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

5

"You're late, Kent," Lois grumbled as she leaned back in her chair, eyeing the monitor on her desk as she stared at the display.

"Sorry. I was down at the precinct with Captain Sawyer."

"Maggie? Why?"

"Oh, I was on my way in when I noticed the Superman landing. I went in to see what was going on, but he was gone by the time I managed to get inside. I did get a quick and dirty statement from the head of SCU regarding the city's colorfully clad champion," he said, patting a pocket with his notepad in it.

"Really? What did she say?"

"Only that she wasn't endorsing a vigilante operating in Metropolis, but that if he wanted to be a civic-minded sort, and help out without breaking any laws, she wouldn't complain."

"Maggie actually gave him that much leeway," Lois blinked in astonishment, knowing all too well what the woman thought of people taking the law into their own hands.

"I believe it helped that our new hero also saved a lot of lives, including police officers, last night during a failed gold heist. Still, she did insist he hang up the cape, and join the force if he planned on fighting crime."

"What failed gold heist," Lois asked, coming up straight now to eye him as he switched on his computer. "Hang up his….? Is she crazy?"

"I'll let you read all about it in a few minutes," he grinned as he started to type.

"Listen, Kent," she muttered.

"Just a moment, Ms. Lane," he smiled, and rose after a flurry of typing that had her gaping. He walked over to the printer, and pulled out the sheets before he turned back and told her, "I'll be with you right after I deliver these."

"Now, just one….."

"Mr. White. I have that new story you wanted," he told him as he walked past her, ignoring her sputtering, and entered the office.

Lois looked around her, saw the smirking co-workers around her, and felt her temper surge.

"He did not just dismiss me," she growled, and stormed toward the office where the newcomer had just disappeared behind a closing door.

She shoved the door open barely an instant after it had closed, and glared at the man who cut her out of the biggest story of the decade. Maybe the century. A story she felt was hers from the start, since she had virtually been the one to 'discover' the 'Superman' in the first place.

Well, she had been the first to be rescued by him, so far as she knew.

"All right, Kent. What have you got that has you…..?"

"Perfect," Perry White growled as he reviewed the neatly printed pages after Clark handed him the story. "This is going to be big. We can run polls on page two, asking for reader input, and really milk this one. Good job, Kent," he grinned, and put the papers down. "And I've got the perfect banner."

"Chief," Lois complained, eyeing those pages.

Perry held up his hands, envisioning large print as he said, "The perfect headline. We'll run it as, 'Superman Grounded! SCU Tells Hero, 'Thanks, But No Thanks!'"

"Mr. White, that's a bit of an oversimplification….."

"Kent, you wirte the stories, and I'll write the banners. Okay? Okay. Now, get out there, and find me my next story," he grinned.

"But, Chief," Lois sputtered.

"Move it, Lane. Before I start thinking you're getting too old for this work."

"Too old," Lois fairly growled as Clark already turned to go. "This is not over," she hissed at her boss, then stalked after Kent.

MoS

Clark had to hide his smile as Lois lambasted him again and again in surprisingly novel ways as she likened him to a thief, a monster, and far worse as she questioned his parentage, his upbringing, and his character every other word.

Lois, he was finding, was more than merely a crusader. She was highly competitive.

"So, Ms. Lane," he said with a perfectly straight face as they walked down the sidewalk of the city streets without any evident destination so far as Clark could tell from his companion's current manner. "Would you like to stop for lunch?"

"You hitting on me, Kent," she glowered. "Do you think you can….?"

"I just thought you'd be hungry," he told her with a very faint smile. "It has been a long morning."

She glared, then told him, "Just as long as you don't expect me to eat Chinese," she quipped. "I hate that stuff."

Clark blinked in faux innocence, easily guessing she was probing now, and had obviously been doing some of that anticipated checking on him Still, he couldn't resist asking, "Why, Lois, how did you know I like Chinese?"

"I know all about you, Smallville," he was called tellingly. "Small-town farm boy raised by Chinese nuns. I don't care about that. I care about you stealing my story," she glowered.

"Ms. Lane….."

"However, as an acceptable start toward redeeming yourself," Lois told him, "You may treat me to lunch. No fast food, either," she scowled.

"Anything you want," he assured her as they continued down the sidewalk.

"Well, you'd better have a good credit card, mister. Because I am hungry," the woman told him with a growl.

Clark said nothing as he followed her toward a very trendy café where the food apparently wasn't bad, just overpriced.

Afterward, listening to Lois chortle after his likely having to settle for peanut butter for a few nights, she led him to the mayor's office, where they got the mayor, and the commissioner's take on the Superman situation. Both seemed to agree that while his aid was appreciated, vigilantes were unwanted in Metropolis. Did he willingly join the local police, he would be more than welcome.

The implication was that metas didn't belong in costume. They belonged under the heel of traditional authority. Or so Lois slanted the follow-up piece to Clark's story after they returned to the Planet.

Clark could hardly argue the point as he researched the meta issue in the nation, and across the globe. The American military was hardly unique in its hostile stance toward metas or aliens. They were just more open about it.

He had already noted that a few military units in the region had moved discreetly closer to Metropolis, and three major armed camps were just outside the city, allegedly carrying out 'war games' in the area.

Suddenly, his 'civilian' identity made a great deal of sense as he considered how difficult it might be for him to remain 'Superman' all the time if he wanted to actually get anything done in this area. He was going to have to do something about the military sooner or later, though. He did not intend to have them chasing him all over the country in some misguided attempt to recapture him.

He also felt this Luthor required more scrutiny. Between his initial work on the X-1 project, and the rumors of Cadmus he had been hearing of late, he thought it was important he investigate the meta question himself before they did find something, or someone, that could endanger him.

Or the planet.

Since his father's archives made it clear that more than a few promising worlds had destroyed themselves long before they could reach their full potential in the history of their galaxy. Which implied Earth might join that list if men didn't stop warning on their own evolutionary development with such blind disdain for their own species. For even he could see that metas were obviously just a new evolutionary threshold for a remarkably adaptable species.

That said, he didn't wish to end up watching a world die as his own must have after his father had sent him here in hopes that he might thrive.

"Mr. Kent," Jimmy exclaimed as he ran into the office just then, looking excited, "Have you heard the news?"

"What news, Jimmy," he asked as he looked up from the research he was doing on metas as a cover for his own more in-depth research on the issue.

"Something just landed in downtown, and it's tearing the whole city up," the redheaded photographer exclaimed. "Half the cops in the city are down there, and they can't stop it!"

"Stop what," Lois asked, returning from an errand of her own just then.

"No one knows. Anyone that gets too close gets hurt. Or killed. Something serious is really ripping apart the city, and even SCU can't slow it down. I heard some of the guys were betting over whether Superman would show or not."

"Wasn't it made clear he wasn't wanted," Clark asked blandly even as he surreptitiously lowered his glasses, and glanced in the direction his retuned hearing now focused.

He spotted the trouble almost at once. A six-six cyborg of unknown construct was literally tearing apart the city, smashing cars, walls, or people in grim abandon. He realized the body count could easily spike into the thousands if he didn't do something. Yet to act would shatter the truce he had made with Detective Sawyer who bluntly stated she wanted no caped vigilantes in her city.

"We'd better get down there, and see what we can find out," Clark said all the same as he rose to his feet.

"Stay here, and play librarian, Kent," Lois cut him off, grabbing her purse, and dragging Jimmy after him. "I'll handle this one."

"Ms. Lane, are you sure…?"

"The pair disappeared into an elevator, and Clark frowned.

He was about to follow them when the phone rang, and someone across the room shouted at him.

"For you, Kent."

Clark stabbed the button, careful not to push too hard as he answered the line, and heard Maggie's frantic voice shouting, "Get them back! All of them, damn it!"

"Hello," he spoke blandly, well aware what she was facing out there.

"Kent? You're the reporter that knows Superman, right? Listen, whatever it takes, we need to get him down here. Now! We need his help. Can you….?"

She stopped to shout more orders even as something exploded in the background, and he glanced toward her way as he saw a fuel tanker going up, and the unstoppable juggernaut stomping through flaming wreckage as he turned her way.

"Kent, we can argue later. Tell that man we need him now!"

"I'll see what I can do," he told her somberly, and hung up before walking to the nearest supply room door.

He glanced around, slipped inside, and less than an eye blink later, Superman was flying directly toward the chaos.

MoS

"Kent? Kent? Damn it, I think I lost him," Maggie said as she turned to see the metal thing stalking toward her as its fleshy façade now seemed torn, or even melted in places as the destructive thing stomped her way with cold menace in its glowing eyes.

The sun turned the sky dull red as the smoke and flame blocked the sunset more than usual, and she had the uneerie feeling she was about to die as the smirking robo-thing reached for her.

Just before a sonic boom almost deafened her, and something slammed the monster back five blocks, and into the side of an already crumbling apartment house.

"Order your people back, detective," the man in primary colors told her as he now hovered before her, slowly settling to the ground as he watched the android wrench itself free, and rise once more. "This could be dangerous."

Maggie didn't point out the absurdity of that statement as the robotic humanoid finished dusting itself off, and turned to face them.

"Just stop that thing before it kills any more people," she told him. "We can discuss your legal standing later."

"An acceptable arrangement," he told her without looking back at the robotic creature surprised them all by speaking for the first time. Not just speaking. He laughed.

"About time the main event showed. I was starting to think you were all hype, S-Man," the android chortled as he moved directly toward Superman. "Or a coward."

"What is that," Maggie hissed.

"Order your people back," Superman reminded her, and stepped forward.

Even as the android declared, "Well, since you're here, I've brought you a little gift. I think you'll enjoy it. I know I will," he said, and raised a single hand.

The green energy blast slammed into Kal-El's chest, and blasted him down three blocks before he slammed into a building, feeling not unlike he had been hit by a nuclear blast.

He slowly rose, feeling the unnerving weakness he had known early on in his life, and realizing what it meant.

He eyed the creature before him, noted he couldn't see its inner workings within the torso, but that the rest of the android was completely mechanical as it stalked toward him, it's chest opening as two segmented plates parted to show the green crystalline power cell that obviously fueled the monster. Focusing his vision on the andorid's head, the only other part he had not investigated as it moved toward him, he put the pieces together.

"I see now," he said, rising into the air, staying beyond the reach of the green energies being radiated by the android walking toward him. "I thought you were a cyborg, but you're just a machine."

"I'll show you a machine," John Corbin sneered, and raised his oversized, left wrist to aim his way again.

Red fire flashed, and the wrist, and half the arm was melted into slag.

"That's cheating," the android shouted, his rage quite human behind the mechanically shrill voice.

"Hardly. I'm merely dismantling a defective machine," Kal-El replied, his eyes glowing red in the half light of dusk again as the smoke and dust from the battle kept most back, and unable to see what was going on.

Corbin howled as he landed on his back, his legs literally cut from beneath him even as his right arm was sheared away by the alien's powerful ocular lasers soon to be dubbed 'heat vision.' Then he found himself completely immobilized when his head jerked, and rolled away from his body.

Kal-El used a burst of speed, and flew down, snatched up the faux skull, and was out of range of the glowing particulates still exposed from the open chest-plate before the radiation could slow him down. He flew down the block, and landed in front of Maggie Sawyer, who was still having trouble believing that the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut had just been stopped in its tracks so easily.

Or so it appeared to her.

"I believe your answers are inside this device, Captain. Sawyer," he told her.

"Like I'll tell you clowns anything."

"There are things you should be very mindful of at this point, machine," Kal-El still called him. "Such as, disconnected from your primary housing, your on-board auxiliary systems have exactly two hours of life support left before the batteries die, and the organic tissue inside dies."

"Organic…..tissue," Dan Turpin sputtered, staring at the metallic skull now devoid of the faux flesh that had made Corbin seem human until the battle had torn away the façade.

"This is a machine. Inside, it's guided and operated by a few ounces of human brain that were apparently crafted to very complex technology. Technology only one or two men on the planet likely could have crafted."

"Are you saying….?"

"I am merely making a statement of fact," Kal-El told her.

"Hey, hey! What about me. You gotta get me put back together before I….."

"I'm an not finished with you, machine. You will supply answers here, or I will finish what I started, and crush your cerebral housing, and end your threat here and now."

"You can't do that," John shrieked through his computerized voice. "That's murder!"

"Your body is obviously already deceased considering the bulk of your brain is within this container. So, can it truly be considered murder to simply neutralize an unnaturally preserved brain?"

"I'm not even going to try to run that one through the courts," Maggie complained. "Just hand him over, and we'll get him hooked to a battery, or something…."

"No. Not until he talks. He has ninety-three minutes before his power fades. But more importantly, I can crush him completely," he said, "In the next few seconds if he does not explain this rampage immediately."

"Listen, Superman," Maggie swore, reaching vainly for her sidearm. "I know I called you out of necessity, but I cannot let you….."

"Ten seconds, machine," Kal-El said, his hands starting to compress as the sound of creaking metal filled the air.

"Luthor! Dr. Luthor did this! He wanted me to draw you out, and weaken you long enough for his teams to pick you up for the military! That's all I know. I swear," the panicked android babbled.

"I believe that constitutes a confession, detective," Kal-El told them, tossing the slightly crumpled metal head toward Dan Turpin, who caught it with an uneasy grimace as he stared down into those glowing eyes.

"What about my batteries," Corbin hissed.

"You're obviously not too bright," Kal-El told him, turning to train his heat vision on the open torso laying not too far away, melting the obvious lead-lined plating back over the crystalline minerals within. He then walked over, scooped up the torso in one hand, and rose from the ground as he looked back, saying, "Or you'd know your onboard cranial backups are solar-powered. Better hope it doesn't cloud up."

Then he was gone in the same instant.

"Detective," a voice shouted, and she turned to see a perennial pain headed her way. "Maggie," Lois shouted as the young redhead with her snapped photos of the android's head Dan had set on the hood of their squad. "Any comment on calling Superman back from his early retirement?"

Maggie scooped up the android's head, tossed it into the car, and climbed in behind the wheel.

"You coming," she demanded of Dan as Lois tried to get around the barricades to reach her.

She drove off before she could manage.

"So, what next," Dan asked, eyeing the weird, almost alien face of the robot head that seemed to glower for all its inexpressive mask.

"We're going to interrogate our perp," Maggie said coldly, eyeing the now silent head.

"I want my lawyer."

"Or a computer repairman," Dan suggested.

"You won't get a word out of me. I was under duress. I….."

"You will talk, or I will give you a choice."

"What choice, detective? Frankly, I don't think you can do anything to me as I…"

"Simple, metal-head," the grim woman spat. "Either you talk, or I'll put you in an evidence box, in a very dark room, and forget about you."

John made a very convincing growling sound.

"Or maybe we'll just give you back to that Superman. He seemed ready to put a few more dents in your chrome," Dan suggested.

Corbin was silent for all of five seconds.

Then he grumbled, "I'll talk."

"Thought you might," Dan smirked, glancing at his partner.

MoS

"A setback, but hardly unexpected. Corbin was only meant to truly gauge X-1's current abilities and strengths."

"I'd say he did a damn poor job of it," Sam Lane growled. "He didn't even slow the creature down."

"That is where you are wrong. The kryptonite, as I've dubbed it after reading that ridiculous cover story he handed out so conveniently, did its job as expected. The radiation is still a viable weapon against the alien. Still, it's a clumsy, and unreliable weapon considering his speed and agility are literally off the charts."

"When do you get to the point where you tell me your overdeveloped brain has a plan?"

"Of course I have a plan, General Lane," Lex smirked over the video-link. As I said, Corbin was bait. A test. Now that we know he can be baited, we send in the real weapon," he said, and turned to let the camera focus on a life-sized incubation tube just behind the bald scientist.

"What the hell is that?"

"Recall we did have X-1's DNA all this time. While we've yet to even partially map it, we were able to make some extrapolations, and I've created a weaponized clone I believe will not only match our wannabe hero, but bring him down."

"We can't even stop this one, and you made another of him," Sam roared.

"Don't worry, general," Lex smirked. "This creature can't even truly think. We allowed him very little cerebral development, and it left him with the mind of a three year old. A very loyal, and obedient three year old, since we've been programming him for our needs all this time."

"Is that right," Sam Lane asked suspiciously.

"Unlike your men, General Lane, I think ahead. Too many powerful metas, and even more powerful aliens have been showing up of late. I knew we would need such a weapon in reserve even back then. Which is why X-2 was created in total secrecy, to prevent the usual bleeding hearts from stopping what they might unethical work on our part."

"Fine. But did you have to make him so…..bizarre," Sam complained as he eyed the chalky-white creature that looked more rough granite statue compared to X-1's chiseled physique.

"Aesthetics weren't my first priority," Lex told him. "And do recall, we were working with completely alien DNA that we've yet to fully analyze. X-2 is the best we could manage as yet. But I do have higher hopes for the X-3 prototype hybrid Cadmus is developing."

"I want to know everything this time, Lex. And I mean everything. Meanwhile, I expect X-1, and all his….counterparts to be fully contained by week's end. I'm coming down myself to oversee this operation."

Lex only smiled, then closed the link.

"You think he's going to make trouble."

"Lane is a blowhard, and just wants to look good in front of Congress. Once we have the situation contained, he'll go back to his press releases, and political games, and leave me to my work. First, however, we do need to prep X-2 to find and intercept X-1."

"How do we do that?"

"Isn't it obvious? First, we find everything we can on this…..Clark Kent. He's obviously in contact with the alien, and knows more than he should. I should very much like to pick his brain in that regard, at the least."

"And lure the alien after his friend?"

"You think they are friends," Lex frowned thoughtfully.

"I don't know. Seems Lane would be the better bait, though. He does still show up when she's in trouble," Mercy sneered.

"So he does," Lex murmured.

"So, what's the plan, Lex?"

"The plan? I think you need to go pick up a few things for me, Mercy," he said. "Bring me Kent, and Lane. Then we'll have X-1 right where we want him for certain."

The aide, and sometimes assassin, only smiled.

"I do owe her," Mercy said with a cruel gleam as she considered an earlier meeting with the tiresome woman that left her unconscious in an alley. Her!

"Just bring her to me in one piece. After all, we need live bait for this hunt, Mercy. We can always tie off the loose ends later."

Mercy only smiled, thinking of her own vindication.

To Be Continued…