Part 1:
Sherman hated tuesdays. He hated mondays too, but Tuesday's were worse somehow, they were more real. The awfulness of Mondays could be passed off as a nightmare, a glitch in his life, but Tuesday's brought it all down on him and forced him to admit that he had three more horrible long days ahead of him.
This particular tuesday was a fairly normal one, a cloudy day that could turn into a downpour or a sunny day at any moment. Sherman stepped off the bus and began to walk across a small grassy courtyard in the middle of three buildings. He made his way towards the small gap between two buildings. His work was just a bit beyond there, around the corner to the right, down the street, and then there it was, a large boring building that made monday Hell, tuesday even worse, and a dreadfully slow roller coaster of boredom the rest of the week that plopped him down on saturday wishing he had the energy to do anything but sleep.
The courtyard wasn't much of a shortcut to his work, but Sherman liked it. It let him look up and see the sky. The view wasn't that good today, but he could still think of that little speck, that orbited over him. Maybe it was right above him, its main column pointed right at his head, or maybe the martian was looking at him right now, theirs eyes meeting through a viewscreen.
He kept walking along the brick paths that formed an x on the grass. His eyes stayed upwards, but he walked confidently, knowing the route well. He reached the edge of the courtyard and lowered his head again. He held it low as he walked in the shadows of the buildings that shot up above him. A bit of sunlight poked out of the clouds, making a building sparkle. Sherman kept walking, head down.
He kept walking and reached his building after only a couple more minutes. He entered the lobby, signed in at the desk and headed for the elevators. He worked on the third floor, and on the rare morning when he was feeling happy and energetic he would take the stairs. He didn't today.
He deposited his two slices of leftover pizza that he had for lunch in the refrigerator and plopped himself in the chair in front of his computer. The computer was a desktop, and unbelievably old. It was almost exactly like the computer his dad used to have, that on saturdays, if he was lucky he could play games on. It had worked ok for that, but now, fifteen years later it was hopelessly slow. He turned it on and slouched down in his chair to wait for the unbelievably slow process of turning on to end.
Finally it finished and he was able to put himself into the mindless work of reading through code for robotic vacuums until midmorning.
"Giant evil robots spotted in the subway system," the PA voice said, it was a man's voice that droned throughout the city. "Please remain calm, distress signals have been sent and the Justice League is on its way. please head to your basements and stay there until further information is given."
Sherman smiled, he loved it when there was an attack on a work day, it just sucked on a weekend. He loaded up the one thing he was proud of, a program that saved his work onto a floppy disk. It meant that if his building or the server building across the street was destroyed and all there work was lost, he still had the disk. Then he had a day or more of ease while everyone else worked double time to get back the work they lost.
The boss, a fat middle aged man, walked out of his office. "The robots are a ways away from here so we'll continue for a while, if the robots get within a block then we will evacuate, but until then keep working." He spoke quickly and then walked back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
Sherman took the floppy disk from his computer and put in his pocket. He looked at the code in front of him. He could continue to work for the next five minutes, or he couldn't.
He opened internet explorer and clicked on the only bookmark. It opened to a colorful sight with a map of the city covered by a slowly spreading blue blob. The rest of the site was red to denote a crisis was occurring. Near the top was a box saying: crisis description: army of evil robots led by Lex Luthor. On the right side was a column with the symbols of the major Justice Leaguers and their whereabouts.
The site was a bit slow as it usually was during a crisis. It got used so heavily during them that even with all the money that was thrown at it to fix the problems it just couldn't keep up. Sherman quickly glanced over the leaguers. Most of them were shown as on route, but batman was shown as brooding, like he almost always was, the reporters had a lot of trouble keeping up with him. A few were labelled as "heroing" Flash, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl among them.
Sherman smiled upon seeing the symbols and the words next to them. The robot army wouldn't hurt him. He was safe, like last thursday when darkside came, or last month when lex had another giant army of robots, or that time that brainiac had came. Or that time that the joker came through town with his gang and robbed nearly every single bank in town before he was caught.
He opened the code again and stared at it moving his fingers along the keyboard so that they rattled a bit, giving the vague impression that he was working. He opened the browser every so often, watching as the wave of blue moved closer to where he knew his building was. The number of justice leaguers "Heroing" increased each time he looked, but batman was still listed as "brooding."
It was nearly ten minutes before the boss walked out of his office and snapped, "To the bunker, let's go."
Sherman stood up, checking that the floppy disk was in his pocket and then followed the flow of people to the stairs; they couldn't use the elevator in times of crisis. The herd was over two hundred people, all slowly walking down the stairs trying not to bump into the people around them. The building's security guards, were just part of the crowd, ambling along eyes down, holsters clasped shut. They weren't important, not compared to the gods that fought outside.
Sherman was moving down from the second floor when he heard the thump. It echoed down from the top of the stairwell, five floors above him. Everyone looked up, thinking of the danger it might be. The crowd slowed down, but kept slowly dripping down to the basement.
There was a crash and a form dropped down the stairwell surrounded by shards of glass. Two hundred eyes stared at the mass of metal. Their eyes followed it as it flew past them, machine guns blazing. The bullets spread throughout the 200 workers, killing most of them. Their eyes continued to follow the robot, as they felt themselves grow lighter and the stairs rising up to their heads, blocking their views.
Sherman dropped to his knees when he saw the robot, falling towards him. He looked up staring at the bit of sunlight that slipped through from the glass top of the stairwell. He clasped his hands above him. Please superman, save me, he thought over and over as the gunshots echoed around him. A bullet ricocheted off the railing and struck him in the hand. He barely felt the pain.
He kept his hands held high, and continued to pray even as the people above him toppled, blood spreading across their chests. He was knocked down to the landing. His head thumped into the wet stomach of a dead man, but his hands were still held high, still towards the light. Blood dripped down his right arm, soaking into his sleeve.
He lay there as the guns and screams echoed up from below. His arms stayed raised, his eyes stayed on the little bit of sunlight. The blood on his arm slowed and finally stopped as he lay there. The gunshots and screams faded into the distance and then disappeared.
The light disappeared and there he was, a caped figure floating down towards him. The cape was red and billowed around him. He was in a blue suit, stretched out over a bulging muscled chest, the red S in the middle of it, a comparatively small bald head, beady eyes.
Sherman's hands fell. Something was wrong, he could feel it. It wasn't super man, he didn't look right, the hair. It wasn't right. Then his mind clicked, got past the fear and chaos of what was happening and the name entered his head, Lex Luthor, Satan.
His hands groped around him, searching for some comfort, it moved across the blood covered bodies, barely noticing them, until his left hand found a holster. His hand moved a bit more and he was holding a gun. It was a bulky pistol that didn't seem to fit quite right in his hand, but he drew it close to him as Lex slowly descended.
His eyes found Sherman's and he smiled. "I would drop that gun if I were you," he said, his voice showed the malicious pleasure he got from looking down at the ant before him.
"Please superman,save me," Sherman whispered. He forgot about the gun and the comfort it had once brought him.
"Not even superman could stop me. This suit could defeat any and all of the justice league. It has taken years of our battles and a bit of help, but I have found all of the league's weaknesses and this suit uses all of them, kryptonite for superman, a water evaporating cannon for aquaman, gravity cannon for flash. You name it, I got it. Do you really think you can do anything that superman couldn't?"
Sherman was silent.
"You are no fun Mr., I can't really gloat about my plan if you're silent all the time. He floated down so he was just a few yards from sherman.
"Why are you wearing that?" Sherman asked, gathering his courage. He knew that there was no reason for Lex to be in a random office building, there was nothing important in it.
Lex smirked. "At a distance I look like superman, no one batted an eye as I cruzed through the city. All part of my secret master plan"
"What are you doing here?" Sherman knew that there was no reason for Lex to be in a random office building, there was nothing important in it.
"A good question, you see this like all the other big office buildings in the city it directly connect to the bunker that you use while your betters do battle. All the people of metropolis are cowering down there, and soon enough there will be eight robots and me with them. It'll be a massacre, and there's not a single thing that the justice league can do to stop me!
They'll fight their little war up their, beat my robot army, but I'll have won and then as they move off enjoying their victory, not knowing that the people of metropolis have been massacred, I'll pick them off one by one. I'll start with batman, then superman, those are the most dangerous, and then I'm home free, killing them all at my leisure. All the world will be mine, after all those years of going in and out of jail my plans always stopped, I'll finally win!"
Sherman let out a loud gulp. Superman would die, he couldn't let that happen, superman could never die, not ever. He didn't die. Sherman felt himself raising the gun. "Superman doesn't die, he never does, he can't!" he screamed.
Lex just laughed. What? You're gonna kill me with that little gun? Superman couldn't pierce this armor!"
Sherman pulled the trigger again and again, his hands shaking. The gun held twelve high caliber bullets, he fired all of them in just a few seconds. Lex just smiled. The bullets flew by him, missing or striking him in his armored chest. He burst out laughing, and then one bullet found his unarmored head. It struck him in the cheek, right below his right eye.
His suit was equipped with all manner of defenses to combat heat vision, magic, but nothing to stop a simple bullet. It ripped through the first layer of skin and struck bone. The bone dented and then, a millisecond later, broke.
The bullet shot through the mushy gray matter that made up the mind that had come so close to taking over the world countless times. The bullet hit the other side of the skull and ripped through it, carrying a bit of gray with it.
Blood found it's way to the opening in the front of his head and slowly began to pour down, dripping across the S.
Sherman kept shooting, the gun clicking again and again. Lex kept floating there, his head slumped. everything was still, silent, no one moved. Outside the justice league fought, destroying the killer robots. Below the robot's guns blazed, ripping apart the helpless people of metropolis.
But there, in that stairwell, among the dead and dying, there was silent. The twilight hour, between the war above and the massacre below. Lex floated there, dead, but he had won. He had done it. Defeated superman, defeated the whole justice league. Superman floated above, thinking he was winning, waiting for Lex to show his cowardly face.
He didn't find him for over an hour. He floated down the stairwell, cape billowing, fists clenched. He stared at Lex, his mouth dropped, and then forced itself closed. He turned to sherman, who was still holding the gun.
"What have you done?" he gasped. He stopped, just above the blood and bodies.
"I saved you," Sherman whispered, rising to his knees. He touched superman's boots, clutching them lovingly.
"You killed him," superman said, his voice boomed throughout the stairwell. "Don't touch me murderer!" He rose up above Sherman. Sherman tried to keep holding on, his arms stretched upwards, but then superman was out of reach and Sherman's hands dropped back to the ground.
"Please," sherman gasped, "I did this for you! He was going to kill you! His robots were killing everyone in the bunker!"
"You're lying!" Superman screamed. He swooped down and grabbed Sherman by the collar. "You're behind this! You're the evil one! You broke the rules! You're gonna rot in prison!" He rose up back into the light, sherman dangling below him.
Sherman was silent, slumped and defeated. God hated him. He had failed superman, he wished he were dead. He wished it weren't a tuesday, that he wasn't in the air, that if he looked up he wouldn't see superman crying. But he would.
"I'm sorry," he whimpered. Superman was silent, wouldn't even look at Sherman. They flew slowly, just floating along.
It was nearly an hour before they got to the police station. Superman dropped him on the roof and then began to float off. As soon as Sherman's feet touched the roof, he saw his way out, a way to stop it from being Tuesday, a way to stop having to look at superman's face.
He gathered his feet below him and leaped forward into the air, leaving the roof behind him. He watched the ground come closer and closer, it was almost there, everything he wanted in that simple pavement. Then there was the red and blue and he was floating away, the ground was leaving him, he wanted it back, it could help him, make the pain stop, the shame.
Then he was on the roof again, stumbling and trying to get his footing. Superman was advancing, walking. He raised his hand, a finger flicked out, stuck Sherman on the forehead. It hurt. He was falling, the roof came up and whacked him on the back of the head. His eyes closed.
Superman floated off, slowly crying, the tears just trickling down. He looked about him taking in the empty city. He knew it would fill again soon, people would come out, their eyes looking upwards, waving, blowing kisses, applauding, dancing.
He would smile, descend, sign autographs. That's when he would know it was worth it, all the pain, the screams, the death. To see them smiling, touching him like a god, his name written in simple pen ink as holy a the bible, that last glare at him when Lex was carted off.
But then the demon had ruined it, he'd killed him, killed him. Everything he had worked towards, gone, the most important man in his life, gone just like that. He wanted to kill him, punch his head in, boil his blood, melt his skin. But he wouldn't, wouldn't even let him kill himself. He was better than that. No matter how evil they were he never killed them not even him, the evilest of them all, he had been merciful, only knocked him out.
At first he was glad when the streets stayed empty. He didn't have to face the smiles, the joy, didn't have to pretend to smile, wave, be happy. Then a sliver of curiosity entered him. He wanted to know why they were empty, but he didn't, but he had to. He couldn't leave without knowing.
He floated down. He was dreaming, the world was moving around him as he stayed stationary as he floated. There was no desire, only necessity, he had to know, then he could leave, be alone, alone among the ice in his fortress of solitude. No one to smile at him, not for a while at least.
He dropped down to the big door in the side street. It was closed, a solid slab of metal with a little crease where it opened in the middle. It was strong enough to stop any of the villains that might go near it. He took out his keycard and pressed it into the slot beside the door. He pulled out his key to the city and stepped in.
The first thing that hit him was the stench. A smell of sweat and urine, a smell of fear, but this time there was a metallic tang in it. A tang that couldn't be washed out of it like the fear was after every battle. He floated farther in. He saw the first body. A businesswoman in a skirt and sweater. She had three bullets in her back. Only one of her high heeled shoes was on her foot, the other was a bit behind her, broken into two pieces.
He floated over her. He didn't look down, couldn't bring himself to. It only got worse.
These bodies were hit in the front, lying dead, clutching their dead children, the blood lying thick on the floor. The milkman, still in his white uniform that was now splattered red, his stomach ripped open, something yellow but coated in blood peeking out at Superman. He stared, his head tried to sink not having the energy to try to look majestic, but he wouldn't let it, he couldn't look at them.
"Superman!" a boy cried, his voice weak and horse. Superman didn't look down. A hand touched his boot, draping across it. He kept going. The hand slipped off, leaving only a smear of a darker red on the red boot as a reminder. He kept going, looking up, seeing the blank ceiling. Occasionally a bit of blood reached the ceiling, but he could ignore it, pretend it wasn't there, pretend it was just a shadow of a thought.
He found himself following a path to the pain, the sorrow. He didn't want to go towards it, to see it again. He didn't want to feel the pain, but he rose up into the stairwell and there it was. The body just floating there, it's head a bloody mess. It wore his S, it was him, the best of him, and now he was dead, he had died and forced the pain on him.
An anger grew inside of him, an anger he had not felt for years, an anger that he never wanted to feel again, a killing wrath. He shot out of the building, going straight through a wall and then three more. The building collapsed behind him, crushing the sadness with it. All that remained was the rage.
He shot to the police station. Covering the distance in less than thirty seconds. He hovered above it for a second, searching out his prey. The evil behind it all, the one who had killed him.
The rooftop was empty. He shot downwards through the station ripping through the cement walls like paper. He came up above it again, and then when he didn't see the evil he swooped down again, and then again, ripping through the building. And then he was punching the wall, his fists turning it to powder.
But the rage was still there. He let forth the lasers from his eyes. They struck a building, melting glass, cutting through brick and setting an apartment on fire. He stopped, and watched it burn, the flames licking around, the smoke pouring out.
It was his rage. It was slowly dying, going away for now, but it would come back, come back when he found the Breaker. That's what it was the Breaker, the one behind it all, the one who had killed him, who had killed them all. He had clutched his boots lovingly, but it was all a ploy, all to get him, all to kill him, but he hadn't died. Superman was alive even if he had been killed and he would have revenge.