Chương 10: Rattling Wayne

Kaelvorn genuinely wanted to point out that before Tom said the name out loud, he hadn't once expected Batman to be the one picking him up. He shook Bruce Wayne's hand out of politeness.

"Kaelvorn Thragg. Though after landing here, I noticed one of your countries shares black hair and black eyes with Viltrumites, so I looked into that country's culture and picked out a more local-sounding name for myself. Kael." He didn't hand over his actual name straight. Not the whole thing, anyway.

"This way, please." Bruce Wayne nodded, thoughtful, let go of his hand, gestured him forward, and turned to walk deeper into the building. Kaelvorn followed him into the Wayne Enterprises lobby. The place had been decorated to look understated, but the details gave it away as pure luxury. Marble floors polished to a mirror shine, a crystal chandelier overhead throwing light across the whole atrium. Employees moving through in matched suits stopped and greeted Bruce Wayne with real deference every time he passed.

Bruce smiled back at each one without breaking stride. He led Kaelvorn into a private elevator and hit the button for the top floor. Neither of them said anything on the way up. The small space held nothing but the faint hum of the elevator running. The doors opened onto a wide office at the top of the building. Bruce brought Kaelvorn over to a seating area, waved him toward a chair, and personally poured a glass of water and handed it over.

"Not entirely sure what you people prefer. Salt in it? Sugar?" Kaelvorn took the glass and didn't drink from it. Just set it down on the table in front of him. He kept his eyes locked on Bruce, trying to read something, anything, off his face. What he got instead was a warm, approachable middle-aged businessman, voice carrying an easy, playful humor. Nothing like the cold, secretive Batman he'd built up in his head.

Honestly, right now, Bruce Wayne looked close enough to a clean-shaven Tony Stark from the other comic universe that people would probably believe it if you told them. Kaelvorn had a full chest of complaints backed up with nowhere to unload them. He'd read plenty of Marvel back in his old life too, and there really was something eerily similar about Bruce's whole energy and Tony Stark's. Worse when he smiled. Bruce had no idea what Kaelvorn was building in his head and kept going, perfectly serious.

"Earth's had aliens and off-dimension metahumans show up before. This isn't a first."

"Wayne Enterprises has some quiet arrangements with the Justice League. You already know about the League, I take it?" Kaelvorn nodded.

"Been watching a lot of TV the past few days. Not much else to do." Bruce spread his hands, something between resigned and mildly put-upon.

"Can't help it. A few of them really do love the spotlight." Kaelvorn badly wanted to know which of his identities Bruce was speaking from when he said that. Unfortunately, that wasn't a question he could ask. Bruce kept going.

"So, one part of that arrangement is providing legitimate identity and placement for undocumented metahumans we've confirmed pose no threat." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Kaelvorn didn't say anything. He knew whatever came next was the actual point.

"Before that, though, I'd like to run some tests on you." Bruce's eyes settled on him, his tone careful.

"You know alien physiology tends to differ pretty significantly from ours. We'd want to understand your upper limits and any weaknesses, so we can help you integrate better, and so we can actually be useful if you ever end up in real danger." Kaelvorn's eyes sharpened instantly. Bruce seemed to read the hesitation and explained further.

"Nothing forced about it. Entirely your call." After that, Bruce didn't say anything else. He walked over to the bar cart on his own, rubbing his chin like he was deciding which bottle to pull. In reality, Bruce was watching Kaelvorn's reaction closely through channels that had nothing to do with his eyes. Ten days earlier, the man who'd dropped out of the sky carrying an unconscious Kaelvorn had given Batman a flat, wordless warning: no collecting tissue samples off the kid while he was out.

Batman had been more than a little annoyed about it. That big guy's attention to detail put the sweet idiot currently working Metropolis to shame. Not only had he read every one of Batman's usual methods in advance, he'd walked off with every discreet little gadget Batman had prepped for lifting an "alien sample" on the sly. In the end, the sum total sitting in a syringe was one miserably small drop of blood, and Batman had a strong suspicion the guy had let even that much through on purpose.

"You know I've got a hundred ways to get his sample once you're gone." Batman's voice had carried a low edge of irritation.

"Don't care. As long as he's conscious when it happens, use whatever method you want. Actually, feel free to just ask him directly." Then the man had scooped up Kaelvorn, patched up from basic treatment, and flown off. Leaving Batman standing in silence, watching the night sky.... Kaelvorn thought it over and decided Bruce's offer actually worked in his favor. He had a Viltrumite body, sure, but his own understanding of it wasn't especially deep.

Everything he remembered from the comics in his old life amounted to strong and heals fast, with no real detail on what, beyond loud noise, might actually be a weakness. Getting a real read on his own body through testing wasn't a bad outcome for him either. Better than some future opponent quietly pulling out a counter he didn't even know existed and using it to gut him from nowhere. Besides, whether Batman got his sample now or later was really just a question of timing.

Kaelvorn wasn't in a position to kill him over it, so what difference did a few days make.

"Fine." Kaelvorn nodded, decision made.

"I'll do the tests." Bruce turned back around, satisfaction plain on his face.

"Good. The lab's on the other side of this floor. We can head over now." He stood and led Kaelvorn deeper into the office. On the way, Bruce asked, tone almost too casual.

"I know you're from Viltrum. Honestly, I find the planet fascinating. Mind telling me more about your culture? Your fighting methods, say. The actual mechanics of how you conquer other civilizations." Kaelvorn's step caught for half a beat, then kept moving. He knew exactly what this was. Bruce had finally started digging for the real information. He didn't push back, and he wasn't planning to load this guy up with lies either.

"Before I left, our planet was in the middle of a civil war that had been running for years. It warped part of our elite education system into something even worse than normal." There was an unhidden disgust in his voice.

"From birth, we're taught that being weak is the original sin."

"As kids we get thrown into training camps to kill each other. Whoever's still standing at the end is the only one who gets developed further." He paused, then kept going.

"Once you're an adult, you get sent out across the systems to conquer whatever civilizations get assessed as worth it."

"Our method's simple. Send a small strike team in first, take out the enemy's military core, then move to a full-scale occupation. Any civilization that resists hard enough, we exterminate outright. No exceptions." He let the silence sit for a moment, then deliberately slowed his pace and laid out the ugliest, most bloodthirsty parts of Viltrumite culture in full detail.

"Last I knew, one of Viltrum's factions had come up with a nastier refinement of the whole thing."

"Send a single powerful warrior to whatever planet needs conquering. Have him disguise Viltrum's civilization as something friendly and helpful. Spend years earning the locals' trust, let their guard drop completely, and then one day, without warning, take out the planet's most critical defenses." Kaelvorn turned his head just enough to catch Bruce's expression, which had gone the color of a burnt pot, uncertainty written all over it.

"Honestly, it's a brutal plan. Also a genuinely good one. You can conquer an entire civilization with a single warrior this way, and it cuts Viltrumite casualty rates way down, because a direct invasion tends to trigger the fiercest resistance you'll ever see."

"One slip, and even a seasoned team of powerful warriors can go down hard." Bruce, on reflex, raised an objection.

"That kind of time investment seems..."

"Oh, our lifespans run long. I hear you people think a hundred years is a big deal on Earth. A Viltrumite warrior, someone like me, serves a term of five thousand years after the coming-of-age ceremony. Just the active service part." Kaelvorn caught the exact moment Bruce's heartbeat kicked up a notch. It was only right then that Kaelvorn understood how hard Bruce had been working to keep Batman and himself looking like two separate people.

That kind of control, tight enough to fake even his own emotional responses. If Kaelvorn hadn't kept his memories from a previous life, he probably would have bought all of it, filed Bruce away as nothing more than an eccentric, curious rich man. +40 advanced chapters on Patreon [email protected] /YATOOO For 24H, get 30% off your first month of " Celestial" with code 33B08. Not satisfied? Full refund, no questions asked. 🔥