DC: A New Beginning-Chapter 65: Savior

Rachel, who had been standing quietly in the shadows this whole time with almost no presence at all, suddenly stepped forward.

She extended her arm and gently pressed the back of her hand against the Flashpoint Superman’s forehead, sensing for a moment.

Then Rachel dropped some good news into the Batcave in a perfectly calm tone.

"He’s not dead."

"What?"

Viktor was genuinely taken aback.

There was no way Viktor couldn’t tell whether someone was dead or alive.

The explosion from that giant satellite had burned and blasted this already fragile Superman so badly that most of his skin had been burned black.

He was not breathing, and his heart was not beating either.

Batman walked over as well, activating the scanning function in his helmet, and after a moment, frowned at Rachel.

"There isn’t even the faintest brainwave activity, and no remaining bioelectric field. What are you basing that judgment on?"

"His soul shows no signs of fading away."

Rachel simply said it quietly, then showed no intention of explaining further and stepped back into the shadows.

Batman stared silently at the thin, frail-looking body that seemed like it could break apart at any moment, and suddenly said something.

"How is he?"

He was slightly stunned for a moment before realizing Batman was asking him.

"He probably is a pretty good person. He just clearly lacks experience dealing with other people."

"I’m guessing he was imprisoned by some group in that world for a very long time. He always had this obvious feeling of being on guard when he was talking to me, but deep down his thinking was simple and innocent."

Batman gave a quiet nod.

"It’s already night now, but I have equipment here that can simulate sunlight. It just needs a little adjustment to the radiation frequency."

"Bring him. Follow me."

’Oh?’

’This gloomy old bat really ordered people around that naturally?’

’And "equipment that simulates sunlight" is obviously a red sun radiation device built to counter Superman, isn’t it?’

He rolled his eyes, carefully hoisted Superman’s body onto his shoulder, and followed Batman’s as they turned left and right through the Batcave.

Following Batman’s instructions, Viktor placed Superman in the center of the floor inside a giant cylindrical room.

Then he stood with his hands on his hips and watched Batman tap away at the digital screen on his arm again.

A low hum resonated from the ceiling, and warm artificial sunlight began to fill the entire room.

After more than ten seconds with no response from Flashpoint Superman, Batman frowned and quickly swiped across the display to maximum.

Then Batman simply walked out of the room.

In just a few seconds, the temperature inside would be way too hot for any normal person to survive.

Viktor didn’t need to retreat. A few hundred to a thousand degrees of heat wasn’t worth him taking a single step back.

After more than ten seconds of complete silence, Viktor’s ears twitched. He actually caught the sound of muscle cells beginning to contract.

First, the heart slowly started beating again. Then blood began flowing through the veins once more.

The burned and rotten wounds gradually healed over. Not only did the eyelids start trembling, but the muscles all over the body seemed to swell a little.

"...He has a lot of weaknesses, sure, but with sunlight, this recovery speed is just completely ridiculous."

Viktor felt envious again.

The bio-force field was one thing, but this body under sunlight was practically cheating.

He didn’t even need basic care or bandaging, and his body just healed directly toward peak condition.

If he got hit so badly that his guts came out, Viktor would still have to find a way to stuff them back in and seal the wound.

However, this Flashpoint Superman lying on the floor hadn’t just healed back those skin wounds without a trace.

He seemed to have become a little more muscular out of nowhere.

Just as Viktor was watching Flashpoint Superman slowly recover and letting his mind wander, the latter suddenly snapped his eyes open and sat bolt upright on the floor.

He didn’t even glance at Viktor, standing right there watching him. Instead, Flashpoint Superman’s face lit up as he reached his hand up toward the artificial sunlight beaming down from the ceiling.

He murmured under his breath.

"Is this what they call heaven?"

"It’s so warm~."

Click.

Batman, standing outside the observation window, mercilessly shut off the artificial sunlight.

As the room returned to normal lighting, Flashpoint Superman snapped out of his daze and only then noticed he seemed to be in a completely unfamiliar place.

He turned his head, and Viktor gave him a casual wave.

"Hey."

"It’s you!"

Superman didn’t say another word, and his eyes immediately started charging up heat vision.

Viktor flashed forward and got right in his face, slapping a hand over those eyes as they glowed with fierce red light.

"Whoa whoa whoa! I helped save your life, you know. Is this how you treat someone who helped you?"

Watching the red color on the back of his hand slowly fade back to normal, Viktor let out a sigh of relief.

If he accidentally let this guy tear apart the Batcave, it would be a devastating blow to his and Rachel’s already tight finances.

This Flashpoint Superman definitely could not afford to pay for the damage.

Even the few million he had gotten from Oliver Queen probably would not be enough just to repair this sunlight simulation device.

Hearing Viktor’s words, not only did Superman pull back his heat vision, but he also sat in silence for a moment before blurting out with a puzzled look:

"Why did you save me again?"

"What do you mean by ’again’, I’m not the one who killed you! Didn’t I try to talk to you from the very beginning? YOU were the one who started attacking after only a few words!"

Viktor almost felt wronged enough to die.

This was the first time he had gone through a fight without really wanting to kill anyone, and that was genuinely rare for him.

Flashpoint Superman seemed equally surprised by this turn of events. He opened and closed his mouth several times before finally managing to squeeze out:

"Because you smelled very strongly of blood. You must have just killed people from our world in another timeline."

"So you probably aren’t a good person."

He let go of his hands and stared into Flashpoint Superman’s clear, simple, and slightly clueless eyes for a moment.

Then Viktor realized something. He had brought back someone even dumber than Shazam.

Batman’s reason for reviving this Superman was almost certainly to extract intelligence on Lex Luthor on the other side.

"I need to correct a few things you’ve gotten wrong."

Viktor held up one finger.

Taking advantage of the fact that the room temperature hadn’t fully dropped yet and Batman was still standing outside the observation window without moving, Viktor began working on this naive Superman.

Since the temperature in the room had not gone down yet and Batman was still standing outside the observation window, Viktor took the chance to start feeding this naive Superman some ideas.

"First, they attacked me first."

"Second, not being a good person doesn’t automatically make someone a bad person."

"Third, I used the locator I’d originally set aside to save our world’s Flash that brought you back here. The fact that you’re alive again is most directly because of me. You should show more respect to your savior."

Viktor spread both hands casually and very sneakily pointed toward Batman standing outside. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"He’s an Earthling, and Earthlings imprisoned you. But I’m an alien. Just like you, I’m an alien who had to leave my planet and come to Earth for reasons beyond my control. We can both fly. For all we know, we might even be distant relatives somewhere on the cosmic family tree."

Flashpoint Superman had never had anyone talk to him this much in one go. He stared blankly for quite a while before finally nodding.

"...You make a fair point."

...

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