Cambrian
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Endless Legacy Ch. 56 (DC Comics)
🕑 Added 2024-11-21 16:39:22 +0000 UTCA/N: Lucien comes clean.
-x-X-x-
Fuck it.
“My father only ever bothered to pay me the slightest mind on my birthdays. Each year, he would cart me out to have some tests run on me to see if I was suddenly worth anything. Mental, physically, medical… you name it. It was my one chance per year to try and convince him that I was actually worthy of being his son for once. I failed to do so for the first fifteen years of my life.”
Batman watches him quietly as Lucien gathers his thoughts. Obviously, the Caped Crusader could tell Lucien was going somewhere with this.
“This birthday, however, was different. It’s like you said, I got powers and with those powers, I was able to cure my general sickliness. I was able to make myself normal and run through his tests pretty easily, doing better than I ever had before. At the end, he even graced me with a rare handshake. It was then that I found it. There was something in his head… a nanochip. After doing some research, I believe this means that the Lex Luthor who presided over my testing and who has been seen publicly these last few months… is a clone.”
That, Lucien can tell, gets Batman’s attention in a big way. Not really wanting to throw Mercy under the bus completely if he doesn’t have to, Lucien hurries on before Batman can ask how exactly Lucien knows the nanochip means it’s a clone.
“But things get weirder than that. Because the clone isn’t just ignoring Superman like you’ve mentioned. His prioritization in general is completely off. This whole clinic was made with his approval, technically, but it was also slipped under his nose so he wouldn’t pay too much attention to it. And yet, he should know about it. He should know by now that LexCorp finally has a foothold in Gotham, even if it’s a charitable one.”
Shaking his head, Lucien grimaces. It doesn’t make any sense. It would be one thing if the Lex Clone was just as obsessed with Superman as the real Lex Luthor was. It would maybe make some sense that he would be ignoring what was happening in Gotham if one of his plans to kill or leave Superman in disgrace was nearing fruition.
… But if Batman was to be believed, then the clone wasn’t even going after Superman. Hadn’t been, even before Lucien came back in time. God, he wished he knew what was going on, but while he’d known that Lex Luthor was corrupt as they came and involved in some truly insane shit back in his first life, it wasn’t like he’d had a front row seat or anything. A lot of the battles between good and evil that Lex Luthor was involved in had happened behind closed doors and in the shadows.
Lucien knew that at one point in the next few years his father would become President if nothing changed, but before that, he was completely in the dark. What the hell was going on here, really?
“The thing is, him letting this clinic slip by him is one thing. But it’s been almost a day now since Poison Ivy’s creations very publicly attacked this place. It even showed up on National News. And yet… nothing. He hasn’t called, he hasn’t shown up unannounced. It’s like he doesn’t even care.”
Sighing, Lucien spreads his hands apart and shrugs at Batman. Truthfully, the man was becoming less and less scary as time went on. There was a reason that the cowled vigilante wasn’t using his usual tactic of dangling Lucien off of a rooftop by his ankle, after all… he couldn’t. Lucien didn’t pretend to know every trick up Batman’s sleeve, but at the very least, he thought he could flee from him pretty swiftly, even if he couldn’t take him down personally.
And yet, even as the fear fades away, Lucien acknowledges that Batman might just be the answer to all of his current questions. Setting the man after his father’s clone was a far better idea than Lucien trying to get to the bottom of all of this himself.
“That’s all I know, Batman. I don’t know what my father is planning, because as far as I’m aware, I can’t even tell you the last time I saw or talked to the real Lex Luthor in the flesh.”
Batman seems to take this at face value, because the next question that comes from the Caped Crusader is a completely non-sequitur.
“What exactly did you do for Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy?”
Seriously? On the one hand, it was reassuring that Batman didn’t immediately know the answers to those questions. On the other hand, it was a little irritating that the masked man had managed to make the logic leap from his kidnapping at the hands of the two villainesses, to them ‘letting him go’, to Ivy attacking the clinic the next day, to Lucien making some sort of deal with her and Quinn.
But… whatever. He considers lying about it, but he frankly doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong with either woman. He helped them sure, but not in a way that would make them better at hurting other people. Just like with Waylon Jones, Lucien didn’t feel like he had anything to be ashamed of, so why not just tell the man the truth?
“For Harley Quinn, I removed the Joker’s influence by taking all of her memories of her time with him and fading out the emotion from them. Effectively sapping the color and turning them black and white so they no longer held any emotional weight for her. For Poison Ivy, I fixed her infertility problems due to the toxicity from her powers. She’ll be able to have children now, albeit children who will inherit her metahuman abilities no matter what.”
There’s a pregnant pause as Batman just stares at him intensely. Lucien tenses, preparing himself for more questioning or even a fight. But finally…
“Stay out of trouble, Lucien Luthor.”
What?! That…
“That’s it? No ‘get out of my city’?! No ‘stay out of my way’?!”
He knows he shouldn’t be provoking the Caped Crusader, even if he’s rapidly losing his fear of the man. However, Lucien can’t help the questions as they spill out of his mouth. Batman pauses and looks at him intently again.
“… So far, you’ve been a net positive on my city. As much as this clinic is a cover for you, you have been running it consistently and cleanly so far, without a trace of harmful corruption. Waylon Jones has a lot to answer for… but so long as he doesn’t go back to eating people and you don’t have him committing crimes, I’m willing to leave him working for you. Finally, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are as much victims of their own mental maladies as they are criminals. You helped them with their problems, but you didn’t help them commit further crimes.”
Well… damn. Lucien couldn’t help but feel a little faint after all that praise. Batman might as well have come out with a fucking gold medal, or maybe the Key to the damn City.
“And I really don’t think I have to tell you to stay out of my way when it comes to the investigation into your father. From the sound of things, you don’t want anything to do with Lex Luthor, clone or no. Am I correct?”
Lucien barely has to hesitate before he’s nodding.
“You’re correct. I’m more than happy to wash my hands of that whole situation and leave it up to you.”
Batman simply nods at that.
“Then as I said, stay out of trouble.”
Before Lucien can even think of a response, there’s a sudden sound behind him. He whips around, thinking that maybe Blackfire has shown up and he needs to stop her from creating a mess by launching herself at Batman… but there’s no one there. When he turns back around again however, there’s no one THERE either. Batman has disappeared without a trace, just like he showed up.
“… How the fuck did he do that?”
Still, part of Lucien is a little relieved because… it didn’t seem like Batman had caught his last little lie. It’d been a bit of a risk, lying to the Caped Crusader after the threats and being caught out trying to mislead him earlier in the conversation. Lucien had turned every last bit of his powers towards hiding his true feelings in that moment, making sure his facial expression, verbal tics, and all around mannerisms were completely innocuous.
Because… the truth was, Lucien did have a dog in this fight. He was not in fact more than happy to wash his hands of the whole situation and just be done with it. There was one thing… one person, rather, that Lucien still cared about wrapped up in all of this.
Mercy Graves.
Frankly, it was nice to receive confirmation that Batman wasn’t truly omniscient or anything. The man didn’t know everything, despite his pretty damn good act of being all-knowing and ever-present. He could be fooled; he could be tricked. And more than that… he could just be completely unaware of certain aspects of his targets.
After all, there was no way that Batman knew about Death or about Lucien’s ability to reboot or the fact that he’d done so twice before. That sort of cosmic bullshit was hard for even Lucien to wrap his head around, and he was living it!
With an explosive breath, Lucien straightens up and glances to his phone… then, he glances around the room and shakes his head. From the sound of things, Batman hadn’t been listening in on his and Mercy’s conversation before he’d shown up like he did for the interrogation. So his phone was still probably safe, considering it hadn’t left his possession. But Lucien wasn’t an idiot. There was absolutely no way that this room and indeed the entire clinic wasn’t bugged to hell and back now that Batman HAD been here.
With that in mind, he makes for the roof and takes off a moment later, flying up into the air as high as he can get before finally placing his call. Mercy deserved the heads up. She needed to know what he’d just learned if for no other reason than to be informed enough to keep her safe.
Lucien didn’t think that Lex Luthor would ever harm Mercy, truth be told. She was his most loyal soldier, his right hand woman. He relied on her far too much to ever do away with her. However, this Lex Clone was clearly a poor copy. He didn’t care that a building with his name on it had been attacked. He didn’t seem to care about Superman either.
Really, Lucien was starting to suspect that Lex wasn’t even behind this clone or his own disappearance. Mercy hadn’t known the real Lex had been replaced after all. That was the first clue that something was up in hindsight. Still, one thing was for sure… this clone couldn’t be trusted to truly act like Lex Luthor beyond a surface level. And that meant Mercy might be in danger.
He would warn her, and then he would wash his hands of all of this, hopefully. Let Batman and his pals in the Justice League deal with all that bullshit. It was way beyond Lucien’s pay grade.
-x-X-x-
“This is…”
Barbara rarely finds herself at a loss for words. And yet, when it comes down to it, most of the time it’s because of Bruce. Still, she hadn’t been expecting him to come back personally after how he’d vanished on her earlier with just a cryptic ‘I think it’s about time I had a talk with Luke Maximillian.’ Sure, he had SAID he was going to regroup later with her and compare notes… but frankly, it was less comparing notes and more him finally dumping the truth on her head.
“Luke Maximillian is the bastard son of Lex Luthor… and Lex Luthor might have been replaced by a clone who doesn’t seem to care about either his business OR his obsession with Superman.”
Bruce nods, a frown on his face.
“Yes. Luthor has replaced himself with clones before. He’s even gone so far as to pass those clones off as culprits for his crimes in order to avoid jail time. But this seems different. Normally, his clones are carbon copies of the original. This clone though seems to be rather shoddily designed if he’s ignoring some of Luthor’s key personality pillars like this.”
That was all well and good, and Barbara understood why Bruce was investigating this so hard. But at the same time…
“Why even put me on this case, Bruce? You said this investigation has multiple layers to it, but from the look of things, you’ve managed to completely uncover every last one of Lucien Luthor’s secrets. You even got him to spill the beans on what he did to Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy yesterday.”
She didn’t really know what her role in all of this was anymore. Sure, she had her legs back… but for a potential global problem like whatever this Luthor clone was up to, Bruce would probably need her in her role as Oracle. Now that they knew exactly who Lucien really was, she didn’t see any point in continuing the honey pot scheme as Hope Laville.
Though… Barbara was secretly glad that Lucien had turned out to not be a veritable monster or anything. Yeah, being Lex Luthor’s son was bad, but it wasn’t Lucien’s fault who he was born to. More than that, his actions as Remedy in Jump City and then here in Gotham seemed to be the actions of a relatively moralistic person. He was a decent man, from what she could tell.
“I think Lucien Luthor is still hiding something. He evaded the bugs I left behind in his clinic by flying an entire mile straight up to place a call… to Mercy Graves. Unfortunately, we don’t know what was said in that phone call, but that does mean he was able to successfully lie to me when he told me he was ready to wash his hands of this whole situation. And that means we have no idea what else he lied about.”
Barbara winces at that, absorbing that new information for a moment. Okay, so maybe not as decent as she was obviously hoping. Still…
“It could be relatively innocuous. You knew that someone high up in LexCorp had to be helping Lucien fly under Luthor’s radar. Perhaps this Mercy Graves has a closer relationship to her boss’ son then we thought.”
Bruce ponders that for a moment before grunting.
“The name Mercy Grave is synonymous with Loyalty to Lex Luthor. I’m not sure even a son could shake that.”
But Barbara is quick to point out the obvious.
“Unless she knows something is up and that the Lex Luthor she’s currently working for is a clone that wasn’t created by the real Luthor. In which case, her loyalty would by default fall upon the son, right?”
From the way Bruce tilts his head, it’s obvious he’s already considered that possibility.
“Perhaps. But we need confirmation. That’s why I want to leave you on Lucien Luthor and see if you can extract a bit more information from him. Don’t get me wrong though, this is not an order Barbara, it’s a request. If you think it’s a waste of your time and resources, then say the word and we’ll reposition.”
Barbara hesitates. On the one hand, whatever was happening with Lex Luthor could wind up involving the Justice League, and they would need her as Oracle to help coordinate. On the other hand, part of her did still want to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Lucien Luthor…
Comments
Loki's Brand
Right? If he was 100 miles up, then how did Mercy hear him talk? Because 62 miles up is where freaking SPACE begins. Dude literally flew into orbit for a phone call. Not to mention that unless he's using a satellite phone, or some sort of schizo-tech phone, there's no way it has the range to reach a tower from a hundred miles up. Your typical cell phone only has a signal range of somewhere between 1 and 3 miles. It might be better if Cambrian changed that to a hundred meters or something. It would make a whole lot more sense and would actually be physically possible.
Nanaya7Nights
Or be honest enough to win him over.
Belly
That or she pulls a superman and just puts on some glasses and hopes it works Lucien: "what are you doing here supergirl l?" Kara; "what, no I'm not supergirl, I'm just you're new secretary l/reporter to do an interview" Lucien: you know that disguise is stupid and I wonder what's in the water in that city you app live in that fools everyone that hebisnt superman" Superman: ........ Kara:...... Powergirl and batman; just smirks and says "I told you so" to superman
Nat
All aboard the Barbara lewd train!
Rapthorn2ndform
Kara: no, i'm... the question... Lucian: Ah yes... the Question... well known for his cute face, feminine build and ability to fly.
Robert Brown
Well he technically did succeed.... it's just he ended up ratting himself out unintentionally shortly after he successfully lied to Batman.
Jeremiah Broshar
I more meant that it would lead to something happening to Mercy, then Lucien upstanding individual that he is would feel guilty and do something about it. It is unlikely though yeah. I also forget that we on Patreon have such an impact on the path that the stories can take. I read most of the current story polls on Scribblehub originally.
Dr.Dragon
I doubt it. It could cause issues but if it was potentially fic ending or waifu dooming, Cambrian would have had us vote on it so he could say it was our fault and laugh at us.
Cambrian
good catch, fixt!
cipher43
Plot twist: because Lucien went atmo to make his call to Mercy, both Superman and Supergirl heard it. Supergirl decides to go undercover, "discreetly" tailing him while wearing a bowler hat, overcoat, dark glasses, and fake mustache.
Touch
Edit have come out with a fucking gold “metal” Gold medal?
Jeremiah Broshar
I have a feeling that call to Mercy will backfire on Lucien in the same way his mixing raven's biology into his own did.
DocteurNS
I kind of hoped Lucien would be the one telling "Hope" that he knew she was lying about her identity.
Phraxius
"He evaded the bugs I left behind in his clinic by flying a hundred miles straight up to place a call..." A hundred miles? He sure takes his privacy seriously.
SomeFox
I pick the second one because it allows Lucien the chance to increase his good rep with the superheroes while also still having the chance to get good rep with villains by healing them of their physical or mental problems. Like Mr. Freeze and his wife or Mary Dahl.
darth_potato
Honesty begets honesty if they want honesty they need to be honest with lucien as well
Smile Dip
It's pretty reasonable to assume Batman has ways to track calls going in and out of Gotham, at least in a targeted fashion. That'd have to bounce to a local cell tower or satellite, leaving a low‐ish number of things to tap so he could at least scrape something like a caller ID.
Rapthorn2ndform
I would have been ok with the MC hiding q bit from Batman but I LOVE the fact that he THINKS he succeeded but didn't.
Nanaya7Nights
Barbara now knows that Lucian can read people's biology by touch, so he would know that the person he met doesn't match the natural hair and eye color for Hope. As such, he would be suspicious of her. Approaching him as Barbara and admitting to researching him to find out if LexCorp was up to something shady, is the best way forward. She can pretend to believe he is a good guy (which she does to some degree) and that she wanted to thank him as her real self for helping her get back to her career as Batgirl. She can also show interest in working with him to heal other heroes. This would allow her to get closer to him in order to see if he has any connection to Mercy. And it is a strategy she might consider given that he had no issue working with & romancing a heroine (Starfire).
Neolibwill
It’s got to be number 2. 3 is out because Barbara is stubborn as a mule, no way she leaves a job half done, especially a job this interesting. And 1 is out, because if Lucien has the ability to convincingly lie to Batman, there’s no way her false identity is going to hold up.
