Analysis and Conclusions [Superman]

[Batman]

The Batmobile roared through the streets of Gotham. He kept a steady gaze out the front windshield, not glancing over at the unconscious stranger in the passenger's seat. Not even five minutes ago Batman had encountered this strange man in an alley after trying to save a screaming woman. Batman arrived just in time to stop the man from killing one of the gang members that had harmed the defensless woman. For no apparent reason, the man had collapsed into a glossy stare and now Batman was taking him to the Cave for analysis.

The Batmobile pulled into the Batcave and stopped in the middle of the path. The door opened and Batman slid out. He walked around and pulled the other door open. Batman reached in and pulled the man over his shoulder. He walked the stranger over towards Batman's analysis center and layed him down on a bed similar to an operating table. While Batman was hooking him up to various machines, he remembered he had requested that Superman meet him here. Where was he? It was ten minutes ago that he sent the request and still no sign of the Man of Steel.

The Batcomputer whirred to life and programs began running. Batman started typing at the keyboard, putting in various commands and reading various conclusions. So far, nothing of any value came up. It concluded that the man was still alive and breathing, he was a meta-human, and that he was not from Gotham. Since he wasn't from Gotham, a name would be harder come up with. Batman heard a noise in the Cave and did nothing. It could be a number but Batman both hoped and assumed it was Superman. With his X-Ray vision, they could see just exactly was going on with this man.

[kalel]

Two ways into the Batcave and neither of them presented a fun option. Clark could enter through the waterfall and get soaking wet, or he could go through the house and face Bruce's sarcastic but stern butler, Alfred. Since Alfred was another human being who might slow Clark down in his determination to see Bruce, however, Clark opted with the waterfall. He cheated a little, using his heat vision to steam some of the water and walked through it, but there was no stopping the damp and humidity from instantly soaking his clothes. He supposed he could have just gone in in his uniform, but the uniform was easily recognized, and in this post-war world he didn't really want to be easily recognized. Of course, being the face of one side of the war hadn't really helped the situation, but that was something he could deal with. For now, Bruce had asked for his help, and after the Justice League meeting where he and Bruce had come to heads, Clark felt he probably should help his old friend out.

He slipped over the wet rocks and caught himself barely, deciding that these shoes were not proper for this environment. The roar of the waterfall behind him almost drowned out all thought as well as speech, but Bruce probably didn't want to hear what he was saying anyway as he got close enough to see what was going on. There was a man stretched out on a table, electrodes attached to him, and Bruce was pecking away at a computer, face focused in concentration. Clark stared in surprise at this odd apparition, then cleared his throat and spoke over the roar. "Do I need to ask what's going on here?"

[Batman]

"Thanks for coming, Clark."

Batman didn't turn around at the sound of Superman's voice but he did acknowledge the fact that he heard it. The Dark Knight continued typing at the computer, running computer programs that searched through police files, government records, and databases to find out the name of this meta-human but nothing came up. It was as if he didn't actually exist. This bothered Batman deeply, being that Bruce never gave up on anything. He did another search through government records and turned to look at Superman. He glanced at the man before speaking.

"I stopped him from killing a thug that had harmed a woman earlier this evening. For no apparent reason, he collapsed and has been like this ever since. His eyes are glossy and fixed into a deep stare. Plus, while he was in the alley, there were metal claws that came out of his knuckles but when he collapsed, they slid back into his hand. Use your X-Ray vision to find out what they are."

[kalel]

Bruce was clearly still feeling a little bitter about earlier. His voice was cold blunt, distant. Clark nodded slightly and moved to the man, looking down at him. He was heavily muscled, with an odd, animalistic hairstyle. He had a rough and tough face and an agile-looking physique. There was instantly no doubt in Clark's mind that this man was a metahuman of some kind, and he reached down and picked up the man's hand, inspecting it. The skin was red and raw-looking but unbroken and undamaged otherwise. Obviously there was some sort of healing power at work.

Clark activated his X-ray vision, and his eyebrows lifted the whole way around the man's body. "Tony Stark would probably like to meet this man," he observed somewhat dryly. "He has metal grafted onto all of his bones, like an internal armour. Those claws are set in casings that go nearly halfway down his arm. I would say he's pretty dangerous in a fight." He looked back up at Bruce. "You say he just collapsed? How long after the fight? Did he give any signs he was weak?"

[Batman]

Internal armor? That would explain his retractable claws and it would explain why my batarangs did hurt his wrists. Since it seems like you're doubting me, Clark, I'll explain the story again. After I stopped him from killing the thug, I turned around because some other gang members tried to escape and when I turned back, he was on the ground in a fixed stare. There are no puncuture wounds that I noticed but if he can heal himself, they'd be gone."

Batman looked at Clark in disbelief. He never asked for Batman to explain something more than once. Even worse, he seemed to doubt Batman's story. The War clearly affected Superman but it was a different affection. He was grim or dark, just much different. He had acted stern and strange in the League meeting and now he didn't believe what Batman had said. What has gotten into him, if it really was Clark at all. The possibility of a clone wasn't out of the question at all. Cloning happened almost on a regular basis, now.

[kalel]

Now Clark didn't miss the disbelief in Bruce's voice at all, and he regarded his friend with his steely eyes. "I am not doubting you, old friend. I am trying to figure out why this man just collapsed after a fight that we are figuring out should barely have affected him." He heard the annoyance in his voice and pulled it back. Now was not the time to argue with Bruce Wayne. He took a deep breath and added: "It's not any type of gas or physical injury because you would have been affected as well." Unless you knocked him out. Plausible but not too believable. "Perhaps he was sick? What are your computer readouts telling you?" He continued to scan the man over and over, using each of his types of vision. It was only when he reached infrared did he pause.

"This man is programmed," he said under his breath. The readings were right there, specific heat sources planted throughout the man's body like nodes connected to a computer. "Are you seeing anything that might suggest he's biologically engineered?"

[Batman]

Batman, while Superman was talking, continued running various tests on the man through his Bat-Computer. The only readable finger prints on his body were from the thugs he had beaten up. Batman then deduced he had recently taken a shower. That wasn't usable information, so Batman pushed it aside. He ran a blood test on the man and it came up that his blood-alcohol level was .225, signaling he both had alcohol in his body and he was over the legal limit. Batman printed out the results and layed the paper on the table next to the bed the man was on.

"He's inebriated and impaired."

Batman hadn't really answered any of Clarks yet spoken questions and he hadn't really waited for Clark to stop speaking. Batman then heard Superman's deduction and turned to look at him. Superman had asked what his readings were saying but so far, there was nothing he found that signaled him being engineered. Batman looked back at the computer and ran a test, measuring the make-up of his bones. As the test commenced, Batman waited and watched the screen. The results deducted that his bones were fully made of a substance called Adamantium, the strongest metal forged by man.

"His skeleton and the claws that come out between his knuckles are made of a substance called Adamantium. It is apparently the strongest metal forged by man."

[kalel]

Bruce clearly wasn't listening to him - or at least he certainly wasn't acting like it. Clark sighed and went back to being the cool, impartial deductor his friend had clearly called him here to be. The man being inebriated was unfortunate but given the fight Batman said he'd put up, Clark didn't think alcohol would slow this man down much, if at all.

The mention of adamantium lifted Clark's eyebrows. He'd heard of the U.S. government using adamantium before, but never on human test subjects. The fact that this man had survived definitely said something about his ability to heal. He was probably a mutant then. And Clark was pretty sure he'd just been in the same place at the same time. This was one hell of a random meeting.

"He's an experiment then. And he was just in the right place at the right time. Why are you so interested in him?" Clark gazed curiously at his friend, wondering what was going on there.

[Batman]

Batman walked back to his computer in a bit of a rush. He immediately searched for any uses of adamantium in other news stories, government files, or criminal records. He moved to a different computer screen and began searching for any and all locations that had access to adamantium or actually used adamantium. If he could find the place that did this to him, perhaps he could find out who he was. Batman was more than angered with whomever did this to a perfectly normal person.

"If someone collapsed behind you for no apparent reason, what would you do, Clark? I'm searching for anything and everything that has access to adamantium and/or used it in the past. If we find out who did this to him, we might find out who he his."

Batman walked over to his original and saw that another government experiment had a weapon made of adamantium. His name was Captain America, now, but he was the first person the experimented the Super Soldier Serum on. His shield is made of that strong metal. Batman printed the results and put the paper and put it on top of the other results he had printed. While he was in front of the bed, he looked up at the Man of Steel and began speaking. His voice was a bit gruff but had lightened up compared to earlier.

"Someone else has a weapon made of adamantium. His name is Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America. When this is through, we'll have to speak with him."

[kalel]

That was true, Clark realized. And he felt a little stupid for not having realized it before. Steve's shield was indeed made of adamantium, an unbreakable metal. But to graft that metal onto the bones of another human being was unthinkable - and sick.

Bruce's voice had lightened a little and Clark had to nod at his slight jab. If someone had collapsed behind him he would have acted too - well taken him to a hospital. Not back to his lair for experiments. But Bruce was a curious creature and Clark wasn't going to deny him that.

"Any idea on what would wake him up?" he asked. "It's wholly possible if he was engineered in some way that there's something that will trigger him." Click click click. "Or the other way around. Maybe something was said that made him collapse."

[Wolverine]

For a long time he had been out, not a thought in his mind, just blackness… emptiness and well, nothing. Now slowly his brain became active again, starting with the recent events in the alley, and working it’s way back quickly. As this happened his eyes moved below his eyelids and his hands began to twitch a bit as he did. Parting his lips he still hadn’t opened his eyes. As he spoke up, his voice had no emotion in it whatsoever, just a low gruff voice.

”Mission… failed. Unable to take out target…”

He remained laying on the table where he was, not knowing where he was, since at the moment he didn’t care, he was simply debriefing his last mission given to him by the organisation who did this to him.