The pocket dimension's walls dissolved, revealing the true horror.
A massive chamber with their families suspended in energy cages above a swirling black hole.
Thomas and Martha Wayne. Jonathan and Martha Kent. Barry's father.
All conscious now, terror clear in their eyes.
"Welcome to my real laboratory," Lex Luthor's voice echoed from speakers.
But this wasn't the clone they'd killed.
This was the original, standing on a platform across the chamber.
Lex wore advanced armor that pulsed with dark energy.
Father Box technology integrated into every piece.
"You've been very entertaining," he said, his voice amplified by the suit's systems.
"But now we reach the climax of my experiment."
The platform beneath the heroes' feet was actually another trap.
Artificial gravity fields, ten times Earth's normal pull.
Each step was like walking through quicksand.
"Here's how this works," Lex continued, gesturing to the caged families.
"You're going to kill each other. Starting with the Saiyan."
"If you refuse, I release the gravity fields holding your parents."
"They fall into the black hole. Gone forever."
Clark struggled against the heavy gravity. "We won't do it."
"You will," Lex replied. "Because you love them more than you hate each other."
Video screens descended around the chamber.
Each showed a different family member.
Martha Wayne pressing against her cage, tears streaming.
"Bruce! Ojaga! Don't listen to him!"
Jonathan Kent shouting, "Clark! Son! Get out of here!"
Barry's father looking directly at the camera. "Barry, save yourself!"
But Lex had calculated perfectly.
These weren't just heroes—they were sons.
Brothers.
Family.
"You have sixty seconds," Lex announced. "Then the first cage opens."
A countdown timer appeared: 00:59... 00:58... 00:57...
Bruce's divine lightning flickered with internal conflict.
Solomon's wisdom told him this was manipulation.
But his heart screamed that his parents were about to die.
Clark's reduced strength made him feel helpless.
He looked at his parents, then at Ojaga.
Barry gripped his swords, hands shaking.
Victor's systems were glitching, Father Box corruption fighting his programming.
"Do it," Ojaga said quietly.
Everyone turned to him in shock.
"What?" Diana gasped.
"Attack me," Ojaga said, his voice steady. "Save your families."
"Ojaga, no," Bruce protested. "We'll find another way."
"There is no other way," Ojaga replied. "And you know it."
The countdown continued: 00:43... 00:42... 00:41...
Tears ran down Clark's face. "I can't. You're my brother."
"You're all my brothers," Ojaga said, ki beginning to build around him.
"But they're your parents. Your real family."
"I'm just the alien who got adopted."
Bruce's voice cracked. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that."
00:35... 00:34... 00:33...
"ATTACK HIM!" Lex roared from his platform. "OR WATCH THEM FALL!"
The gravity fields around the family cages began to flicker.
Martha Wayne screamed as her cage tilted slightly.
"Bruce! Ojaga! Whatever he's making you do, don't do it!"
But maternal love was Lex's greatest weapon.
It broke heroes faster than any torture.
Clark moved first.
His punch, even weakened, sent Ojaga sliding backward.
"I'm sorry," Clark whispered. "I'm so sorry."
Barry followed, his swords cutting shallow wounds across Ojaga's arms.
Bruce hesitated longer, but when his mother's cage tilted further, divine lightning erupted from his fists.
Victor's corrupted programming forced him to fire plasma blasts.
Ojaga didn't defend himself.
He let every attack land.
Clark's punches broke his ribs.
Barry's swords carved through his skin.
Bruce's lightning burned his flesh.
Victor's blasts seared his armor.
"Keep going," Ojaga gasped through the pain. "Don't stop until he's satisfied."
00:20... 00:19... 00:18...
Their parents watched in horror.
Martha Wayne was sobbing. "Stop it! STOP IT! You're killing him!"
Jonathan Kent pulled at his cage bars. "Clark, that's not you! Fight it!"
But the countdown was almost over.
And their sons were too broken by love to resist.
J'onn had been quietly shape-shifting through the chamber's floor systems.
His Martian form slipped through microscopic cracks, heading for the control systems.
If he could reach the gravity controls, free the families...
But Lex's Father Box detected his presence.
"Nice try, Martian," Lex said. "But I planned for that too."
Energy fields erupted from the walls.
J'onn screamed as the fields solidified around him.
His shape-shifting abilities locked, trapping him in human form.
"The Father Box adapts," Lex explained. "It learns your powers and counters them."
"Just like it learned that Saiyans resist mental control."
"So I found a better way to control them."
The countdown reached zero: 00:00.
But instead of releasing the family cages, something else happened.
The platform beneath Bruce and Ojaga opened.
They fell toward the black hole, its gravitational pull inexorable.
"OJAGA!" Bruce screamed, grabbing for his brother's hand.
"BRUCE!" Ojaga caught him, but the pull was too strong.
"No!" Clark dove after them, but the artificial gravity fields held him back.
Diana and flash tried to fly to them, but Victor —still corrupted—opened a boom tube beneath her.
She and Barry fell through, transported far from the battle.
The boom tube closed, leaving her somewhere outside the city.
Military forces poured into the chamber.
Soldiers in anti-alien armor surrounded the remaining heroes.
Victor and J'onn, both damaged and corrupted, couldn't resist.
Energy restraints locked around their bodies.
"Subjects secured," a soldier reported. "Transport to containment facility authorized."
Clark was left alone with kara.
His armor began transforming, revealing its true nature.
Not just Father Box technology.
Kryptonian metal. Green energy cores.
Kryptonite armor, with transformer optimus prime tech.
"I've been preparing for this moment for years," Lex said.
"The death of the last Kryptonians."
The green radiation immediately weakened both Clark and Kara.
Clark, already reduced by Earth's atmospheric changes, dropped to his knees.
Kara's Apokolips armor provided some protection, but not enough.
"You killed my brother," Clark gasped. "You destroyed my family."
"I saved humanity," Lex replied coldly. "And now I finish the job."
His armor's weapons activated.
Kryptonite-powered energy cannons.
Father Box corruption fields.
Advanced targeting systems that had studied Kryptonian physiology for years.
"Any last words?" Lex asked.
Clark looked at the black hole where his brothers had fallen.
"Yeah," he said. "You lose."
But he was wrong.
Lex's first blast caught Clark in the chest.
Green energy tore through his weakened body.
Kara screamed and tried to shield him, but the second blast hit her as well.
The radiation was too much for their reduced power levels.
Barry tried to intervene, but without super-speed, he was just human.
Lex's armor backhanded him across the chamber.
The Flash hit the wall and didn't get up.
"And then there were none," Lex said, standing over the fallen Kryptonians.
Clark's breathing was shallow, blood pooling beneath him.
Kara reached for his hand with her dying strength.
"Cousin," she whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't remember sooner."
"Family," Clark replied weakly. "We're all family."
Their eyes closed.
The last sons and daughters of Krypton were gone.
Lex stood alone in his chamber of victory.
The heroes of Earth lay dead or captured.
Their families remained trapped above the black hole.
"Phase Three complete," he announced to his hidden cameras.
"Earth's alien protectors have been eliminated."
"Humanity is finally safe."
But in the depths of the black hole, something impossible was happening.
Two figures fell through dimensions beyond space and time.