CHAPTER 3
Superman barely managed to shakily push himself up from the spot where he'd fallen immediately after being exposed to Green Kryptonite dust.
The Last Son of Krypton gradually, and with great difficulty, stood. His vision undeniably blurred. His head mercilessly pounding. His square-jawed visage drenched in cold sweat. His legs uncontrollably floundering. His arms impossibly heavy. His lungs agonizingly burning, as if he'd inhaled the entirety of a massive solar flare.
"What…happened?" Superman asked in a voice so weak it seemed more an internalized thought than a spoken query. "Where…am I?"
Looking around at where he stood, Superman noted that his great fall had created an actual crater in the middle of a dark, dirty alleyway. He then lifted his blue eyes in order to focus both their X-ray and telescopic capabilities. Surprisingly, the concentrated act actually helped clear away the previous fuzziness, as he quickly identified his general location.
"Gotham City."
Having hissed the municipality's name amidst spasms of caustic pain, Superman next shook his head in order to clear it, then fought to drag forth his most recent memory. Even though the agonized pounding threatened to split his Kryptonian skull in twain, the Man of Steel finally managed to remember.
"Batman…Arkham Asylum…stranger…hovering…danger…"
Each word spoken by Superman is punctuated by the searing torment attacking his normally invulnerable respiratory system as well as his overall superhuman physicality. His struggling remembrance provided the life-threatening cause.
"Green…Kryptonite…dust…"
A hacking cough erupted, bringing forth convulsions of pain punctuated by dark red blood sprayed onto the closest edge of the crater he, himself, had made. It was a bad sign. One that couldn't be ignored. Not even by the Man of Steel.
Superman was dying.
Not wishing to aggravate his rapidly deteriorating condition any further by speaking unnecessarily, Superman thought, I must find Batman. It's not just his life anymore. It's not just the lives of the citizens of Gotham City anymore. It's my life, too. Though I'm not afraid to die…I can't simply lie down and wait for it to happen. I don't know how much time I have left, before the Kryptonite in my lungs causes complete respiratory failure…or worse…so I must go on. I must…to save millions…as well as myself.
Exerting far more willpower than he'd every remembered to do something he had come to consider as routine as walking, Superman shakily rose into the chilled night air and, barely skirting the rooftops of multistory buildings, the Man of Steel renewed his vital super-search of the urban vastness that was Gotham City.
First, he would locate Batman, not only to make certain the Dark Knight was still alive, but to locate any criminals recently escaped from Arkham Asylum. Especially super-criminals such as, according to Alfred, the Penguin, the Riddler, and Two-Face. And, of course, Superman was on the lookout for the large shadowy figure that hover-flew next to him earlier, and blew Green Kryptonite dust into his face.
As his super-senses actively searched Gotham City, over which Superman flew, albeit a lot slower and much more unsteadily than usual, he painfully pondered, "Without Batman, I may have no hope of discovering a way of countering the Kryptonite in my lungs. The Batcave is stocked with computers and devices and chemical combinations the likes of which no one, other than the Dark Knight, have access to. Not even at S.T.A.R. labs in Metropolis. And I fear that time is growing shorter by the second. For all of us. For Lois, too."
END OF CHAPTER 3