I do not own any DC Characters used herein, and am only employing them in a story meant for entertainment purposes only.
Man Of Steel
Original Story By Twisted-Wun & LJ58
Edited and Reposted (With Permission) by LJ58
2
Rick Flagg stared down at the smoldering remains of the convoy, and swore.
The decision to abandon his command wasn't his own, and he had argued against the move. Especially in the manner that had been planned without his input. Still, General Flagg was a soldier, and even he obeyed orders.
They dismantled the base, and began to move men and materials to other locations the moment the brass decided it was time to scrap the secret post. The last convoy was to carry out the more critical artifacts they felt too dangerous to let go, intending to deliver them to a special holding facility near Metropolis. The Cadmus Labs, a top-secret covert offshoot of the more public Luthor-Corp, was doing a lot of cutting edge research for the government, and the Pentagon had decided to turn everything over to them.
Instead, it was now all gone. Every artifact. Every scrap of proof that Mankind was definitely not alone in the cosmos. Decades of evidence, and effort. Lost in one single instant.
As his helicopter banked to fly over the scene below, his sergeant looked down, and whistled. "Think it was our boy, sir?"
"Who the hell else could it have been, Sgt. Parkes," he demanded, thinking only of that single semi-truck loaded with alien artifacts. Artifacts that included X-1's own spacecraft made of an alloy so dense they couldn't even break off a piece for study in all this time. In all this time, not one laser, hammer, or tool had been able to so much as dent the damn thing.
"Put us down," he finally barked at the pilot when he saw the survivors' huddled around an overturned jeep they were using as shelter from the winds that were blowing strong and cold that evening.
Two months.
Two months without a single sighting, and on the very night they risked finally moving the artifacts, the creature apparently swooped down, smashed up his convoy, and flew off with the entire trailer packed with goodies without slowing down to even show his face.
Not that it mattered. They knew who it had been.
What it had been.
As he had feared, X-1 was definitely proving himself a viable threat. They should have killed him years ago when they had the chance. Before he had grown up, and become too powerful. He had long felt that way. He was all the more convinced now. Too bad no one else had shared his foresight at the time.
Not far away, the lights of Metropolis lit the horizon. Hopefully, none of that nosy press had gotten wind of this fiasco, or so he hoped as his bird touched down, and hopped out to check on the men that looked his way.
"Injuries?"
"None, sir," a young lieutenant stepped forward to report with a ragged salute. The man was obviously chilled from the night air, and looking more than a little chagrinned. "The….guy handled us with kid's gloves this go-round. We barely had time to blink, and we were all sitting on the side of the road watching him fly off with our cargo."
"Why all the destruction, then," he demanded, noting the devastated equipment.
"I'm guessing he didn't want us calling, or going for help until he had a head start, sir," the younger officer told him honestly.
"Well, it obviously worked," Rick snapped irritably. "How long ago did he strike? That soldier who reported the incident never gave us a timeline when he finally reached a phone to call in aid."
"Close to 1600, sir," the man told him somberly.
"Damn. Seven hours. He could be anywhere."
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant nodded needlessly.
"All right. We've got relief trucks coming up now. Get yourselves squared away, and… Lt. Hardcastle?"
"Sir?"
"This did not happen. Understand?"
"Perfectly, sir," the man saluted a little more formally, and turned to his men even as more military trucks rolled toward them, carrying men and supplies to aid their own. Still, Rick was glad they didn't end up with casualties this time. Not even one injury. Unless one counted the obviously chilled men likely to end up with colds from the look of some of them.
He was about to head back to his bird when he spotted a van behind the convoy. Rick Flagg swore softly when he saw them. It was obviously a media van. In the passenger seat he could just make out a brunette he knew all too well.
"Perfect," he spat. "Just….perfect."
MoS
"Dr. Luthor….."
"Please, Lois. Call me Lex."
The voluptuously curved brunette smiled sardonically at the bald man in the tailored, dark gray suit, tapping a short nail against her mini-recorder. "And you may call me Ms. Lane," she drawled with a fierce glitter in her dark eyes.
The bald man nodded nonchalantly, and smiled at her. "As you wish. Lois." "Save the act, baldy," she drawled. "This time I've got you dead-to-rights. So how about telling me why Luthor-Corp decided to try to buy out Star Labs when we both know Hamilton's little research group wasn't even in your league?"
"Now, Lois," the tall, lanky man smiled, his eyes suddenly cold and hard. "I wouldn't want to bore you with talk about economics, and certain…..practicalities of…"
"So, the strong-arm attempt to force a buyout wasn't personal? And you didn't try to have Emil Hamilton silenced because he knew so much about your clandestine dealings with Cadmus, and the Pentagon?"
"With who," Lex drawled smoothly, but Lois wasn't buying it. He had been a snake from the day she had first met Lex Luthor, alleged philanthropist, and scientific genius who had turned his family's minor holding into a multi-national, multi-billion dollar concern in just five short years once he came to power. Some said that prosperity came with a lot of covert, government backing. Not to mention certain coincidental deaths. Starting with his own family members who less than coincidentally left him sole heir to the empire.
Shortly after Luthor-Corp raised its first tower, many of Luthor's rivals, competitors, or outright enemies began to just disappear. Almost conveniently so.
"Cute don't cut it with me, buddy. We both know you're part of the government think-tank researching genetic manipulation, and cutting-edge…"
"Really, Lois," he drawled. "I would think a reporter of your caliber would have learned to check her facts by now. Not resort to science fiction, and flights of fantasy," he smiled. "Now, while I scheduled this little tête-à-tête for the sake of your father, who is a good friend," he smiled unctuously.
"Let's leave dear old dad out of this. Shall we? We both know he still thinks I betrayed the Corps. But I don't care. I care about….."
"This interview is over, Lois," he said as an intercom chirped. "Sorry. Time is money, and all that. Mercy," he called to the lean, wiry brunette who was chauffeur, aide, and much more to the very powerful businessman.
"This isn't over, Dr. Luthor," she growled as Mercy Graves appeared, and all but dragged her out of his office.
Lex sighed, and shook his head. Magnificent woman. Too bad General Lane was right. She was worse than a dog with a bone, and simply didn't know how to let go.
"Sweep the office, Mercy," he told her when the woman returned. "I wouldn't put it past that woman to have planted a few bugs right under my nose while she was here. Then find out who blabbed about Cadmus, and especially the botched hit on Emil.. I would like to talk to them. Personally," he said so grimly that Mercy understood completely.
MoS
He looked down on the world, now clad only in a black bodysuit, a silver sigil on his chest that served as his memorial to his father, and his lost world. He had gained much over the past three years. He had immersed himself in the study of his own world's science, and culture. In addition, he had used the planet's own wireless internet services to study humanity as a whole even as he studied the other genuine alien artifacts found along with his ship on that military transport he had intercepted years ago.
One of them, ironically, had vanished not long after he had opened the lead box holding it.
The small, green ring had risen of its own accord even while he had studied it, shone an apparently harmless green light over him, and then vanished as if it had simply left this physical dimension. He remembered the insignia, however, and based on his father's archives now knew it was tied to a group of ancient immortals from a planet his ancestors had called Oa.
He dismissed them, and the ring, deciding they had nothing to do with him.
Other artifacts indicated that the planet had been, and was still being visited by other species. Some obviously not well received judging by the impacts, and scoring on alien wreckage, armor, or even the one desiccated body he found in a cyro-tube. The red-skinned creature wore the same sigil on his garment as the ring that had vanished, and not knowing what else to do, he had buried the fellow alien deep in the ice near his arctic fortress, as he considered it.
After he had finished his own personal studies and preparations, now confident in the use of his own seemingly miraculous abilities, he had turned back to the problem of his own immediate future.
He couldn't too well just sit in the north, hidden by ice and snow, and let the world spin by him. It wasn't in him to ignore that greater world that was now so close with his speed and power. He simply would not trade one cell for another, which he felt such enforced solitude would be in the end. Of course, he still had to lay low, because he knew all he had to do was show himself, and the nation's military would be all over him. Perhaps the entire world's militaries, too, rather than just that one nation that seemed overly paranoid to him.
At the moment, he hovered over the very area near where he had found the convoy that afternoon a few years ago, having overheard that the men were headed to another secret lab of some kind. He had wondered if they might be holding other aliens, but a sweep of the area with his special x-ray vision, one might call it, had shown nothing but pretentious men playing with sciences they had yet to even master. He wondered if they had not stolen that technology from other captives, too.
He did not find any other sentients. No other captives. None that weren't of their own species, at least. They seemed to view certain members of their own species with the same disdain accorded him. He had to wonder why. Were they not all the same genus?
Then his ears heard the squeal of tires, and he looked to see a small sedan fleeing two large, black SUVs obviously trying to run the former into the bay. The road was a narrow, winding path along the side of mountain outside the large city beyond, and from the look of it, the larger vehicles had already seriously damaged the smaller car.
He focused on the lead vehicle, and heard the woman inside cursing someone named Lex fluently just before one SUV pulled forward, cutting her off, letting the second ram her off the highway, and into the air.
For all of a half second before her damaged car began to fall.
The woman, to her credit, didn't scream.
She cursed all the more. Then actually tried to shove her badly warped door open as if intending to jump free as the car plunged toward the dark water below. She did not succeed.
The SUVs slowed, and stopped as the car plummeted, and he saw four men in dark suits climb out, holding weapons.
Four armed men for a single female?
Below, the car hit the water, and sank fast, the woman kicking and pushing against the passenger door now. Just as badly damaged, even that door that wouldn't open. The men watching laughed, then one pulled out a radio. "Tell Dr. Luthor the leak was plugged. That's right, the reporter is history. Tomorrow, the big story will be her obituary."
Dr. Luthor.
The name was not unfamiliar to him after years in his 'care.'.
Kal-El made an impulsive decision at that moment, and arched down, hitting the water without feeling the impact despite his speed. He quickly spotted the car still sinking as the woman now tried to kick her way through a window as she gulped precious air from the rapidly filling car's confined space.
He had to smile. Most humans would have likely been panicking at this stage. This woman was a fighter. He admired that.
He flew more than he swam, and reached the car before it could continue to the bottom still thirty feet below. His fingers sank into the steel frame, easily holding it in place as he tore open the warped door panel as the woman stared incredulously at him for scarcely a second, and then reached fearlessly for him. He released the car even as he pulled her to his chest, and then rose to the surface so fast she didn't have time to blink as he kept going until they were high over the bay, and she was looking down.
"Holy cow, mister! You're a lifesaver," she blurted as she clung to him, staring down at the water below. "But how did you….? How are we….? Who are you? Where did you come from?"
"Is it not enough that you are safe," he asked her with a smile born of genuine amusement as she looked directly at him, losing herself in his wide, blue eyes for a moment.
"Uh, yeah. But….no. No! You are news, mister. Anyone that can do what you just did…. Are doing," she said, looking down as she clung to him. "What are you? One of Cadmus' escaped projects? Did Lex cook you up in his lab?"
"No one cooked me up, woman," he told her with a faint smile, and glanced down to where the two SUVs were driving away. Not one of the men in the vehicles had even considered looking up. "I am….."
"One of those metas I've been hearing about. Right? You suddenly developed powers, and you're out doing good deeds. Like that Flash character out in Central City. Nice costume, by the way. But it's a bit bleak for a wannabe hero, don't you think?"
"Do you ever pause for air," he asked quietly as he hovered high over the bay, simply staring at the woman who seemed remarkably composed for one who had just been spared certain death seconds ago.
The woman blinked, mouth open, ready to continue even as he spoke.
She suddenly grinned. "Sorry. Lois Lane. Daily Planet."
"I thought this was Earth," he stated blandly, hiding his mirth from her.
"O-kaaaaay. What country are you from?"
"Krypton. But it is a planet. Not a country."
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. You're saying you are actually from another planet?"
"Yes."
"But…. Okay, I can see that. I've met aliens before, after all."
"You have?"
"Yes. But you're the first one that spoke such good English. I'm not counting the Martian, because he's a mind reader."
"A Martian? Here on Earth?"
"I guess he still is. I don't know. He's a bit wary of the government. With good cause, naturally. Anyway, spill. I've still got a deadline, and this is going to be a killer sidebar to my Luthor-Corp story."
"You do not fear those men will return to attempt to assassinate you again?"
"Those goons? Please. I know who sent them, and I've been ducking them for months since I started tracking down Lex's graft and corruption."
"You did not….duck them very well this evening."
"Well, even I didn't think he would try anything right after I left his private offices. Guess I was wrong."
"Apparently. But why risk your life if you know he would attempt to harm you?"
"Listen, buddy. I don't know how they do things on Krypto…."
"Krypton."
"Whatever," she snapped. "But on this planet, Lex's brand of graft is just plain wrong. I'm a reporter, and I will do whatever it takes to let the public know about sleaze like him so they can take out the trash."
He simply arched a brow at that.
"Besides. He's targeting a friend of mine, and no way am is Lois Lane sitting on the sidelines while that bald tyrant goes after Emil Hamilton's lab."
"Dr. Hamilton resides in this region?"
"You know him?"
"Possibly. Was he the same Dr. Hamilton who was part of the X-1 Project for your nation's military?"
"Let's pretend I don't know what you're talking about," she said with a sly smile.
He only smiled back.
"In fact, why don't we start with your name?"
"I am Kal-El."
"Right. So, Kal-El? Do you just float around, or do you ever put those feet on the ground?"
He looked down.
"You wish to return to the ground?"
"Gee, now that would be swell," she drawled sardonically.
"As you wish," he nodded, and swooped down to set her on the side of the road near where her car had been run off the highway.
"Well, there go my insurance premiums," she sighed, looking down at the dark water. "So, can you…..?"
She looked around, and frowned.
He was gone. Just gone.
"Typical," she growled, and turned to look toward the city. "Glad I wore flats today," she muttered, and began walking.
High overhead, Kal-El watched her, smiling.
The woman was spirited. Brave. And obviously committed.
More importantly, she knew of Luthor, and Dr. Hamilton. She bore watching, he decided. It was not as if he had anything else to do just then.
Continued…