6.1: Valentin's Day, Part I

Clark…

Fear. Fear she was losing him. No…NO! Love. It was love. She loved him! She…loved…

Kent.

Colleague. Journalist. Rival. Useful. Useable…

NO! No… He was no mere tool! He wasn't in her head for those reasons. It was because she loved him. She loved him…

Superman…

She felt nothing… She felt everything…

The chaos through her head was explosive. Excruciating. But through it, she had to think. She had to focus. She had to focus or all was lost. Yet her mind was stuck between two places. The here and now. And Clark…

Her love for him… The love that was being taken away. The growing feeling of empty feelings…

NO!

A regular person would have succumbed. The pain would have taken them. It would have left them open to the Pyg. They would already be his latest victim. But not her. Not with her legendary resolve, her grit, forever pushing her on. Pushing her on even through the screams, through the feelings of buzzsaws tearing through her skull. Pushing her to remember the truth. The truth that her love would never die. Pushing her to fight to save it.

The pain was blinding. She couldn't see, nothing out there except the visions in her mind's eye. Visions of Superman, Clark, their life. And visions of the Pyg. That mask.

That gas.

Those electrodes.

And visions of her forearms swinging wild before her, spreading a swooping arc from her sides to her over her head, swung with every bit of force she'd got.

She might not have been able to really see it, but she definitely felt the impact. Felt as she struck forearm to forearm. Then she definitely heard the yelp, the squeal of pain. Immediately followed by the relief, by the sudden drop of current coursing through her brain, the release of pressure as the electrodes were flung away.

And then, finally, Lois could see again. Could see what was real. Her action had knocked back the Pyg, but she didn't have long. Already he was swinging those electrodes back towards her. If she could see his face, she was certain it would be twisted with rage. Desperate to take her mind from her, her love.

But she was just as desperate not to let him. With no regard to the fall, her only way out was to hurl herself backwards, slamming herself down towards the deck. She avoided those returning electrodes just in the nick of time. The sizzled through the air, the power visible at their tips as Pyg looped them in. But without her head their to impact, and without the reaction time to stop himself, all he succeeded in doing was jamming them into his own wrists.

Once again, the yelp leapt from his throat, the tightening of his muscles only making him grip the electrodes tighter against his own flesh. Eventually he managed to tear them away, but by then she'd bought herself enough time. Scrambling, feet almost slipping on the ground in her desperation, Lois was dragging herself back up to her feet. Up and racing back to the doorway, to the corridors. To any way out of here. Away from the Pyg.

She'd chased him in need of finding the truth. In proving that Valentin was the one cursing the migrants. Now she knew it for sure, she needed anything but to chase him. Not when he had the power to destroy her too, and she hadn't the means to stop him. Not when that gas of his was still in her lungs. When, even with the electrodes, it was still clouding her mind…

Clark. Dammit, she needed him! She needed to remember…she loved him! She needed to remember…

And she needed to run. Her entire body weight slammed in the door as Lois charged out through it without even a second glance behind her. Immediately as she entered the corridor, instinct took over even more. She'd come from the left, from the hospital, from among the crowds of the sick and wounded and the people trying to save them. Now she had no option but to turn right. No option unless she wanted to make them all targets. No, she knew Pyg would be chasing her now. To stop her from revealing the truth. She couldn't lead him back to all those people had give him even more targets. She could only hope that there was even more of this hospital vacated than she had first thought, that there was enough of it empty to try to evade him for as long as she could. As long as it would take to figure out a way to take him down without losing herself in the process.

Or as long as it would take for the cavalry to arrive.

Clark, as he often did when she was in trouble. Or Diana. Diana who was close by. Diana who had been told where she was.

Diana who she could call for help…

Sprinting to the end of the corridor, Lois desperately made the grab, despite even that mere motion partially compromising her precious speed. But it meant that, as she drew close to bend, she had the phone in her hand. It helped that Wonder Woman was the last person she messaged. As she turned on the screen while still surging forwards, it meant that in next to no time she had it ringing. But from there, as started to skid her way round the bend at corridor's end, starting to raise it was as far as she got.

Because it was then that the hurled meat cleaver ripped it from her grasp. And took plenty of her flesh with it...

She was amazed she heard the thud as the cleaver embedded itself in the wall right beside her head, her scream of pain had been so loud. A huge gash had been opened up in her arm where the blade had sailed through, the shooting pain causing her to drop the device. Blood was already starting to stream out and down her arm, oozing to the floor below.

But while the blow definitely slowed her, she still couldn't stop. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop to pick up the device either. Because glancing back, the Pyg was on his way. He was coming, coming for her, coming to end her. For a bulky man, his movement was remarkably swift, clearly driven on by his own indomitable resolve. All of it making it ever clearer. Lois had to get away. Or she really was lost.

Another corridor lay before her, a twisting labyrinth of thankfully abandoned turns and straights in the closed off wing. Bends, turns, rooms, they were all to her favour, all of them helping her keep the Pyg behind her. A need emphasised all the more as she dared glance back to see him forcefully retrieving his deadly cleaver from the wall. But, holding her arm tight to try and stem the blood, Lois knew she couldn't stop to hide.

Not with the red trail she was leaving behind her now...

"You cannot get away, Lois Lane!"

As the voice of the Pyg shouted after her, it was almost like he knew exactly what she was thinking. Just the sound of it made Lois cast another panicked glance back at him, encroaching like an infallible killing machine. The cleaver handle was now clutched tightly in his right hand, the blunt side of the blade resting in his left. It wasn't the grip of a man preparing to hurl it again, but it was a grip of threatening possibility. Even more threatening than the words he continued to call after her as she ran.

"You cannot get away because I cannot let you! I cannot let you stop perfection! You cannot stop my work, my purpose, the betterment of all humanity at my hand! You cannot warn a people not yet freed of their emotions, of their love! Because no one who loves can embrace my perfection! And nothing can be allowed to stand in its way! All love will be conquered! And I can conquer it!"

Dammit Clark, where are you...? It was the first thought that once again ran through Lois' mind, even though she knew he was nowhere near. Was almost certainly busy saving the world his way. It was the effect everytime Pyg used the word 'love'. It made her think of him. The one she loved.

Which served to add to her fear, reminding her what, if she didn't keep running, she might be about to lose. But at least it also told her one thing. The gas that Pyg used on her, it hadn't been enough. The cloud in her mind was lifting, her system clearing its fog from her body. Pyg must have needed to electrocute her mind more to make it stick. She still knew how to love.

At least, she did as long as she stayed alive...

But once again, Pyg seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

"You only got a taste of the path to perfection, Lois!" he continued to yell as he continued to advance. "An earlier sample of the gas, a test! But as with everything, I have perfected it! I have developed it, taken away the need for the electrodes, for the exposure! I have made the means to free so many of love's binds, all at once! I was investigating it on the migrants when you interrupted. But now that you've interfered, I won't risk any further delays to the tests!

"The clock is ticking Miss Lane! Everything is already in place! Soon this entire hospital will be flooded with the gas, taking everyone inside it one step further on the path to perfection!

"And you cannot stop it. No one can stop it! All you can do is succumb, to embrace perfection! I will take your mind first Lois! I will take you before I take them all! I will stop you warning the imperfections what is coming! And then I will make you watch as we take our leap forward! A front row seat at my side!"

"You cannot escape me! You cannot escape the Pyg!"

Everybody...? The gas, the electrodes as used on her, as used on the bandaged man, as used on those two in the cubicle, that had all been bad enough. But it had been small scale. Containable. Limited. But if Pyg had the ability to harm everyone, to infect everyone all at once... To take their minds, as Lois had come so close to losing hers at his hand...

Things had already looked bleak. Now they were even worse. There was only one thing still in her favour – Pyg's apparent obsession with her, gained from the moment she'd became the one to track him down. As long as she could keep one step ahead of him, she was buying the people in this building time. She knew she couldn't fight him. Especially not with the gash in her arm. Especially not with the cleaver held in his hand. She had to keep running. But as long as she could keep him at bay, she bought herself time to figure out some way, any way, of getting these people out of here. And as long as she could keep him at bay, the more chance she had that Wonder Woman would finally pick up her message, and swoop in to save the day.

But until then, she had to keep running. She had to keep Pyg back. She had to buy time...

And as the sign on the wall up ahead caught her eye, she suddenly had a plan. It was so simple, but if it actually worked, it could mean so much to so many.

A lift. An elevator up ahead. If she could get enough of a lead on Pyg by the time she reached it, maybe only ten or fifteen seconds worth... And if the damn thing was still running in this empty wing... It could take her away from him in a way he couldn't quickly follow. It could offer her just enough breathing space to try and figure a way out of this.

If... But Pyg was close. Too close. According to the lift wasn't far enough ahead, barely around the next bend. Even if she could bring herself to run faster, Lois knew she wouldn't be able to open up that kind of lead on him in time. Not unless there was something she could do to temporarily slow him down.

Once again, the simple answer held the key. Once again, looking forwards showed her the way. In all her sprinting down this sealed off wing of the hospital, she had so far seen no sign of why it had been cordoned off, of the apparent refurbishment works needing it so empty. Now she saw the first ones. Like her plan, it was deliciously simple, but while that wouldn't tantamount much to the renovations it, it would to her. A simple work bench, topped with several rollers, brushes and cans of paint. Including one can which Lois' trained journalistic eye immediately spotted hadn't been properly sealed...

Lois didn't slow any more than she had too. She kept running forward, straight towards the workbench. But as she did so, she finally released the gash in her arm, instead snatching out with the other one. As she sprinted by, the handle of the can snagged in her grasp, its weight immediately dragging her down. But she had no intention of carrying it far. Instead, she was already spinning, swinging with all of her weight. Like an olympian throwing the hammer.

And then she hurled it at the Pyg with everything she'd got.

She barely even looked if it had worked, instead putting all her focus back into the sprint, into getting away. But the commotion, the clattering, the yelp, the noise told her everything. The can had indeed struck home. It had knocked him clean off his feet, slamming him down to the floor. Lois hoped for more too, but daren't check. She'd done it, she managed to buy herself time, at least as long as it took Pyg to get back after her again. She couldn't waste it now.

Sprinting, she made it round the next bend in the corridor, and she saw her golden hope. The lift, waiting up ahead. With every ounce of pace she could drag from her body she surged for it. As she reached it, she'd barely even managed to slow herself to a stop when she was jabbing the call button.

In that instant, time itself seemed to stop dead. Paranoia filled her mind, the fear that, in the lock down of this wing, the lifts would have been deactivated. That her chance of getting away might never have existed in the first place...

Because of that, the 'ping' as the doors crept apart a mere second later was almost euphoric. Practically bouncing on her heels, Lois was diving through the gap as soon as the narrow opening was barely wide enough for her to pass. Almost without looking, she was then immediately jamming her finger repeatedly into the button for highest floor she could take it too. It was only four up, but four could mean the world.

Yet as she pushed it, time once again stood still. Because now she was also facing out of the lift, back out into that corridor as she painfully waited for those doors to once again close. And in doing so, she was left motionless, in the hands of the gods, nowhere left to run as the Pyg came that bend.

Paint, ironically red, had splattered not only his pristine lab coat, but also across his pig's mask. It looked both like blood and like the battle paint of ancient warriors. If anything, it made him look even more ferocious, even more psychotic. Especially with that cleaver still held menacingly in his grasp, more ready to plunge into her than ever before.

And it made Lois even more desperate to escape. Yet the only means she had was to repeatedly manically slam her finger against the button to seal the doors, to get the lift moving again. But it felt like nothing was happening, especially as Pyg got closer, and closer, and closer...

At long last they started to move again, even more euphorically than before. But they felt slow, so very slow. And Pyg looked fast, so very fast... It was a race, a race Lois couldn't impact. And a race with life on the line. With love itself on that line...

Pyg was coming...

The doors were only half shut...

The cleaver, it was already starting to swing...

He was almost there...!

The doors were still moving!

Lois couldn't help it. Instinctively she took a step backwards. Instinctively, she allowed herself to fall, to get out of the way of the blade that was almost on top of her. The blade that looked like it had one. Yet her eyes, they could only look into the eyes of the Pyg. Into the insane psychosis. Into the end...

Only to hear the clang. The scraping sound. The thud. To feel the jarring jerk, the sense of motion.

To realise that it wasn't the end.

The timing couldn't have been any more heart pounding, or also any more lifesaving. The lift doors, so painfully slow, and closed just in time. Just in the instant Pyg had reached them. Just as he was swinging the cleaver at Lois' head in a fit of rage. Just in time to trap the thin blade in their grasp as it had tried to pass through.

The razor sharp edge was clutched, but nothing else peeked through the now seal slabs of metal. Pyg was out of sight, those eyes so menacing lost behind the door. And not only that, but the lift had started to rise too, the blades edge sliding relentlessly down to the floor as Pyg apparently desperately tried to hold on, to prise the doors back open again. But then the blade stopped moving, obviously wrenched from his grasp as his mere human strength was nothing against the mechanisms and weight of the elevator.

She'd done it. She'd gotten away. And there was nothing that could stop the huge sigh of relief escaping from Lois' lips.

But as she dragged herself back to her feet, hand once again putting pressure on her wound, Lois knew it was a very temporary relief. Pyg would be coming. He would be able to see where she had gone, and she knew he wasn't going to let her get away. He would be coming for her. Coming for all of them.

Coming to take her and everyone else in this hospital to his sadistic take on perfection. To a living hell.

Time was of the essence. Lois had to figure out some way to stop him. Fast.

If only she had some way to warn Wonder Woman of what was happening...

A/N:

So you may have guessed from the title, but this is actually only part of Chapter 6. Circumstances meant this was the only bit I could get down til now, the first of three planned POV segments in Chapter 6. But I wanted to hit my self-imposed Thursday release dates somehow, given a recent track record of long delays.

And it was also the choice of a certain friend of mine to do it this way, rather than delay and release Chapter 6 all together. So if you don't like this approach, blame her! ;)

Anyways, please review away... Til next time, folks!