A Future Sooner than Tomorrow

Vivisect the Past

There's a metal grate over the door to the gym. Stainless, pristine metal with an inner lining of lead.

Kal supresses a shiver upon seeing it.

Batman has no such qualms however and pushes the button beside the door like the grate means nothing to him. The grate slides up with ease, retracting back into the walls. Now lacking its heavy covering, the sound of thundering footsteps and hard impacts can be heard.

"How did you know that would work?" Barry asks, one of his arms slung over Lantern's shoulder for support. He has the crutches in his other hand, having insisted that it was easier having a person to support him. Lantern bears the weight easily.

"I didn't. There's just no point in staring at the door and doing nothing."

"Could've knocked," Hawkgirl says slowly. "What if the door had been wired to weaponry that would go off if pressed like that? Aren't you usually the one saying to not randomly push things?"

"I doubt any version of myself would be stupid enough to do that. If the Hall of Justice were ever taken over, the last thing I would want would be to hand them weapons on a silver platter. Besides, with the thickness of the grate, nobody would hear knocking," Batman steps through the open door. The Justice League follows.

The sound of the grate moving back into place can be heard when the last of them enter. The feeling of red sun lamps shining down on Kal's face feels oppressive and suffocating. He's barely been in the room for more than a minute, not nearly enough time to be powered down and yet he feels weak.

Automatically, all eyes are drawn to the sound of fighting.

Bizarro and Red Hood are sparring in the middle of the room, thick matts laid down messily on the floor. Hood's wrapped knuckles meet Bizarro's grey forearm with a force that makes the larger man step back. Hood advances on him and Bizarro sends out a wide swipe with his left backhand that almost sends Hood to the matts.

Hood is in a black tank top and matching pants. Unsurprisingly, he still has his domino pressed to his face and a singular gun strapped to his thigh in a leather holster. Crouched, he grins, cracking his fingers before leaping back into action. He slams his shoulder into Bizarro's chest and despite the visible weight difference, Bizarro wobbles and reels from the impact.

Bizarro is in a loose pair of joggers that are rolled up above the knee and nothing else. His panting is more than just heard, easily seen by the heaving of his bare chest.

Kal freezes and feels his teammates do the same beside him.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh isn't a new one. The sound of panting and cursing and pained huffs isn't new either.

But the sight of scars that dip half an inch into twisted muscle is.

A wide 'Y' shape is embedded into Bizarro's skin, the three lines meeting just below his rib cage. Across his back are two thick scars on either side of his spine, ends dissapearing into his hair. His arms and legs have seams down the sides and then an extra set above, below and behind the joints.

Worst of all, unlike the unsettling but precise healing of his face and hands, these ones are sloppy.

The skin folds like fabric sewn wrong, wrinkling around each deep rivut. In some places, the grey has a purple hue where the skin is stretched taut to met each other's severed ends.

At first, Kal had assumed Bizarro's injuries were the usual laceractions from fighting, the kind from a knife, sword or some such. But looking at the botched patchwork skin now, Kal has a chilling thought.

Bizarro's scars don't look like simple cuts, or act like them. Instead it looks like the skin had been peeled back as some point before being crudely sewn together.