Clark was able to publish the story about how the Vanguard and the M-Force teamed up to take down Magneto and save those that he was experimenting on, and he did feel a little bad for not being able to help out, though he had matters to attend with the press conference and its aftermath.

He sat there, in his office at the Daily Planet. It was a standard cubicle office, and Clark sat there and looked at the photo of his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. He truly was grateful that it was them that found him when he crashed onto Earth from Krypton; he didn't distrust the government as much as some other people did, but even he couldn't deny that they wouldn't have given him the same compassion and kindness.

"Hey, Kent. You act as if they're paying you to stare into space all the time." A voice came from behind, and Clark looked up from his desk to see that was Lois. She smirked and stared at him while sipping some coffee from her cup.

Clark decided to roll along with what Lois said. "Well, they might as well be. The Internet's killing us, Lois." He joked. He spoke with a Midwestern accent, as opposed to the Northeastern voice he took on as Superman. He used that to help keep his dual lives separate.

"Jesus, ain't that the truth!" Lois laughed out loud, and Clark took a good look at her complexion, only to try and look away when she made perfect eye contact. There was a brief pause in their conversation before Lois spoke again. "And I'm about to take my lunch break, so I just came by to say, how dare you beat me to that scoop on the Vanguard and M-Force's team-up! You steal enough stories!

Clark shook his head. He could tell from the tone in Lois' voice that she was genuinely salty about it, but that she was just teasing around a little as well. "Well, Lois, you got that scoop on the press conference…and…" He felt a little weird saying this, given that he was there himself as Superman. "…It was definitely a juicy story."

"Oh, tell me about it. I still can't believe King T'Challa's bullshit." She shook her head before changing her tone to that of a mocking one. "'Ugh, I just don't have the balls to stand up to the Elders of Wakanda' – yeah, what a damn load right there."

Clark looked down at the ground for a moment before looking back up at Lois. "Well…I think you could cut Black Panther a little slack, Lois. I mean, even if his country's customs and traditions are a little dated, you can't just treat them with disrespect."

Lois rolled her eyes. "God, Clark, you sound just like Jimmy and Perry. Though I will admit, it's a little less annoying coming from you."

Clark furrowed his eyebrow. "Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?"

"Oh don't get me wrong, farm boy. It's still well worth the eye roll. It's just that Jimmy and Perry both sounded whinier about it."

Clark chuckled. "Well, they're not entirely wrong."

"Yeah, whatever." Lois found herself staring at the wall for a brief moment before looking back at Clark. "Say, we should totally do a lunch break together sometime. With you, it'd probably be interesting."

"I'm sure it would be, Lois. But I actually gotta go on my own lunch break right now. I already had some stops I planned to make along the way."

"Yeah. That stuff you always say you do around lunch break. Godspeed, Clark."

With that, Clark walked away and scoured the offices and hallways of the Daily Planet before finding the elevator. To his luck, there was no one else in the elevator. He began unbuttoning his shirt to look at the 'S' logo on his chest, he was wearing his Superman outfit under normal attire….but then remembered that the Daily Planet had security cameras for the elevators, and decided that it would be most unwise to do such a thing.

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Clark didn't have that large a metabolism to begin with, so he liked to use his lunch breaks to briefly sour the city of Metropolis as Superman to check up on any crimes that could be going on. Sometimes, this would lead to battles that would go past Clark's time for lunch, but he would just say that he was trying to observe Superman's battles so that he would have a story to tell.

Superman was a little worried that Perry would eventually catch on, but he seemed to enjoy the Superman stories, for they helped sell papers. And God knows they need anything to sell papers in this day and age, as he had joked about with Lois.

He scoured the city. Metropolis' crime rate had never been anything like New York or Gotham's, and it had declined even more sharply since 'the Superman' first flew into the sky and stopped an airplane from crashing into a bridge. Still, in addition to the supervillains whose battles Superman frequented, there was the occasional mugger and bank robber who still tried to make an illegal buck in this town.

That's what Superman preferred to see in his lunch breaks, and he thought about that as he flew around the buildings and skyscrapers to look out for Metropolis and its mammoth population of 12 million people.

He paid particular attention to the many banks of Metropolis, though he knew that crime could happen anywhere in any form. He then flew passed a Wells Fargo…and police cars on their way, not too far.

Superman looked around to see what the crisis was, and if there was enough time for him to come in and help. He could then hear a gunshot, and it came from the Wells Fargo, so he zoomed over towards the scene as fast as he could.

He used his X-Ray vision to peak into the Wells Fargo bank and saw two robbers, both men in dark suits with animal masks on to try and conceal their identity. Now he knew what all was going on. He slammed the door, and the situation just…came to a halt. The two robbers both just stood there and looked at Superman, with one of them jumping up in apparent excitement a few moments later – to Superman's complete confusion.

"YES! IT WORKED! WE MET SUPERMAN!"

Superman's jaw dropped and looked around at the massive crowd of people – some looked terrified, and others just confused at what the robber had just sad, but Superman felt great annoyance. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. "You mean to tell me you shot up a bank and made all these innocent people scared that this could be the last day of their lives just so you could meet me?"

The same robber shrugged. "It was the easiest way to meet you, sir."

Superman just sighed. "…This is not the way to meet your idols, gentlemen."

"Well, it worked. So worth it!" The robber said, before high fiving his partner-in-crime.

Police sirens could be heard from outside, and police officers stormed into the bank. "Hands up in the air!" One of the officers shouted to the robbers, who obliged.

As Superman watched the cops arrest the two robbers and read them their Miranda Rights, he shook his head and sighed.

His lunch break was halfway through now, and Superman continued to zoom around Metropolis to check up on any more crime -while hoping that no more people would pull the stunt that those two robbers acted on.

And that had not happened, thankfully. All he had done since then is put a stop to two separate muggers, on opposite sides of Metropolis no less. There was no sign of a supervillain anywhere, which allowed Superman to stop and think about Captain America.

He still couldn't believe it. The Man of Steel still could not believe that the great Captain America, leader of the Liberty Brigade and champion of the American people, was alive and well, and a member of the Vanguard of Justice. Superman smiled at the thought. He just couldn't help himself. He loved reading stories of Captain America's war days and battles; they were his favorite thing to learn about in history class. He never got a single question about Captain America wrong in any quiz, and he would've been ashamed of himself if that ever did happen.

Superman truly hoped to become close with Captain America. He didn't want to creep out the Captain with his admiration, but it was still an enormous honor, and he was sure that the other Vanguardians were joking about all of this behind their backs.

'Let them.' Superman thought to himself. He didn't really care.

He then stopped to wonder about Hydra. There had not been a single peep from them since Doctor Light and Grim Reaper's attack on the S.T.A.R. Labs base in New York. And this worried Superman. He wondered what they could've gotten accomplished while the entire Vanguard was busy traveling to Atlantis and overthrowing its tyrant of a leader.

'Speak of the devil.' He thought. He was just passing by Metropolis' own S.T.A.R. Labs base, and he decided to hear out for any potential crimes coming from there specifically.

Superman was unsure if it would be in Hydra's best interests to attack another S.T.A.R. Labs base, but there was no way he could be speak for sure. After all, how was he supposed to know what Hydra's ultimate plan was? There were a multitude of reasons why they could've attacked New York's base, and Superman was sure that there were more reasons that he just wasn't really thinking of.

He was at the very edge of Metropolis now, with the Interstate well in sight. It had been a relatively peaceful day in the city. At the very least, it was levels that Gotham would never see. But Superman had thought it…and many of Gotham's walls and buildings were encased in lead, which was the one thing that the Man of Steel could not see through. Superman thought of just going back to the Daily Planet, but he stopped himself by thinking about how anything could happen at any time.

And then he heard it. A strange, distorted sound.

The closest thing he could think to compare it to was that of a drilling sound, but it didn't…it didn't sound right. Superman took a moment to briefly check and pay attention to what direction the sound was coming from.

It was coming from out west, so he flew onwards. The sound kept getting louder and louder, and as it increased in volume, it would increase in distortion as well. Superman had absolutely no idea what this sound could be. He had never heard any machine like this. Superman knew that it couldn't just be any organization behind whatever this sound was. He listed out possible candidates in his head – the US Government, S.H.I.E.L.D., S.W.O.R.D., S.T.A.R. Labs…and Hydra. Part of him hoped that it was Hydra so that he and the Vanguard could hopefully learn what their ultimate plan was, but he couldn't rule out the other possibilities as to who it could be.

After about a minute, he had finally flown to where the sound seemed to be coming from, and his eyes widened when he saw Fort Siegel, the military base located not too far from Metropolis.

'Oh no.' Superman thought to himself. He zoomed down into the forest nearby to avoid being spotted by the military. So it was the military behind the noise, it seemed. Except…something didn't seem right. He flew up to take a quick peak at Fort Siegel once more, and saw business going along as usual. He flew back down into the forest, and thought about it.

Whatever that sound was, it was coming from underground.

Superman was unsure of what to do. It didn't feel right to just assume that the military was behind this, even though this sound was emanating from directly underneath one of their bases. Superman had a hunch that someone else was behind this, and that the military was completely oblivious as to what was going on.

Superman looked down at the grassy ground below him and sighed before deciding to use his super hearing to see if he could detect any other sounds, or even voices, from right around where this drilling sound was coming from.

He tried to concentrate and listen in as best as he could, but he heard nothing other than the drilling sound, which was getting louder and more distorted. Superman tried to the full extent of his abilities, but he could hear nothing.

But then, he finally picked up a voice.

"This is all going swimmingly, Jensen. Baron Krieger will be pleased." The voice, that of a deep-sounding male, said.

Krieger. That name made Superman think of Albrecht Krieger, one of Hydra's elite soldiers during the days of World War II. Of course, he had to consider that there was more than one Krieger in the world, but he also couldn't rule out the possibility that this could be a descendant of Krieger's that they were referring to. Or even Albrecht Krieger himself.

"Yes, this should make Krieger happy after our failure at the S.T.A.R. Labs." Another voice spouted out. This one was even deeper, to the point where it didn't even sound like a human talking. It almost sounded like a demon right of hell.

Now that, that was pretty damning. Superman was absolutely confident that whatever this sound was, Hydra was behind it. And whatever Hydra was doing, it couldn't have been anything good.

He began to punch his way into the ground, thinking to himself that he could help replant this ground after he was finished vanquishing Hydra's latest scheme. As he punched his way into the soil of the Earth, the sound was getting louder, and Superman could tell that he still had to go a further west.

He began to destroy the soil with his heat vision, and used it to zoom past the ruined dirt as the drilling sound got louder and louder. Now it was at a point where he would've been able to hear it even if he didn't have the ability of super hearing. He punched the dirt one more time, and he could see it all.

Superman saw several tanks, which looked like significantly more sleek versions of the ones that Hydra had used back in the war. He saw a large legion of Hydra soldiers, who all stopped what they were doing and looked up at the superhero levitating above them. There were only two figures that stuck out. One was a large man donned in black tactical gear, with a black mask that turned white around the eyes where said eyes were visible. The other must've been where the demonic voice came from, because it was not a man. It was a gigantic purple-pink skinned creature, with pupiless yellow eyes, razor sharp teeth, and veins sticking out from around its body.

"It's Superman!"

"What do we do?!"

"Shit!"

"What do we do, Crossbones?!"

The soldier who spouted the final cry of panic looked towards the man in the tactical gear, so Superman deduced that that was Crossbones. And Crossbones did not look too worried in the slightest.

"Take it easy, soldiers. Krieger and I were prepared for this. That is why the Parasite is here."

Superman narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning?!"

Crossbones. "Now why on Earth would we tell you that? Parasite, take care of him!"

Parasite let out a deafening roar before lunging high up in the air, toward Superman. Superman began to charge towards this creature, but he overpowered him and grabbed him by the throat, bolting towards the dirt wall. Parasite had his hand stuck into the wall and he looked at Superman again, and the latter had felt a sudden drain of energy. He had no clue where that came from – at least until Parasite unleashed heat vision upon Superman, forcing him down the ground.

Superman looked up to see Hydra soldiers, Crossbones included, all aiming their weapons towards him. Before he could react to that, Parasite jumped down to the ground, and purple energy cackled from him before he sent out freeze breath towards Superman, freezing him in place.

Whatever this creature was, it could absorb his powers. This was not something Superman had anticipated.

'Oh, boy...'