Weak. L heard the word even through his blind, vicious, ineffective attempt to put some kind of dent in Kal. He hated it because it was true. There was no way to deny it, when the proof was right there, staring him in the face. A non-human man of steel was simply toying with him, watching him bruise his knuckles on a body that could stop bullets. No... he had it wrong. L didn't think that he could beat him. L knew, in his heart and soul and the core of his being that was unreached by the changes that had taken place in his immediate psyche, that this was a battle fought for different reasons. He was a proud creature, in any incarnation, and the idea of simply rolling over and waving a white flag was repugnant to him.
When he felt that grip on his bony upper arm, his heart almost stopped. There was unspeakable power in that grip. He braced himself for something... anything... things that he was too repulsed to even imagine. His build was delicate, even for a human, especially for a man his age and height. Standing at five-feet-ten-inches, L weighed 110 pounds soaking wet. He was too insubstantial even to break the table he was hurled into. Instead, he could feel two sharp cracks as the table actually broke him when his side hit a sharp edge. They didn't hurt yet, but the snapped ribs would not be kind to L later. If there was a later, which he was actually beginning to doubt.
As it was, he couldn't sit up. He didn't even want to, with Kal right there, looking more than ready to knock him promptly down again.
L thought to the trigger. It was a word, one that L liked but used seldom enough that he was fully in control of his use or disuse of it. The chances of someone else saying it, in this room at this time, were also slim. But with just a word, L understood that he could level this building. And this man, if anything could. L would die, in such a blast, but the way things were going, it looked like he was going to, anyway.