CH 65: Reunion
Lex entered his mansion in New York after being away for nearly three months, and he barely had time to register the familiar surroundings before a large white ball of fluff came barreling toward him. The polar bear dog launched itself at him with enough enthusiasm that a normal person probably would have been knocked over, but Lex simply caught Fluffy with a laugh, wrapping one arm around the enormous animal while his other hand immediately found its chin. Fluffy practically melted beneath the attention, making a pleased sound as Lex scratched him, and for a few moments Lex simply stood there enjoying the welcome home. There was something genuinely comforting about it; no matter how many worlds Lex visits or how much his life changes, Fluffy remained exactly what he was supposed to be, a ridiculously affectionate pet who seemed perfectly content as long as his master was nearby.
“Hey, buddy,” Lex murmured, continuing to stroke Fluffy's chin.
Fluffy, apparently deciding that three months was far too long to make up for with a simple greeting, refused to let him go. He stayed pressed against Lex, following him wherever he moved, and even when Lex eventually settled down, Fluffy remained beside him until the large polar bear dog began slowly drifting toward sleep. Lex couldn't help but smile at that. The Essence that had brought Fluffy into his life had apparently chosen its pet-master pairing extremely well, because as strange as their relationship was, Lex genuinely couldn't imagine wanting a better pet.
“Welcome home, Master.”
Grayfia's voice came from nearby, and Lex turned to see her approaching with the same composed elegance she always carried herself with.
“Hi, Grayfia.” Lex gave her a smile. “I'm feeling a bit hungry.”
He wasn't actually hungry. After everything he had gained, ordinary hunger was hardly something that concerned him anymore, but he had spent months away from home and had come to realize something that had perhaps been too easy to overlook when he had Grayfia's cooking available every day: it was really, really good. There was something comforting about eating food prepared by someone who knew exactly what he liked, and after spending so long away from home, Lex wanted that familiar taste again.
Grayfia, however, knew him well enough to recognize that particular tone.
“What would you like to have first, Master?” she asked, the faintest mischievous smile appearing on her lips. “Dinner? Me?”
Lex's eyebrows rose, and his own smile immediately became more suggestive.
“Why not both?”
Grayfia's smile widened.
About half an hour later, the rest of the household began returning. Gwen, Kara, Sharon, and Donna came back together, while Regina had already returned to Krakoa Island, presumably having more interesting things to do there than spend her evening sitting around in New York. By then, Lex was comfortably seated at the dinner table, eating a plate of Sato Ayam that Grayfia had prepared. He had eaten the Indonesian dish several times before, but being away for three months had apparently made him appreciate it even more, and he could now understand perfectly well why Grayfia herself liked it so much.
“Oh, dinner's ready,” Donna said happily as she entered the room. “I'm starving.”
She immediately took a seat beside Lex, already reaching for some food, while Kara's attention was drawn toward Lex's plate with an almost suspicious level of interest. There was plenty of the same food available on the table, so one couldn't quite understand why she was staring at his particular plate.
Sharon sat down beside him as well, although unlike Donna, she wasn't immediately reaching for food. Instead, she gave Lex a strange look, her expression becoming increasingly curious as the seconds passed.
Gwen entered last and took a seat, only to notice that something about the atmosphere seemed slightly unusual. Nobody appeared particularly bothered, Donna was focused on dinner, Kara seemed almost suspiciously entertained by something, and Sharon looked as though she had figured something out but wasn't especially concerned about it.
Then Gwen heard it.
A faint, unmistakable slurping sound came from beneath the table.
Her eyes widened.
She looked under the table.
Then at Lex.
Then back toward the space beneath the table.
Another sound followed.
“You...” Gwen's face slowly turned red as realization finally struck her. “You guys have to do it right here?”
Grayfia calmly emerged from beneath the table as though she had simply been retrieving something that had fallen onto the floor. The contrast between her completely composed expression and Gwen's horrified realization was enough to make everyone else burst into laughter.
Gwen stared at Grayfia in disbelief while Kara looked far too entertained by the entire situation, clearly having no objection whatsoever to the unexpected development. Sharon, meanwhile, seemed completely unbothered, having already returned her attention to the food, while Donna appeared considerably more interested in finishing her dinner than in caring about whatever Grayfia and Lex had been doing beneath the table.
It was, Gwen reluctantly realized, a rather bizarre consequence of living in a mansion where nearly everyone else was involved in some kind of romantic or sexual relationship with the same man. She knew perfectly well that Lex and Grayfia were intimate; that wasn't the surprising part. What she hadn't expected was for Grayfia to apparently decide that the dinner table was an acceptable location.
“I think I might really have to start house hunting,” Gwen muttered.
“Won't you miss Grayfia's cooking?” Kara asked.
“And Fluffy?” Donna added while continuing to eat.
“And the huge library?” Sharon pointed out.
That finally made Gwen hesitate. The mansion's enormous study and library were genuinely difficult to replace, and she had grown rather fond of having such a convenient place to read and work.
“And our magic discussions?” Grayfia added pleasantly.
“And all the new stuff I'm about to bring?” Lex added, reminding her that his strange ability to acquire and create things from other worlds meant the mansion was only going to become more interesting.
“And me?” Cortana suddenly appeared, her avatar materializing nearby.
Gwen looked around at everyone who had just contributed another reason for her to stay.
“Okay, okay, guys, I'm not leaving,” she finally surrendered, raising her hands slightly. “But you guys have to stay a bit decent, okay?”
“Or maybe you could join in too?” Kara suggested with an evil smile.
Gwen slowly turned toward her and simply glared.
Kara's smile only widened.
Lex decided that was probably a good point to change the subject.
“Hey, Cortana,” he said, turning toward the AI. “Where were you all this time? I couldn't reach you.”
Cortana's expression immediately became somewhat more annoyed.
“The Tin Can with the magic stone almost destroyed my consciousness,” she explained. “Regina shut down my main servers before that oversized walking trash can could finish the job. She only turned me back on now.”
Lex nodded slowly.
“Hmm. Okay.”
He looked at Cortana for another moment before speaking privately to Raphael.
Raphael, can you check her? She's alright, right?
<Affirmative. I already ran a complete diagnostic on her the moment she came back online. There are no remaining issues that require attention.>
That was good enough for Lex.
After everyone had finished dinner and had a chance to relax, the group eventually settled down together to discuss everything that had happened during the three months Lex had been away. With so many people having been involved in different events, it quickly became less of a formal meeting and more of a household conversation, with one person mentioning something that inevitably reminded someone else of another event.
“It was a disaster,” Gwen said when the subject eventually turned toward Ultron. “Reed Richards is, after all, a renowned scientist, and we were working together on the Ultron program. Regina was always very strict about the artificial intelligence, and now that everything has happened, I understand where she was coming from. Tony and Reed both wanted it to be independent, and that's when the problems started.”
She leaned back slightly, looking more frustrated as she continued.
“Tony was still civil about it, at least, but Reed just went ahead and created Ultron anyway. Then, on top of that, he went into space the very next day with his girlfriend, her brother, and one other guy. He just left us behind to clean up after him.”
Gwen still sounded like she couldn't quite believe someone could make such an enormous mistake and then immediately leave the other people to deal with it.
“Damn,” Lex muttered. “I suppose we'll have to talk to him once he comes back from space.”
“I suppose,” Gwen agreed. “As far as I know, they'll be coming back the day after tomorrow.”
Lex nodded before looking around the table.
“So, anything else interesting happen during the last three months?”
“Not really,” Gwen said. “I found some records about magic and other things in this world and have mostly been busy researching those. I might even have to take a trip to Nepal for that, I think.”
Lex knew enough about magic to recognize that Nepal wasn't exactly an arbitrary destination for someone conducting magical research, although Gwen didn't elaborate further.
“Well,” Sharon said, raising a finger slightly, “if you can call building a new—or sort of old—team something interesting, then I've got something.”
“Oh, really?” Lex turned toward her. “Did you put together something similar to your old team from your world?”
“Yup.” Sharon looked rather pleased with herself. “I found Luna, Pearl, Aero, and Ami. I couldn't find the others, though. I couldn't find anything about Shang-Chi, and Raz is... I don't know where he is, actually. I don't know much about him at all now that I think about it. As for Cindy...” She shrugged. “Well, no one really knows her past.”
“Still, you're already what, five people?” Lex said encouragingly. “I'd say that's a solid team.”
“I went on a trip with Ajak,” Donna added. “She knows quite a lot. It was a fun trip.”
“Great that you had fun.”
“I simply managed the house,” Grayfia said when Lex's attention moved to her.
Lex then looked toward Kara.
“Don't look at me,” Kara said immediately. “I'm not doing shit. I lazed around all the time, and I'm proud of it.”
Lex couldn't help laughing. “What about that space trip? Did you find any clues?”
Kara's expression became slightly more thoughtful.
“Nope. I did meet some Alpha Centaurians. They're kind of a water race and pretty odd, to be honest, but the stellar map they had didn't have anything like Krypton, and they'd never heard of it either.” She shrugged. “But they don't seem like a particularly advanced civilization anyway, so I don't know how useful that really is. We'll probably need to find some actually powerful civilization if we want to find Krypton.”
“I see.” Lex gave her an encouraging smile. “Well, don't lose hope. I'll do a Gacha session tomorrow. Maybe we'll get a spaceship good enough to travel through galaxies. Who knows?”
Kara smiled at that, and there was a noticeable spark of interest in her eyes at the possibility.
“Now you tell us,” Gwen said, turning toward Lex. “How was the other world? What did you do there?”
Lex spent the next hour telling them about his time in the other universe. He explained the broad sequence of events he had gone through, the strange people he had encountered, the state of that world's heroes, the changes he had made there, and the people he had brought into his growing circle of allies. He didn't bother trying to recount every single detail, but he gave them enough that everyone could understand the ridiculous chain of events that had somehow resulted from what was supposed to be a seven-day trip.
When he finally finished, Sharon was the first to react.
“What a waste,” she said, shaking her head. “Even if they want money and fame, it's not like it's that hard to get those things while still being a decent human being.”
Lex knew exactly who she was thinking about. Steve had spent his life being famous without allowing that fame to turn him into a worse person, while Tony had managed to become extraordinarily wealthy without abandoning the idea that he had a responsibility to use what he had for something worthwhile. The contrast with the people Lex had described from that world was apparently enough to leave Sharon genuinely disgusted.
“On the other hand,” Donna said, “I can't believe Blackfire is actually behaving and being a good leader.”
Donna had only known Blackfire as a villain, so the idea of Kom taking governing seriously was apparently one of the stranger parts of Lex's story.
“Maybe I should visit there,” Kara said thoughtfully. “Act like my cousin. Only someone like him can bring trust back to heroism there, I think.”
There was something almost nostalgic in her voice as she said it, and Lex understood what she meant. She wasn't talking about pretending to be Superman for the sake of fame; she was talking about what Superman represented, the symbol of hope and genuine heroism that could exist independently of corporations, politics, or personal profit. From what Kara and Donna for that matter had told him about their world, he had found Superman to truly be someone who could be looked up to.
“So are you planning on bringing Hela here?” Gwen asked.
“Maybe.” Lex leaned back slightly. “I don't know. I'll decide after tomorrow, once I get some new powers or something.”
“Understandable,” Gwen said.
“So,” Grayfia asked, “are you planning on actively participating in ruling that world, or will you leave it to Miss Kom?”
“Kom, or someone else if she doesn't work,” Lex answered without much hesitation. “I've got no interest in actually ruling, to be honest.”
That wasn't really his idea of a fun life. Owning the world and personally spending every day buried under paperwork were two very different things, and Lex had no intention of making the second one his reality.
“Oh, yeah,” Lex suddenly remembered.
He reached down and produced a collection of twenty small vials, placing them on the table.
“Here's some Super Serum for you guys. I've got twenty vials. It only works on humans, though, so Sharon, Gwen, and Regina should definitely try it. Everyone else can have some if you want it for someone else; just tell me who.”
The room's attention immediately shifted toward the vials.
This wasn't Vought's Compound V. Lex had taken the original concept, combined it with the Super Soldier Serum, and—with Raphael's assistance—created something considerably more stable and powerful. It could work on adults without the grotesque failures and absurd side effects that had made Vought's version so dangerous, while still providing the kind of random superhuman abilities that made Compound V so valuable in the first place.
For the three humans among them, the offer was therefore considerably more significant than Lex's casual tone made it sound.