Endless Legacy Ch. 50 (DC Comics)

A/N: Gotham City, where apparently you can't have a single interaction without being interrupted.

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Part of him was seriously tempted to play along, truth be told. This whole plan seemed so entirely ill-thought out that he was actually interested in seeing where it would go if he just let Harley and Ivy think he actually believed them for a time. There was just two problems with that. One, he’d already had a long night and suffered enough of a disruption to his plans thanks to these two and Black Mask. And two… he’s pretty sure Blackfire would have a fucking aneurysm if he didn’t call the villainesses out on their bullshit right here and right now.

Alas, if only they’d tried to make this happen tomorrow or something after a good night’s sleep… but no. It just wasn’t meant to be. That said…

“Nope.”

There’s a pause, as Ivy’s eyes narrow and Harley’s professional smile freezes on her face.

“Huh? Nope? What do you mean ‘nope’?”

Shaking his head, Lucien sighs, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We’re not doing this. Harley. Ivy. Enough with the song and dance. Why are you here, exactly?”

Harley’s face immediately falls, the blonde ‘doctor’ pouting mightily in response.

“Oh dang it! How’d ya figure us out?!”

Meanwhile, Ivy actually looks relieved, a wicked grin spreading across her face as she lifts her hands.

“I told you this would never work, Harley. Now we do it my way.”

Plants come bursting through the parking garage’s sewer entrance a moment later, but before they can reach across the intervening space, Blackfire has already reacted, tossing out a couple of her energy bolts in their direction. The plants burn and flinch back, even hissing as Ivy’s wicked grin drops off of her face immediately to be replaced by an angry scowl.

Lucien, meanwhile, stands his ground with his arms still crossed over his chest.

“You girls really don’t want to do this.”

Surprisingly, it’s not Ivy who responds to that, but Harley. She throws off her lab coat and pulls the same hammer from The Ocelot out of seemingly nowhere. Where she fits it, Lucien can’t even begin to imagine. But how she managed to sneak it in is far less important than the fact that she now has the damn thing.

“And why not, huh?! You’re the one who blew our cover, meanie!”

Lucien frowns at the sheer unreasonableness on display here. They were the ones who snuck in here. Hell, they were the ones who sold him to Black Mask for a million fucking dollars! Sure, he knew Harley was insane and Ivy was a man-hater, but for fuck’s sake, they were the aggressors here!

Still, if they want an ass-whooping, he’ll give them an ass-whooping. Lucien slowly begins to uncross his arms, his hands curling into fists as he moves to support Blackfire in facing off against Harley and Ivy.

Only… before battle in the parking garage can be properly joined…

BOOM! KATHOOM!

All four have to dodge out of the way as the sewer entrance, which Ivy’s plants had come through but not fully busted open, is suddenly very much exploded out. The massive grate bounces off the far wall of the Parking Garage as they all look at the hole that it once covered. Ivy’s plants are pushed aside by massive reptilian claws, and out of the darkness steps one huge, clawed foot and then the other.

As Killer Croc makes his presence known with a rough growl that distinctly emanates from his belly, his reptilian eyes sweep across all of them for a moment… before settling on Ivy in particular.

“Ivy… making so much damn noise tonight…”

Poison Ivy frowns, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. Her plants try to grip down on Killer Croc, try to restrain him, but he shakes them off with a titanic display of strength before stepping out fully into the parking garage. He’s huge, Lucien absently notes. Easily over seven feet tall, and twice as big in width as Lucien himself.

“… We have a deal for safe passage, Croc.”

Killer Croc snarls at that.

“Within reason, yesss… but four in one night? Excessive. Annoying. Makes me want to rethink our deal…”

Lucien blinks, having to count for a moment in his head. But… yeah that tracks. trip to The Ocelot, trip away from The Ocelot to Black Mask, trip from Black Mask back to their place, and finally, trip here.

Frown growing, Ivy grits her teeth.

“That’s-!”

The hulking monstrous humanoid crocodile cuts her off though, snapping his rows of sharp teeth at her.

“I don’t care about excuses. I want payment.”

Payment. Lucien doesn’t have to be a genius to observe the way Ivy’s eyes flicker towards him and Blackfire at that. But then, even if he never lived in Gotham in his first life, he’d heard plenty of stories. Even about Killer Croc. He didn’t know where the poor fucker came from, or how he’d gotten how he was, but he knew about the transformed man’s cannibalistic reputation.

What sort of payment would a crocodile man living in Gotham’s sewers really accept? Money? Maybe, if it was in sufficient quantities. Amenities like a portable TV? Perhaps if he was in a good enough mood. But really… the thing Killer Croc likely wanted the most was simply meat. Raw, bloody meat… and he likely didn’t care what its source was.

Before Ivy can offer them up on a silver platter, Lucien steps forward and clears his throat, drawing Killer Croc’s attention his way.

“Hello there. I imagine you don’t know who I am or where you’re standing right now, do you Mister…?”

He trails off, not quite wanting to call this creature any combination of his name to be honest. He’s not actually fishing for a proper name, so he’s kind of surprised when he gets one.

“Waylon. Waylon Jones. And is that a threat?”

The way Killer Croc’s eyes narrow makes it clear Lucien wouldn’t be long for this world if it WAS a threat. But Lucien just smiles back benignly.

“A threat? No, Mister Jones. This is an offer. I am Doctor Luke Maximillian of Gotham’s newest clinic, set up right above our heads. And I can cure you.”

Silence falls at that proclamation. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a gamble. Lucien is pretty confident in his abilities, but it was actually Killer Croc giving himself a human name that made him certain this was the best path forward. If this monstrous cannibal still considered himself Waylon Jones over Killer Croc, then perhaps there was a chance.

“… Lies. There is no cure.”

But Lucien refuses to be cowed. Still smiling, he spreads his hands apart.

“Well… what do you have to lose, Mister Jones? If I’m truly lying and can’t help you, then you can just eat me and go back to your sewers. Sound good?”

There’s a brief pause as Killer Croc mulls that offer over. Before he can come to a decision, however, Poison Ivy suddenly speaks up.

“Before you decide anything, you should know he works for Luthor, Croc. Lex Luthor.”

Lucien shoots Ivy a look at that. Was she trying to help him or sabotage him by name dropping his father? He honestly couldn’t tell. On the one hand, some villains would certainly be leery of crossing Lex Luthor. On the other hand, some like Black Mask took it as a challenge. So which was-

“Who?”

There’s a bit of a sweat drop moment among everyone else in the room as Killer Croc’s innocuous question fills the air. The massive crocodile man actually looks confused. But then, Lucien supposes it might make sense. The poor guy was literally living under a rock.

“It doesn’t matter. Who I work for is less important than what I can do for you, Mister Jones. I suppose at the end of the day, the question is… do you like your current life? Do you enjoy being ostracized from society and treated like a leper just for being different?”

There’s always the risk that the answer is yes. At which point… well, they’ll be fighting a hungry monster in a confined space. Not exactly Lucien’s idea of a good time. But worst comes to worst, he can always reset and do this all differently. Still, he’d prefer not to have to loop back if it’s not necessary…

“No. I don’t.”

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like it will be as Killer Croc, or rather Waylon Jones, makes up his mind. Slumping a bit as he loses that eagerness to fight, the monstrous man slowly nods his big bald scaled head.

“… Fine. Show me what you can do. Make me better. And if you fail… I WILL eat you.”

You know, if Lucien weren’t so magnanimous, he’d take that personally. Alas, as things stand, he doesn’t trust the clinic’s elevator to carry Waylon Jones’ weight. Which means he has to do this here… in front of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. For fuck’s sake, just what is his life?

For a moment, he considers telling them to leave. But one look at the both of them makes it clear they’re not going to listen. He also considers having Waylon tell them to leave, which seems more likely to work… but he doesn’t really want to push his luck there either or make the hulking creature more suspicious of him. In the end…

“Don’t interfere, you two. Mister Jones, come lay down in front of me, please.”

As Killer Croc lumbers over, laying himself out in the middle of the parking garage with a nervous but not exactly fearful energy, Lucien looks Harley and Ivy in the eye one after the other.

“Spread what’s about to happen around and I’ll do worse to you both than I did to Black Mask.”

He’s not sure he means that… he sort of has a weakness for women, truth be told. But thanks to his complete control over his own biology, Lucien doesn’t have to mean it in order to seem like he means it. Both Harley and Ivy stiffen at his threat, with Ivy’s lips thinning out and Harley’s eyes getting a glint of madness to them. They both definitely think he’s serious… it’s just whether they’ll take it as a challenge or a warning at this point.

Either way, Lucien drops his gaze off of them and focuses on the matter at hand, trusting Blackfire to have his back if either of the other two villainesses try anything.

First, he reaches out and touches Waylon on the wrist… sending the massive scale-covered monster of a man into a slumber. As Waylon’s eyes drift shut and he falls unconscious, Lucien feels Harley and Ivy stiffen up. Would they act if he were to kill Waylon Jones right here and now? Despite the mutated man’s threats, he has him completely at his mercy now.

… But this isn’t quite the same as the situation with Deathstroke. There, Lucien was hurting. He wanted revenge. And Deathstroke was beyond saving the moment he started making deals with the veritable Devil, really.

Waylon Jones had made sizable threats against Lucien’s life but hadn’t actually done anything to him yet aside from destroying the sewer grating. With that said… Lucien sighs, puts both hands on the hulking body in front of him, and gets to work.

Fortunately, he has a lot to work with. He’s actually excited to incorporate the better aspects of Waylon’s physiology into his own eventually, once he can figure out how to get all of the benefits without any of the downsides.

He could probably figure out a way to combine Beast Boy’s powers with Waylon’s, allowing him to shift into a far tougher, more monstrous form for a time and then shift back again. On top of that, he planned to make his skin even in his ‘normal’ form tougher, and perhaps add a layer of subdermal armor under the skin for good measure.

But that was for the future. Right now is about fixing Waylon Jones… and that, Lucien finds, is actually rather simple. He’s not adding anything to the man, so he doesn’t need extra biomass, or to cannibalize parts of Waylon’s body. Rather, instead parts of the unconscious humanoid crocodile start to slough off of him, claws and scales alike falling away.

Again, Lucien can tell that Harley and Ivy are perhaps a hair’s breadth away from interfering. Blackfire steps into place between him and them though, stopping them from getting involved or intervening in his work. Her presence might not deter them forever though, but it’s not like they’re exactly friends with Waylon or anything… and that alone is enough to hold them back long enough for Lucien to finish.

Pulling his hands away, Lucien clears his throat, causing even Blackfire to turn and look, while also stepping out of the way so Harley and Ivy can see his work as well.

“Holy shit.”

Harley, as ever, isn’t one to mince words as she gapes at what has become of Waylon Jones. The man, for he is entirely a man now, still stands at over six feet tall, and probably weighs in at over three hundred pounds… most of it muscle. But there’s no longer a single trace of his previous disfiguration on his body.

And it WAS a disfiguration. Lucien could now say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Waylon Jones had been born with a congenital medication condition, one that slowly transformed him more and more into the reptilian physique he’d had previously.

Obviously, Lucien had cured him of that condition, on top of transforming his body. With a somewhat satisfied smirk at a job well done, he reaches down and touches Waylon’s wrist again, waking the other man up and stepping back as he surges off of the floor.

“Wha- you…”

Confusion immediately hits the man as he hears the difference in his voice and brings a hand to his throat. Then, he starts to notice the rest, trailing off into speechless wonder as he stares down at himself.

“The procedure is complete, Mister Jones. You are cured. You’re welcome.”

Why yes, Lucien is rather smug at the moment. He more than deserves to be, really. Letting his eyes trail over to Harley and Ivy, he does contemplate them briefly… his previous idea of memory wiping them feels even more relevant now.

And yet… it almost feels like the moment has passed. Or maybe this is the infamous Luthor Ego talking. Maybe… maybe part of him WANTS someone to know what he can do. Even if they didn’t know who he really was, they did now know just how powerful Luke Maximillian was.

… Heh, so much for keeping a low fucking profile, he supposed.

“This is…”

Turning his gaze back to Waylon Jones, Lucien watches the other man placidly. He’s no longer worried about things breaking out into a fight. While he’d been rather generous in what sort of strength he’d let Waylon with, he’d only given the other man peak human fitness. By comparison, Lucien was far beyond that sort of thing at this point.

Still, he’s curious to see exactly how Waylon will react, now that his fondest dream has been realized.