. Adaptation required."
Then Brainiac's eyes flared crimson, and everything changed.
****
"Sufficient data collected." Brainiac's voice lost its glitches, becoming smooth and cold again. "Threat assessment: complete. Countermeasures: calculated. Combat parameters: updated. Initiating combat protocol: Omega XL29. "
His body straightened, the damage beginning to repair itself through nanite reconstruction. "You have my gratitude. I have not been forced to adapt this extensively in 2,000 years since I met that Earthling. Your species shows unexpected potential."
"Yeah, well, here's some more potential," Cassie grinned and charged forward.
Brainiac's hand moved faster than she'd anticipated.
He caught her fist, analyzed the force behind it, and redirected it with perfectly calculated leverage. Cassie found herself thrown across the room. She crashed through a wall, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs.
"Cassie!" Diana moved to help her sister, but Brainiac was already adapting his approach.
His twelfth-level intellect had spent those first few minutes analyzing every attack, every power, every weakness.
Now he put that knowledge to devastating use.
A sphere of crimson light erupted from Brainiac's chest—a portable red sun generator, a device that should have been impossible to miniaturize but which Brainiac had perfected over millennia of collecting specimens.
The artificial radiation washed over the battlefield like a wave.
Clark felt it immediately. His powers, the solar energy stored in his cells, began draining away like water through a sieve. His flight faltered. His strength faded. The invulnerability that made him Superman started evaporating.
"Oh man..." He dropped to one knee, his armor suddenly feeling impossibly heavy. "Not again..."
Kara felt it too. The golden armor that had made her feel so powerful, so safe, couldn't protect against this. Her knees buckled. The strength fled from her limbs. She'd been weak before, when Brainiac captured her, and that helplessness came flooding back.
"Alphonse..." she gasped, one hand reaching toward where he worked.
"I see it!" Alphonse's fingers moved even faster, trying to shut down the generator remotely. But Brainiac had anticipated that—the device was isolated, hardened against hacking. "Damn it, I need more time!"
Brainiac didn't give him time.
The android's body temperature began rising exponentially. It wasn't just heat—it was thermal energy on a stellar scale, the kind of temperatures found in the heart of a sun. The air itself began to shimmer and distort.
"Warning!" Victor's systems were screaming alerts. "Temperature exceeding safe parameters! Hull integrity failing!"
The Watchtower's metal walls began to glow—first red, then orange, then white-hot. Equipment melted. Computers exploded from the heat. Even the heroes' enhanced armor began to soften under the assault.
Diana felt her armor growing hot against her skin. Not enough to burn yet, but getting there. Cassie struggled to her feet, sweat already pouring down her face.
"This is insane!" Barry tried to create a vortex to pull the heat away, but there was too much of it, coming from all directions.
Arthur's armor was conducting the heat, making him feel like he was being cooked inside his own protective gear. Hank's fireproof armor held better than most, but even it had limits.
Bruce felt his cape beginning to smolder. "We need to retreat. We can't—"
"Analyzing response time to thermal assault," Brainiac stated coldly, his body now glowing white-hot. "Measuring heat tolerance. Documenting failure points of armor systems. This data will be most useful for future collections."
The Watchtower itself began to melt. Support beams sagged. Bulkheads buckled.
They were going to die here, cooked alive in this metal coffin orbiting Earth.
Alphonse's eyes widened with realization. His armor immediately covering him as the blue light in his chest lit up. He thrust both hands forward and pulled.
His divine domain over fire wasn't just control, it was absolute authority. Every flame, every spark, every joule of thermal energy in the room suddenly recognized its master.
The heat bent to his will, flowing toward him like iron to a magnet.
His armor's arc reactor flared brilliant blue-white, absorbing the energy. The temperature in the room dropped fifty degrees in an instant. A hundred. Two hundred.
But that left everything superheated—metal still glowing, surfaces radiating stored thermal energy that would kill them almost as quickly.
Alphonse switched domains.
"Cool down!" he commanded, and water manifested from the moisture in the air, from the station's systems, from everywhere.
It cascaded over the superheated surfaces, steam exploding outward but the immediate threat neutralized. It cascaded over superheated surfaces in controlled streams, cooling them rapidly but not so fast as to cause structural failure from thermal shock.
Steam exploded outward, filling the room with hot mist. Through the fog, Brainiac's glowing form was barely visible.
"Adaptation successful," the android observed. "Subject has revealed additional capabilities. Reassessing threat level."
In that moment while everyone was blinded by steam and distracted by the sudden shift from unbearable heat to bearable temperatures, Brainiac moved with terrible purpose.
His hand shot through Hank's chest.
Not physically—that would have been almost merciful. Psionically. Brainiac's hand became intangible, passed through the Martian's armor, and disrupted his molecular structure at its most fundamental level.
Hank screamed. It was a sound of pure agony, the cry of someone whose very atoms were being torn apart and barely held together. He collapsed, his body flickering between solid and intangible, unable to maintain cohesion.
"Hank!" Diana rushed toward him.
"Martian neural structure: fascinating," Brainiac commented as if discussing a laboratory specimen. "The density-shifting requires precise molecular control. Disruption of that control results in cascade failure. Subject will dissolve in approximately four minutes without intervention."
Barry saw Hank fall. Saw his friend dying. The Flash moved without thinking, pushing his speed to the limit, racing to get Hank to safety—
And ran directly into a temporal stasis field that Brainiac had deployed in the space he predicted the speedster would occupy.
Time stopped.
For Barry, everything just... froze. He was trapped mid-step, one foot raised, his face still showing determination. He was aware, could see and hear everything, but couldn't move. Couldn't vibrate. Couldn't do anything except watch helplessly.
"Temporal manipulation," Brainiac explained to no one in particular. "The speedster's reliance on velocity makes him vulnerable to time-stopping technology. He will remain in this state until I choose to release him."
Two of their strongest fighters taken out in seconds.
The remaining heroes stared in horror. This was Brainiac's true power—not just strength, but tactical genius that turned every advantage against you.
"Arthur, Bruce, Diana, Cassie—defensive formation!" Clark tried to command, but his voice was weak. The red sun radiation had stolen too much of his power.
Brainiac pressed his advantage.
Green energy tentacles erupted from his body—dozens of them, each one tipped with nanite injectors that gleamed with technological malevolence. They struck like vipers, faster than thought.
One wrapped around Arthur's bicep, the injector piercing through his armor before he could react. He felt something cold and wrong being pumped into his bloodstream.
Another caught Bruce's leg, the nanites forcing their way through even his enhanced armor's defenses. They invaded his bloodstream, foreign and invasive.
A third grazed Cassie's shoulder, barely a touch, but enough for the microscopic machines to infiltrate.
"Initiating viral upload," Brainiac announced with the detachment of someone running a software update. "Biological and technological systems will be assimilated. Your consciousnesses will be preserved to serve as processing power for my calculations. Resistance is futile."
Arthur roared, his muscles bulging as he ripped the tentacle free. He could already feel the nanites spreading through his body, trying to reach his brain. "No! Get out of me!"
Bruce activated an EMP pulse built into his suit. The electromagnetic burst fried the tentacle attached to him and disrupted some of the nanites in his system—but not all of them. He could feel them adapting, hardening against his countermeasures.
Cassie didn't hesitate. Her eyes glowed red as she unleashed her domain of love, healing the wound before the virus could spread far. The pain was excruciating but necessary.
Diana and the wounded Cassie formed a defensive line. "When did you learn that!" Diana exclaimed.
"Dad taught me. He said I'm not using my powers properly and he beat me up to prove it." Cassie pouted.
Diana's sword blazed with lightning as she cut through tentacle after tentacle, while Cassie used her remaining strength to literally rip Brainiac's limbs off—only for them to regenerate in seconds through his nanite reconstruction.
"We can't keep this up like this!" Cassie shouted, her voice strained. The healing had worked, but she could still feel a few nanites in her system, fighting her immune system.
Victor was fighting his own battle. Brainiac was attacking him on seventeen different digital fronts simultaneously, trying to hack his cybernetic systems. Even with Alphonse's protection, it was taking everything he had just to hold his ground.
"His processing power is insane!" Victor called out. "He's running battlefield simulations, analyzing our attack patterns, hacking me, and controlling all his drones at the same time! How is that even possible?!"
"Twelfth-level intellect," Diana panted, parrying another tentacle. "He can think faster than we can move."
Barry groaned. "Self burn! It's like calling us dumb without even trying."
Clark, weakened by the red sun radiation, still tried to fight. He couldn't fly anymore, could barely lift his arms, but he was still Superman. He charged Brainiac with pure determination, relying on his armor's protection more than his own fading powers.
Brainiac caught him effortlessly by the throat, lifting him off the ground with one hand. "The Last Son of Krypton. Reduced to merely human levels by proper preparation. You are proof that superior genetics mean nothing without proper planning."
A nanite injector extended from Brainiac's palm—a thick needle gleaming with technology that made Victor's enhancements look primitive. It drove toward Clark's neck, aiming for the major artery that would carry the virus directly to his brain.
"KAL!" Kara screamed. She tried to move, tried to help, but she was as powerless as he was under the red sun radiation. Her armor kept her from collapsing, but she had no strength, no speed, nothing that made her Kryptonian.
Clark saw the injector coming. Saw Kara trying to reach him. Saw Brainiac's cold eyes analyzing his final moments.
He made a choice.
With the last of his fading strength, Clark grabbed Kara's outstretched hand—and threw her. Away from Brainiac. Away from the virus. Away from danger.
"NO!" Kara tumbled across the floor, her weakened body unable to stop her momentum.
The nanite injector pierced Clark's neck.
The effect was instantaneous. Green circuitry patterns spread across his skin like lightning, racing up his neck and across his face. His eyes, those kind blue eyes that had saved the world so many times, glazed over. The light of consciousness faded, replaced by the green glow of Brainiac's control.
Justice League watched horrified as his mind was taken over.
"Assimilation complete," Brainiac stated with satisfaction. He released Clark, who dropped to his feet with mechanical precision. "Superman is now under my control. His genetic code, his memories, his powers—all are mine to command."
Superman turned to face his friends. His expression was blank. Empty. A puppet wearing a hero's face.
"Clark..." Diana whispered, horror filling her voice.
"Clark, buddy, fight it!" Arthur shouted, but there was no response. No recognition.
"Terminate the remaining subjects, I need the Kryptonian alive." Brainiac commanded his newest slave. "She'll make a fine addition to my collection."
But before he could move, Clark's armor dissolved around him, taking away his defense. Bruce looked at Alphonse who shook his head. "I can control all my armors remotely, in case they get stolen. Now you can use Kryptonite to restrain him.
Clark moved. Even weakened by red sun radiation previously , even with his armor dissolved away by Alphonse's remote command, he was still superhumanly fast. He blurred toward The Justice league with murderous intent.
Kara saw her cousin coming to kill her and couldn't move. Her body was too weak. Her mind was reeling. After everything, after surviving Krypton's destruction and Brainiac's capture, this was how it ended?
No.
She wouldn't die here. She couldn't let Brainiac win.
But she was too weak to fight. Too slow to run.
Then Diana and Cassie charged at Clark with Bruce and Hank following behind. They managed to stop Clark. But he kept them occupied. Barry was trying to heal rapidly from his injury.
Brainiac turned his attention back to Kara , deciding that such a valuable specimen deserved his personal attention. "And now, the last Kryptonian female. Your genetic material will diversify my collection significantly. I will study how your people could have become great, had they not been so foolishly short-sighted. No more escaping this time."
Kara watched helplessly as he walked towards her step by step.
*****
Probably last one for the week as we are not even close to the bonus requirements. Not to mention the ranking.
Or did everyone vote on the DxD fic ? 🤔
Whaddya know! I just ran out of milk. Lemme go buy some....