Wait, There’s Another Wayne?

Whooshing in the night, Matthias discarded his disguise as Remy, and reached towards a certain rooftop of some tall building. There, he took out a duffle bag hidden in the darkest corner on the roof, and took out his Wraith gears.

Finishing suiting up, he took out his phone, and tapped it a few times until it shows the entire map of Metropolis. The map has a large beeping dot placed on it.

“Good, the tracking bug I threw towards that car can direct me to where Carmen’s hiding.”

Matthias then continued to move, following the red dot on the phone.

After about fifteen minutes, the red dot stops at a place, and Matthias also finally able to catch up.

On the signaled red dot was a luxury house, complete with a pool, large garden, roof garden, et cetera.

“My luck didn’t bring me something good on that auction, but perhaps it’s because the good stuff was never there in the first place. Man… I really want that Longinus Spear.”

Arriving near the house, Matthias boost his stealth abilities as well as his luck, and he entered the premise silently.

Several guards were put on the outside, but there were not many of them so they don’t really pose a problem to Matthias.

Matthias sneaked in through the side.

Inside the house, he can see several glass walls and the like displaying many kinds of different old porcelain plates, statues, ancient knives, and more.

‘So this guy is a collector then.’

As Matthias treads his path within Carmen’s abode, the former finally found the latter was on his phone, circling around as if in a panic. He was having a phone call, and yet when Matthias focused on his face, he can see Carmen looks terrified.

“Y-yes sir, the auction failed… N-no-no sir, it’s the Japanese group, they found out the dragon statue was a fake… Uh, I don’t know how they found out about it, sir, but my guess was that someone might have tipped them… I-I’m sorry sir… Yes, sir, I still have the real artifacts with me…”

The call went for nearly ten minutes, until Carmen finally closed the call and hurriedly walked towards a certain room. Matthias who was waiting, followed suit.

It was some sort of a specialized room; every corner of the place seems to be coated with a certain metallic wall, and it’s completely sterile.

Carmen approached a certain spot on the wall; a panel on the side was placed there, and Carmen put his hand on it and pressed the buttons. And then, the wall opened, revealing another room that shines with bright light as it opens, and it looks small sized.

‘This is getting too slow, so let’s intimidate him.’

Matthias boosts his black mist ability and expands them to fill the small bright room.

Carmen did not realize the whole room was coated in black mist as he keeps on walking towards the very end of the room where a certain glass display made of reinforced glass was located. The glass display is transparent, but the inside was dark contrary to the entire room (before Matthias’ mist shrouds the entire room.)

It was only after Carmen took out what seems to be a key did he realize that his surrounding seems to be dimming off of light.

“What the hell!!!” yelled Carmen whilst he looked around to see everything nearby was shrouded in this terrifying black mist.
He recalls of the news where the local gangsters in the Southside area’s slums were slaughtered in cold blood by what the public has been calling as the “Wraith”, and that this Wraith was also able to escape from Metropolis’ protector, Superman.

“… Hello, Mr. Carmen Grant…” said the Wraith, his voice so low and so ghastly that Carmen can feel his blood draining from his face.

“Sta-stay away!”

“Before that… I have a question for you…”

Carmen then saw a shadowy figure clad in black approaching from inside the mist. Carmen can’t feel the strength on his two legs, and he supported his body on the glass display behind him.

“Carmen Grant, just forty minutes ago you planned to sell a certain item… the Spear of Longinus, or rather well known as the Spear of Destiny.”

Hearing this, Carmen’s face feels colder, and he can only nods rapidly.

“Here’s the thing… it was a FAKE, wasn’t it!” Wraith roared.

“Eeeek!!! I’m s-sorry! I-I s-swear, I don’t know anything about the Spear! I was only given a-uhm, a task to sell those artifacts on the auction.” Carmen stuttered, shaking in his boots.

‘Hmmm? So he’s not the mastermind?’
“Then who ordered you?”

“I- I, uhh…I- I- I’m uhhh… Umm.”

“SPEAK! Or I’ll cut your tongue if you don’t need them…”

“Eeeek! W-wait! I-I don’t know! I’m sorry but I don’t know! Several months ago, I was contacted by a group of people dressed in suits, and they offered me a deal. I was only ordered to sell the stuff I was given to them, but I don’t know for what reason! P-please believe me…”

Wraith, or rather Matthias, was stumped. Who was it that gave order to Carmen? And why selling fake artifacts? What’s the motive? Is it new enemy Matthias knows? Especially considering he has the knowledge of the DC Universe in general.
But, what’s in Matthias mind right now was: So even with my maxed luck, I can’t even have the Spear on that auction, huh…

“So this means you never actually have any real artifacts, right?”

“B-but I do! The ones in the display behind me are genuine!”

“Hmmm?”
And wraith finally focused on the display behind Carmen. It was dark, but since some light in the room shone through the glass, he can see some… things…
“Light the display. I want to see what’s inside.”

Carmen nods rapidly, and crawled away from Wraith towards a certain corner beside the glass display. He pressed something there, and the display lit up.

Inside, were two rocks and a ring, all three shinning in yellow, red, and white.

“… what are these rocks?”

“I don’t know. They were excavated on Egypt. My sources told me that it was a several thousand years old minerals that contain some sort of alien-like metal composite. I’ve heard the local scientist have been researching these minerals, and they said it was some sort of metal.”

“And the ring?”

“I heard it was also made with the same material, but the process was unknown, considering that the material’s purity did not drop in the making of the ring.”

Hearing this description from Carmen, Matthias feels like he knows what material these rocks and the ring are, but he needs some confirmation.

“… does it have a name. The materials of these, I mean.”

“Umm, well, I heard that the scientists called them the “Nth Degree Metal”, or rather “Nth Metal” for short.”

‘The Nth Metal! One of the strongest element ever in any Comic universes! I must have them.’
“How did you get these items?” Wraith asked, yet his voice seems like it’s getting lower and growlier.

“I-I’m a merchant… so… I have my way to have these things… for my collections…”

“Then I’ll be having these.”

“W-what?! N-no, these are my collections! You can’t-”

“-Sorry Carmen, but you don’t have a choice.”

“WAIT! W-wait… I’ll give you something else…”

Carmen then ran towards a certain corner of the room where a small box was located. Matthias did not notice the box, but he keeps his eyes on Carmen in case he did something. But then…

“H-here! I can give you these in exchange for the minerals.” Plead Carmen as he handed out a glass box filled with what seems to be a green shinning rock.

“… that rock, how did you get that.”

“Huh? Do you know this rock? It was given to me by those men in suits I told you before.”

“Are they related to the military? The men in suits, I mean…”

“I-I don’t think so.”

… “… I see. Well then, Mr. Carmen Grant… Good night.”

Wraith gave a quick chop on Carmen’s neck, and the latter fell unconscious.

…

Back in the safe-house, Matthias dropped the result of his “looting” unto his workbench, and he sat down to inspect them.

“Two rocks containing Nth Metal, a ring made of Nth Metal… and a Kryptonite.”

Matthias kept pondering about the situation at Carmen Grant’s home.
After he had finished looting the rocks and ring, and the Kryptonite, Matthias gave an anonymous tip to the police of the location of Carmen Grant. Considering that he has a severe track record of being an infamous con-man, Carmen will have a hard time escaping from being imprisoned. But one problem approaches.

“Carmen was approached by men in suits, who gave him this small piece of Kryptonite perhaps as a payment for doing the auction for the fake artifacts. And the only one I can think of to be able to provide any sort of a Kryptonite mineral as Payment, is no one else but Lex Luthor…”
Matthias mumbled, his brain working overtime with the help of his boosted intelligence.

He has been thinking of what Luthor might have been planning with using Carmen to sell fake artifacts, especially making him selling a fake Spear of Destiny.

“Is he looking for the Spear? Is his goal being to lure someone who knows about the Spear?”

But no matter he kept thinking, no real answer came.

“Well, at least I have these Nth metal materials. I can use these to create better gears. Now let’s have that warehouse I bought in Southside to work these materials.”

And with that, Matthias continued his work.

…

“Sir Luthor, Carmen Grant was taken to custody.”

“And how did this happen, exactly?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Lex Luthor and his female assistant, Jenny, were in Luthor’s office. Luthor was facepalming as he heard this news.

“*Sigh...* Tell them to clean this up. I want no trace pointing towards me.”

“Yes sir.”

Jenny walked out of the office, leaving Luthor alone.

“Curse my luck…”

Luthor then walk out of his office, and towards his lab located on the basement of the LexCorp Tower.

Luthor entered his personal laboratory dressing in a white lab coat, and he approached what seems to be an alien space ship at the center.

He then approached the supercomputer near it; the screen looking like it was computing something.

“I need to finish dismantling this craft, and then I can start over.”

Luthor sat down and began typing something on the computer. The screen shows a display of progress. In it, was a certain virtual ‘button’ that he has been avoiding all these time since he first began his research on the ship.

This virtual button first appeared when Luthor was researching the ship, and it looked like some sort of a ping. But ultimately, Luthor had no idea what this virtual button function as, and he don’t want to make any unnecessary risk in pressing it. But…

“At this point, I don’t think I cared anymore…”

Having his plan ruined before it even began, Luthor finally had it. He doesn’t care about any unnecessary risks anymore, and so Luthor then began steeling himself to ‘press’ the virtual button from the computer.

*Click*, and he waits…

… But nothing really happened.

“*Chuckles*, heh, Hahahah… in the end, there’s really nothing about this button, huh?”

Just after that, the alien ship began making some sort of a signal, and with a ping, his computer also began making weird sound.

“W-what's going on??”

After less than a minute, the weird sound stops, but the pinging still continued.

Then, the computer starts typing on screen using a language and font that does not exist in any human history… but Luthor knows this language…

“Kryptonian language? … oh no, what did this ping signal?”