CHAPTER 11

As the sun set on the ruins of Metropolis, darkness fell across its people. Their greatest protector lay, near to death, on the field of battle, beaten and broken. While the monster who had dispatched him roamed free, a hunger in its stomach that could only be satisfied by blood.

But all hope was not lost.

As news spread throughout the city, its brave citizens prepared….

Lovers parted ways….

"Jimmy! What are you doing!" Chloe Sullivan demanded, fighting her way through the crowded newsroom of the Daily Planet.

Jimmy Olsen stood at his desk, checking his equipment one last time, his hands steady and eyes solemn.

"I'm going out there to get the shot, like I always do," he said calmly, slipping on his beaten and worn out brown leather jacket.

"Jimmy, there's a monster out there!"

"There's always a monster," he said, "never stopped me before."

"But it's different this time, Superman…" she broke off.

"I know," he said, his sad eyes unfocused, as if viewing some better time. The signal watch on his arm silent. "But if the world is still there tomorrow, it'll need know what happened here today."

"Jimmy, it's not just that. Lois…"

Suddenly, Jimmy turned, as if snapped awake at last. "What about Lois?"

"WGBS just reported it, she was among the first injured. She's in critical condition at Metropolis General. I have to go there."

Jimmy did a quick calculation. The monster was last seen heading west, as if following the setting sun. Metropolis General was on the East Side of town, outside the monster's path.

"That's a good idea," he said. "You should be with your cousin. I'd tell you to be careful out there, but I know you can handle yourself."

As if reading the fear and uncertainty in her eyes, Jimmy Olsen flashed her his trademark devil-may-care smile. "Don't worry about me," he winked, "it'll take a heck of a lot more than the end of the world to slow down Mr. Action."

She kissed him.

"Olsen!" Perry White shouted from doorway.

Jimmy turned, and made his way through the crowd, not looking back at the girl of his dreams.

Great men willing to sacrifice anything struggled against their limitations…

"Recalibrate it!"

"Dr. Irons, I'm sorry," the technician replied. "It's not working. The suit is just not ready yet."

"Damn it!" Dr. John Henry Irons shouted, dropping his head in his hands.

He sat there silently for a moment, the other men and women present waiting for his word to begin breathing again.

"What about The Hammer?" he asked.

"What about it?"

"The Hammer works. Given an independent power source, it could still do a ton of damage," Irons' eyes darted back and forth over his life's work, trying to figure out how to cannibalize it into something immediately useful.

"But without the suit, it would be like trying to guide a rocket with your own arm," the first technician said.

"Strip the suit," Irons said, removing his glasses. "Down to the frame. Leave the arms in-tact, everything else goes, save for the frame. Solves both problems."

"But sir, who has the knowledge of how to use the Suit in that condition and the physique to drive it?"

John Henry Irons was already taking off his shirt when asked that, revealing mountains of muscle hidden underneath his lab coat.

"Just get it ready," he said.

Men who should have known better sat in repose, careless as to the pain and needs of others…

"Uncle Lex, what should we do?"

Tess Luthor stood in her uncle's office, watching as he rejected plea after plea from city officials, government agencies, and army generals for his expertise and weapons systems.

"What should we do, my dear?" Lex asked, never taking his eyes off the trail of devastation growing in the distance. "We watch Rome burn."

The look in his eyes scared her. A bizarre mix of hunger and perverse curiosity. As if he wanted to see everyone who had rejected him suffer for their foolishness. But on a deeper level, it was almost like he wanted to see just how bad things could get.

She wondered, in all those times Superman had stopped Lex's plans, had the Man of Steel been like a safety net, keeping Lex from falling too far into the abyss of madness that accompanied his need for destruction?

With that limitation gone, even if the world survived this, what would Lex Luthor inflict on it next?

And as they always do, generals amassed their armies…

The click and hum that always began his system's boot-up procedure brought John Corben back to reality, and back to the Hell that was his life as Metallo.

But something was different this time. A quick internal scan of his body's now-enormous energy output confirmed his suspicions.

His artificial heart was once again pumping pure, ferocious Kryptonite radiation through his veins.

As the rest of his senses came online, Metallo found himself aboard a military transport.

To his right was the grotesque, restrained scab that was Rudy Jones, the Parasite. To his left, he recognized the diminutive form of Winslow Schott, the Toyman.

"What's going on?" Metallo asked anyone who would listen.

"Hee hee, hee. Metallo has new batteries," the sickly-sweet voice emanated from the never-changing doll-mask worn by Toyman. "Now we all get to go to recess!"

"What the hell is this?" Metallo barked, finding his own body unresponsive to his commands.

"Oh, General Laaane!" Toyman sang. "Come out, come out and plaaay!"

From out of the shadows emerged the weathered old army man.

"So here's the deal, men. And boys."

Toyman giggled.

"We've got an unstoppable monster tearing through the city of Metropolis. Superman has already fallen to the creature, and since you three have each come as close as anyone to killing the alien, I'm going to do what none of you ever had the brains to do. I'm sending you all in at once."

Metallo laughed, a harsh sound. "And just what makes you think we won't run off as soon as you set us free?"

"Because I've still got a leash around each of your necks. You run, you die."

The three villains all looked at each other, knowing from experience to take this man at his word.

"Welcome to the Suicide Squad," Lane smiled.

As forces gathered, as men and women made their plans, lost and forgotten on the field of battle…

Superman's eyes snapped open as he drew breath at last.

He lay still only for a moment, before slowly, purposefully rising up to his feet. His body still wounded, but with a new fire burning in his heart.

He gazed out at the path of devastation before him. Doomsday, the unstoppable force, the Ender of Worlds, blissfully unaware of what was to come.

Superman knew what he had to do. He looked down at his chest, at the mark of his ancestors, which on this world had become a symbol of perfection, of greatness and kindness, strength and hope. Above all, of peace.

In one quick motion, he tore the fabric from his frame.

There was a wild animal, diseased and rapid, that needed to be put down. And it would be, he would see to that.

But this was not a job for Superman, because Superman could not kill.

But Clark Kent, a farmer's son, could.

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S-SHIELD'S NOTES

The pieces are in place.

Thanks for reading.