Construction crews waited on the sidelines as the spectacle of reporters and glory-hounds once again took center stage. Lois looked to Jimmy snapping photos and rolled her eyes eager to get her take on the story. It was all tied into the old Kramer building towering before them. Built in 1912, it was one of the oldest surviving structures in Metropolis, and after months of haggling, it was now going to be knocked down in the pursuit of progress. The old thirty-floor structure standing over the Old City Square had been condemned. No one except for vagrants and stray animals had lived in it for over a year. Oliver Queen from Queen Industries got the signal from the city councilman to proceed with the ceremony of razing the antedated structure. Oliver made one more look around and stepped up the stairs to the podium. First face he saw looking over it was Lois looking at him.
"Ladies and gentleman…" Oliver began. "As much I am for saving the landmarks of Metropolis, I think there is a time for us to knock down its old eye sores. The Old Kramer Building was a grand hotel in its day, but it is now time to replace it with the future of new and better hotels." He paused a bit as Jimmy snapped a few pictures. Lois rolled her eyes again quite a bit bored. "With the donations of the Wayne Foundation and Stark Enterprises, we will erect a newer and better hotel and with it attract more tourists and revenue to Metropolis…"
"Yippee…" Lois sarcastically sighed a bit under her breath and pulled her fingers through her hair over her distaste for this excuse for the rich to feel a bit less guilty for having all the money in town. As Oliver continued his speech, Jimmy looked at Lois and tried to make the best of this circumstance.
"Hey, just because CK got the interview with Bruce Wayne over you is no reason to be a cold shower." Jimmy knew the truth.
"I don't care about some multi-million dollar playboy with a wallet the size of the national debt…" Lois rolled her brown eyes unnoticed to him as people cheered Oliver's philanthropic donations to the hotel to be built on the site. "Even if he is the hunkiest guy ever this side of George Clooney!" She was meant for better stories. Stories involving government cover-ups, secret local business deals or even the sightings of the "red-blue blur," a local mysterious legend described as a protector of the city. No one was certain what it actually was, but many people believed it was a superhuman savior of the people in the city or maybe the spirit of a former Metropolis police officer back to fight crime. Whatever it was, Jimmy believed in it, especially in this day and age where people needed something to believe in and give them hope. Lois only seemed to care about it as something to further her career. He checked his camera settings and lifted his camera for another shot. As he aimed up toward Oliver, he by happenstance noticed something else. Up over Oliver's left side and up on the roof of the Kramer building, the figure of a white haired man dressed in black had appeared looking over the side. He stepped back from the edge looking for a way off then returned hastening for the fire escapes leading the thirty stories down to the street. He seemed to be carrying something down from the roof. Upon reaching the twenty-ninth floor and rushing down those aged rusted steps to freedom, more men appeared on the roof that looked to be chasing him. A truck driver in gray overalls, two taxi drivers, a guy in a tweed jacket and yachting cap, a fellow wearing shorts and a pith helmet, more men, all men, all chasing the first guy racing from them with the briefcase. Lois gradually noticed them and began grinning. She had her story! Who were these nine guys and why did they want the first guy so much? More and more people started noticing the chase high above. Oliver noticed the attention was drifting off him and to something else high over his head. Jimmy was snapping photos with Lois jumping excitedly to be seeing the fracas.
"Hey!!!" Oliver screamed skyward at them. "Heyyyyy!!!! Those stairs are not safe!!!" It was too late. The guy in the red shorts jumped from the twenty-eighth floor fire escape to the twenty-seventh and something broke loose. There was a crunch of collapsing and falling stairs both up and below and entire platform swayed outward high above the ground. Of the ten idiots on it, some of them started clutching on to the rails to save their lives, but the other six were fighting and pushing for the case. It was lifted over them then popped open, a sudden cache of money within it suddenly dashed by the wind and flittering down to the ground. Pedestrians and witnesses dashed to collect the bills of free money falling toward them. Jimmy was taking photos amidst the flurry of people hoping to get the lost money. Oliver looked around trying to do something in the confusion of spectators. He grabbed his cell phone to call Clark, but Lois knocked it out of his hand.
"There is no way I'm losing this story to Smallville!" She used her colloquial small town nickname to her journalistic opponent.
"Lois, you don't understand!" There was a creak overhead and the ten idiots once regretting losing that money were finally in fear of falling to their deaths. The fire escape swung outward even further, some of the guys were screaming for help from high over the park. Those not grabbing up the free cash over the ground and from the fountain were looking up unable to do anything to help.
"Really," Lois faced off with Oliver. "Why don't you explain how Clark keeps getting MY stories before me?!" She gave him that look, the one that meant not to mess with her. Overhead, there was a fleeting red and blue shape shooting over her head and churning up the money on the ground, and Lois had noticed it. She looked to Jimmy and back to Oliver now a bit calmer. The crowd cheered with believers in the local legend and newly stunned believers.
"It's him!" Lois realized. "He's never appeared in broad daylight before!!!" She looked to Jimmy. "Get me photos, Jimmy! Lots of them!!!"
"I'm on it!" Jimmy was excited too to be here for this. He panned around though his telescopic lens for the unidentified hero quickly ascending up the front of the Kramer building and briefly skimmed over the bright red cape with the yellow crest on it. Just above that was a long mane of blonde hair cascading down his… oops, HER back. The "red-blue blur" was a woman?
"Has anyone seen Chloe?" Jimmy lowered his camera to look around.
"What's he doing?" Lois was forcing Jimmy to keep taking pictures. "Is he bringing them down one at a time?"
"Uh, Lois…." Jimmy was stepping back and snapping photos with his camera right-ways and sideways to get everything in his shots. Oliver now had a reason to look surprised as their local protector revealed herself to the city. She was ascending slowly to earth carrying the broken segment of the fire escape in her two hands with all of the ten men crowded and clinging to it and each other. Lois's jaw dropped and her left eyebrow went up intrigued. Descending down to the ground was a young woman in a blue outfit with a red skirt, red boots and yellow belt at her waist with a flapping red cape and long waving blonde tresses. Across her well-endowed figure was a large red and yellow "S" shaped to her bosom. With an incredible resolve of superhuman strength, she lowered the half-ton of solid steel frame with the other near half-ton of men clinging to it down through a part in the crowd. Witnesses were snapping cell phone pictures. There was cheering from believers to see this blonde beauty before them here on Earth. She turned her regal brown eyes over across the people wanting too meet her.
"Lois Lane!!!" Lois pushed herself forward with Jimmy snapping shots of the sexy superhuman. "Reporter for the Daily Bugle… I mean, Daily Planet! Daily Planet!! Can I get a story?!!"
"Not now, Miss Lane…" The blonde beauty was levitating up off her feet and turning round to the skies once more. She tilted her head back, pushed her clenched fist forward above her and allowed the mystical ley lines of the planet to lurch her from the Earth once more before shooting skyward and flying away over past the former Lex-Corp building.
