Hi. For the record, I know that no one will either believe this story or find it plausible. This story is specifically reactionary to the inaction in Nightwing and inability. I realize that going the exact opposite direction is not the best reaction, but I figure it's better to say the story and accept the criticism as to the unbelievable aspects just to get the contrary out there. Understand, all you Superman fans, this isn't continuity. I would never submit this story as continuity. This is just me having fun.
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Amasked black figure is facing the most iconic figure hovering ahead of him. Never before has his fear of failure been so strong. He has had the fear many times, especially recently, but desperation numbs the fear. He has to be strong. He has to be the acrophobic that leaves the burning apartment.
Looking ahead of him, the man in black held out a foot long Escrima stick perfectly horizontal. He hoped for some reaction from Superman.
"Is that supposed to be a challenge?" was the man of steel's response. In those words, the man in black's heart sank deeper than ever. He doesn't know. Either he didn't receive the message or the message was never sent at all. More importantly, he has to take down Superman by himself. As improbable a task as that is, he has to, or she dies.
Immediately, he needs distance. A flare would only work if he was too surprised to flinch. Sonics would work as a distraction, but Superman is hovering over ten feet above the ground, about twelve feet away. He has to be closer for the pulse to have a staggering effect. The man in black points the Escrima stick toward the crowd to bring Superman in. Superman thinks he's firing some kind of weapon at the crowd and leans forward. With a flick of his thumb, the man in black activates the sonic pulse.
Nothing happens.
Just then, the man notices the red pupils of Superman. He's destroyed the pulse in the Escrima stick. With his heat vision. "This guy's got too many powers," the man thinks to himself.
"Have you got any other tricks in that lead suit, or are going to do the right thing and turn yourself in."
With the odds coming into the equation, he runs away from Superman. As he takes his eighth step, Superman is already three feet above the ground. Five feet away.
"You know, you're only making this harder on yourself?"
The man in black stops and runs backwards three steps, turns around and runs the opposite direction. Then Superman appears a foot in front of him with the large "S" at eye level.
"If it makes you feel any better, you lasted longer than a lot of other guys."
The man in black stepped back and threw a right hook at him.
If Superman hadn't turned his head and rolled with the punch, the opponent would have really hurt himself. He thinks to himself how much he hates these moments. Everyone knows that he's powerful, but they always think that they could get away. Usually it's better, when they realize their silliness and go home with their pride being the most damaged thing. But the risks these people take is annoying to the Kryptonian.
The man in black winces in pain as he feels the lead lining in his gloves in the impact. The Kevlar cushioned the blow, but the damage is already swelling his fist. Clutching the sonic pulse Escrima stick in his left hand, the man in black swings across the solar plexus of Superman. The Escrima stick splinters apart at impact with smoke and sparks shooting out of it. The man in black followed through with his swing so he could grab a second Escrima stick from his thigh.
The fact is Superman has no recognizable faults. Everyone knows that Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite. However that stuff is practically impossible to get a hold of. Then there's red sunlight which is hard to recreate (especially outdoors in Metropolis).
The only other known weakness is bending the rules of physics with magic. But it's not like there are many magicians one can go to. It's not like the man in black could have gone to, say a Dr. Fate, Jason Blood or Tempest and ask them to bless a Escrima stick to be as powerful a hit to anyone he would generally hit. Even if he did, Superman moves so fast that he would have to let someone hit him with such an enchanted Escrima stick.
That said; the man in black, as quickly as he could, swings the Escrima stick across the face of Superman. The blow takes Superman by surprise and is knocked off balance by the sudden jolt of pain across his face. With surprising, speed and accuracy, the mystery man successfully hits four more hits at three major pressure points Superman then begins to notice the sonic Escrima stick that broke in half has spewed so much smoke that it's created a thick cloud making it difficult to see. With a quick slap of his hands, Superman is able to dissipate the ever expanding gas. As the smoke clears, Superman sees that the man has disappeared.
Listening very carefully, he hears him. His heartbeat is over a half a mile away going on five. Obviously, the man in black had kept his super speed powers as secret as his magical weapon. He looks in the direction using his super vision, but is unable to see him. He begins to think that he is microscopic or invisible. The heartbeat has stopped moving at seven and a half miles away. Superman is there before the author of the story finished that last sentence. Looking at the source of the heartbeat, he gives a quick look of frustration. There, imbedded in street lamppost eight feet above ground level is a miniature device giving off a fake heartbeat sound. The impact was obviously from it being fired while Superman took the hit to the head. Now he could hear the static imperfections of the recording. He probably missed them before because it was muffled in his costume.
"This is getting annoying," he thinks to himself. By now it's obvious that this guy's only goal is to beat "the Superman". The explosion was just to get his attention. Ever since he's put on the costume, every person wants to prove themselves as the greatest threat to the "most powerful being". They usually come up with some hair brained invention and threaten innocent people with it. He picks up a communicator from his belt. "Is anyone up there?"
A calm and deep voice is heard from the communication device. "I am present Superman. I was going over the logs at the Slab. Do you need assistance?"
"Are there any camera's over Metropolis?"
"No, presently we are over Keystone City. We won't be in that area for approximately three hours, twenty tree minutes."
"Can you do a quick telepathic scan for any obsessed minds or criminals running away?
"Nothing really stands out at this distance. Do you require me to send for more support on your location?"
"No. It's just your average cape chaser. I just didn't want to waste too much time looking for him." I'll call back if it's a problem.
Instantly, he returns to where he was. Looking along the streets in all directions, he doesn't see him. He uses his x-ray vision to look through a few buildings into their alleys. There's a possibility that he entered the lead lined utility tunnels under the city. If that happened, he may very well have lost him completely. He begins to hover up ten feet above the ground looking along the streets to see if he can see any utility lines opened.
Three blocks away, he sees something. He lifts up higher above the ground looking down on the ground. He sees a lifted manhole cover. That is halfway fortunate. It's possible that he didn't know the difference between the utilities and the sewers. The sewers run below the utilities, but they're block lined, not lead. The sewer tunnels are a little bit wider than the utility tunnels and are half filled with sewer water. If he can see the ripples against the wall, he may be able to pinpoint his exact location. He flies higher into the sky looking down at the rushing water looking for anything that might result from him going against the stream.
He's a good forty stories up following the ripples of water twelve feet below the street level. This guy is too good. He's used to this though. He's always looking down on the people; looking for them underneath him. It's not because he's pompous or anything. He's literally always above them. He then thinks he sees something. There's an obstruction a block ahead of him. It could be him or it could be a…
As he finishes this thought, a flash grenade explodes in front of his face. A flash grenade is designed to blind a person for twelve seconds. His vision was zooming trough the streets to look at ripples of water. That flash of light was physically painful to the man of steel. Instantly the man in black landed on his shoulders with a cloth in his right hand. And a steel cable tied to his left.
(The man in black had used a preset grapple hook to reach high in the air to assault Superman from the air thus severely straining his shoulder. He'd removed the manhole cover as a distraction.)
Landing on the kryptonian is a strange experience. He's a hovering immovable object in the middle of nowhere. That is definitely not something that is easily explained. Searing in pain from the grenade, Superman opened his mouth slightly. The man in black covered the mouth of Superman with a cloth and forced some kind of pill into his mouth. Mistakenly, he breathed in the pill. As he removed the cloth, foam began to spread quickly out of his mouth exploiting his only unknown weakness.
All organisms need oxygen. Superman has flown in outer space and can survive by using his powerful lungs to suck in the random air molecules for a short time, but for extended periods of time, he needs some form of breathing apparatus. To survive, he needs air.
The foam quickly began to spread until it spilled out of his mouth in gallons. The man in black pressed a button on his buckler and then as quickly as humanly possible, he attached the steel cable to superman's ankle. A huge explosion is heard above them as C4 exploded beneath the statue on top of the Daily Bugle building.
"Too much is happening at the same time" he thinks. Superman looks up to see the explosion. He feels is lungs fill up with the foam preventing him from inhaling a full breath. He could just use his industrial strength lungs to expel the foam, but the explosion distracted him long enough to prevent him from concentrating on his own breathing. As he coughs up a couple gallons of foam, he feels the man in black let go and fall toward the streets below. Before he falls twenty feet, Superman had already grabbed the villain by his ankle. Then he noticed that cable attached to his ankle was attached to the statue above them. The 20 ton statue began to freefall toward the ground. Coughing up more foam, he let go of the man in black and flew up to catch the statue. The foam was expanding so fast now; it was drooling out even as Superman breathed in.
Slowly, he began to fell flush. The man in black threw a de-cell cable line to swing to a halt on the street level looking up to see Superman straining to keep the statue up. Usually, he could move this without a second thought, but if you've ever tried to bench a small weight with a terrible cough, you'd know that you can never really get the right breath to do the job. As he was able to get to the top of the building he felt his vision begin to grow blurry. He used his heat vision to secure the monument. He then looked down to see the man in black run along the streets.
Superman began to fly toward him, but halfway to the ground, Superman began to feel faint. The foam escaping from is moth wasn't letting any oxygen into his lungs. As much as he coughed, the foam was continually filling his lungs. He lets his body go limp. "Once on the ground," he thinks, "I can concentrate on this damn foam." As his starts to fall toward the ground, he sees the onlookers oblivious to the danger they're in. He weighs a good 500 lbs. If he fell the rest of the way, there's a good chance he'd kill someone from the impact with his head now blazing with pain and his body on fire, begging for necessary oxygen, he stops himself twelve feet above the citizens of the city. The foam is not relenting. He closes his mouth, but that just stops it from spreading out. He still has to fill his lungs with O2. Superman slows his decent to the ground. His muscles all over his body are on fire and his mind is suffering the worst case of vertigo. He begins to try to concentrate on forcing the foam out of his mouth, but he couldn't find the energy to expand his lungs with a good enough force to expel the foam. He began to loose consciousness. On his hands and knees, he looked up to see the man in black pull out a vile. That was the last thing Superman saw. He collapsed on the street, unable to move.
The man in black quickly turned over Superman and emptied the contents of the vile into his mouth. Quickly the foam dissipated leaving a purplish sticky go in its stead. Putting his head to the large "S" insignia, the man breathed a sigh of relief.
If he didn't hear a heartbeat, the man didn't know what he was supposed to do then. He put his wrist to his mouth and said, "I got him. Send a transport."
As he stood up, he felt a solid wall hit him across his back. The man went flying a few feet in the air and landed in the median. He looked behind him to see a large glowing boxing glove rise up into the air and down into a large emerald ring.
"I don't know what you did, but it's obviously your biggest mistake," came the sound of the looming voice of a king. Expanding his view and concentrating on his vision, he saw before him, floating in the air, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and the Green Lantern. On the ground he could see Aquaman, and somewhere in the background, he knows that Batman is looming. The Justice League of America.
"No," he thinks to himself. "Not yet. I'm too far from the building. They're too early. I can't take them now…"
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I'm going to end the chapter here for three reasons. One, it's three o'clock in the morning and I haven't had much sleep. (This is obvious from the quality of the story) Secondly, I may have gone too long for the challenge. Thirdly, I have no idea how to go from here. Please send me comments on what you think (i.e. you suck). Keep in mind, this is a fan fiction. I know Superman would most likely never be beaten like this, but it's the best I can come up with on a six pack of Dew and sleep deprivation. Thank you.