Chapter 2: Pillars of Fire

It never occurred to Lois that driving to a burning gas reservoir could be dangerous. She wasn't a stupid woman, far from it. But she seriously lacked a sense of danger. Or sense, period, as she told herselff half an hour after leaving the house.

She found herself in the most natural position for her: between the flames and the huge gas tanks. And there wasn't much room between the two. Most of the gas was stored underground, she knew, and there were plenty of safety devices designed to prevent fire from spreading from one tank to the others, but if only one of these tanks combusted she was doomed, and so was a large chunk of suburban Metropolis. Whoever caused the initial explosion knew exactly where to hit to cause the most damage. She had to find out who it was. That was tomorrow's headlines.

Superman was there. Lois had seen the blue and red blur zipping through the sky even as she was nearing the fire. But the fire was too big for him to conquer alone. As far as Lois could tell, he was pouring huge water tanks onto the fire one after another, aiding the fire-fighting teams surrounding the area.

Lois scanned the skies, and found what she was looking for. Superman had just poured the water from what seemed to be a medium-sized swimming pool a hundred feet from where she was standing. She knew the way he acted. He would probably work from the centre of the incident outwards. The centre was probably where it all started. That was where she was headed.

Making her way around the hot flames, she found a wet path of singed trees. In tomorrow's article she should mention that it was a stupid idea to plant a grove next to inflammable substances. She wondered how many 'm's there were in 'inflammable'.

The path she chose wasn't as perfect as she had first thought. She had already discarded of her sweater, but she was hot. Extremely hot. Like standing too close to a large fire, which, actually, was exactly what she was doing. She tried to move forward, a little closer to the centre of events, but had to give up. Her face was burning up, and so were her feet. She looked down and realised she was walking on embers. She jumped sideways, only to realise there was no place clear of the embers around her. Her feet felt like they were on fire. She wanted to take off her shoes, but that was obviously not an option at the moment.

With a cry of frustration Lois turned backwards to track back her steps and find a better path. She could feel the story slipping from between her fingers. A moment later the story slightly less important than the new problem she was facing. The path she had taken earlier was gone.

Lois looked up to see Superman pouring more water further away from her, closer to the reservoir. A new path formed several feet away from her, but even at top speed she couldn't run several feet in the high flames without getting seriously burned. She thought of calling for his help, but he was away, probably ripping out someone's garden pool. She tried anyway, but the only thing that came out was a deep cough. Her lungs were filling with smoke, and so were her eyes. She could no longer see if he was around. In a matter of seconds, she couldn't even see the bright flames. It felt as if the smoke was filling her brain as well, and she knew she was falling…

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When Superman neared the scene of the explosion he knew he would not see Jason or Lois again tonight. The explosion had been much worse than he had expected when he had left their home. The fire was already soaring high, and it had spread over an area of a quarter mile in every direction.

Trying to put the flames out with his mighty breath was not an option. In an open area the wind would only feed the flames, spreading them closer to the edge of Metropolis suburbs. Closer to Lois and Jason. Superman knew that their house was much deeper into the city, but the thought of getting these flames even slightly closer to them frightened him.

The water tanks in the near area ran out quickly, and the flames were barely touched. At least he had stopped their spread towards the reservoir for the time being. Superman considered his options. He could not rip out the water towers, although they were admittedly very large, because the fire fighters were linked to them. He could dig a three-miles-long tunnel from the sea to the fire, but that would cause severe damages to roads, fields, and several houses. And a tunnel wide enough would take too long to dig.

Scanning the area, Superman realised that a lot of these suburban houses had swimming pools in their back yard. The kind of pools made of fibreglass and installed into a hole dug in the ground. He chose the largest one. It contained at least three times more water than the largest water tank he had used. It took him three seconds to calculate the exact angle in which to carry the pool at top speed so that the water wouldn't pour out, get it over the worst centre of the fire, and soar with the empty pool towards the sea, to refill it.

After six round trips with the swimming pool, combined with the efforts of the fire-fighters, Superman was beginning to see results. From his high point of view he could see the fire beginning to shrink. It was still very large but at least it was regressing. There were even a few patches of scorched ground here and there between the flames.

Emptying the pool for the seventh time, Superman quickly scanned the area to plan his rout for the next trip back from the see. Travelling at high speed with a pool full of water, he had to know exactly where he was headed, or the course change would cause all the water to be lost.

His eyes stopped on a car he had been too busy to notice before. It looked like Lois's car. In fact, adjusting his X-Ray vision to look into the car, it was hers. He felt a surge of anger and guilt rise inside him. He should have known better than to tell Lois about the explosion. It should have been obvious to him that she would go after the story.

Another quick scan discovered Lois standing right in the middle of the flames. Not standing. She was falling sideways into the fire. Superman dropped the swimming pool over an open field and dove for her. He couldn't lift her up at this speed. It would save her from being burned, but would also break every bone in her body. He would threaten to break every bone in her body for pulling a stunt like this, but he would do it later on, when she was safe. Right now he needed to find a way to get her to safety.

Blowing on the fire would help spread it, but Superman was now willing to take the chance of helping the fire ever so slightly to save Lois. He blew just enough to make sure there were no flames around Lois, and then arrived just in time to lie on the red-hot ground and let her fall on top of him.

Superman considered leaving the fire to the fire-fighters and take the unconscious Lois to the hospital, but as he soared up with her in his arms he could see the results of his slight breath. The damage had been done. The flames were threatening the gas reservoir once more. The fire-fighters wouldn't be able to stop the spread without him.

As he descended towards one of the waiting ambulances, Superman scanned Lois with his X-Ray vision. It wasn't good. She was still breathing on her own, but only barely. She had inhaled large amounts of smoke, and had damaged her lungs. Not severely, but enough. Putting his mouth over hers he sucked out as much of the leftover smoke as he could without collapsing her lungs, and then breather cool, oxygen-rich air into her. His feet touched the ground next to the ambulance. He put an oxygen mask over Lois's face before speaking to any of the shocked paramedics.

"I found her in the middle of the fire," Superman said briefly, handing Lois to the nearest paramedic. "Her lungs have seven percent burns. She also has burns on her feet and on her left arm. See that she gets proper treatment."

To Superman's relief, the paramedic took less than a second to regain his composure. He adjusted the oxygen mask over Lois's face and as Superman soared away he could see him rushing to get cold compresses for the burns.

The swimming pool he had dropped was cracked beyond use. Superman reached for the second largest swimming pool and poured its content over the fire, too close to the reservoir for his taste. He estimated it would take at least thirty more full pools before the fire was under control, and wondered how he would be able to make all these round trips when he was so worried for Lois.

A/N: Thank you for taking the time to review! I really appreciate the effort. I've taken your comments into notice, and will make sure Jason appears here often (even though he wasn't in this chapter).

A/N 2: I've made an effort to get a chapter up quickly because I'll be away for several days. Third chapter is already with those who offered to beta. Majestrix –I'd love to have you as a beta, especially if you could find errors. However, I don't use IM, and won't let me see your email. If you're still interested, please mail me. Volucris12 at hotmail dot com.