Chapter 18: Unstoppable

This could be the greatest day of Turpin's career; the Intergang's hangout had been discovered, though it was through very unconventional means. He had received a call from a very distressed Lois Lane saying that her sister had called her from the Intergang's hideout. He moved heaven and hell to get that call traced and set up this sting operation with the MPD and S.W.A.T to take down these punk kids once and for all. He was driving his company car, leading the large convoy of squad cars, and armored vehicles. Helicopters with spotlights flew overhead, to join them in what could be Metropolis' proudest moment.

Sawyer was with him as always; she was not going to miss out on the city's biggest crime bust in history. Unfortunately, they were stuck with Lois Lane, who would not take no for an answer. He understood what she had to be going through; her sister did something very dangerous and stupid. He could only hope that they could save her before it was too late.

As they arrived to the warehouse, they found themselves in the middle of a mass exodus out of the building. All the kids were running for their lives out of the warehouse. "Damn, they've been tipped off."

"Lucy!" Lois' thoughts already drifted towards the worst possible scenario. She had to have been discovered for the Intergang to have been tipped off.

Turpin threw his door open and charged after the closest kid. If this bust was going to be a bust, then he was going to make sure he at least captured one of them. Perhaps he could learn where the new hideout was going to be. "Dan!" Sawyer yelled, getting out of the car to chase after to him. She had to make sure he refrained from doing anything foolish.

Dan chased after him, calling upon the strength of his former high school football days, and with a diving lunge, he tackled the kid to the ground. The kid continued to fight franticly to escape his custody. "Lemme go! Lemme go! I don't wanna die!"

"Stay still, punk! The only way you're getting away from me is if the world is coming to an end!"

The entrance to the warehouse exploded, showering wood and debris all across the dirt road, and leaving a giant hole in its wake. Any officer or agents, who were out of their vehicles, had to hide behind them to avoid the flying splinters. A figure stepped out from the dust cloud that resulted from the explosion. An android, unlike anything anyone had ever seen, was standing there, staring at the surrounding patrol cars and armored trucks. A spotlight from one of the helicopters flying overhead shown down upon the android, giving all the officers a good look at what they were now up against.

"What the hell?" The punk kid, whom Turpin had tackled, took advantage of the diversion, and escaped from his grasp. Turpin's full attention was now on this strange-looking robot.

Lois stepped out of the car in complete shock at what she was seeing. "What in the world?" She had no explanation, but something inside of her told her that this android was alien. After being around Superman for so long, she had acquired a sixth sense on these things.

All the agents and officers had their weapons pointing at the android, but on one knew whether they should open fire or offer the opportunity to surrender first. "Why do I get the feeling we're about to relive the gunfight at the O.K. Corral?" Turpin muttered to Sawyer.

"Funny, I was thinking that this is gonna be worse," she responded.

Brainiac stared out at all of humans standing before him, and then up to the annoying propelling earth vehicle hovering over his head and shining a bright light down on him. It was time to put the fear into these earthlings, and make them realize how weak and feeble they are. He fired two yellow beams from his eye sockets up to the sky. They hit one of the helicopters, which erupted in a giant ball of fire.

Everyone on the ground covered their eyes from the explosion. As the burning wreckage fell back to the earth, the officers on the ground had to run from their positions, to avoid being crushed and burned to death. The wreckage fell on top of an armored car, spraying the immediate area with flaming hot screws, bolts, and other small pieces of metal.

"We've just stepped into hell," Turpin grunted.

Clark's mother was awake and fully alert. Except for some bruises and a swollan face, she appeared to be unharmed. Sitting by her bedside, she told him of Zod's appearance at the farm. As she told the story, he had to stop himself, several times, from feeling rage over the actions of this rouge Kryptonian. He had no doubt that Brainiac had a hand in helping Zod find the farm. As soon as he could, he was going to find them, and bring them to justice.

"I'm glad that you're okay. You may be almost invincible, but that doesn't keep me from worrying about you any less," Martha said, sitting up in her cot.

"Zod is not really much of a threat to me. His powers are only in the development stage," Clark replied, holding his mother's hand between his. "There's something that I need to tell you. I've never told you this because I didn't want you to worry about me."

"Oh, I'm always going to worry. That's what mothers do," she grinned.

"I've never told you why I was sent here to Earth. It was more than just to save my life. There's an evil out there in the galaxy, and I think my father, Jor-El, knew that Earth would one day be threatened by it. That is why I'm here; to protect this planet from this threat. I believe we're now experiencing the first wave of this evil now."

"Then I'm glad he sent you. Your ability to use science is uncanny. If anyone can save this planet, it's you. What gives you strength is the ability to love; and love always triumphs over hate. If you've learned anything from your father, it's that."

Clark looked up at the television in the room, which was turned to the MNN news. Though the sound was turned down low, his enhanced hearing allowed him to hear the whole story. They had a special report coming in and live shots of what was supposed to be the biggest bust in Metropolis' history. He was glad to see that Dan Turpin had managed to find a way to locate the Intergang's hideout without his help. However, things were not unfolding out as plan. As the camera came into focus, he saw an android standing in front of the warehouse. "Brainiac!"

The android attacked a helicopter flying overhead, and the camera caught it as the burning remains came crashing to the ground. Clark watched things unfold, and knew he had to be there. "I'm sorry, mom, but it looks like I'm needed back in Metropolis."

"You go. Don't worry about me, I'm fine," Martha replied.

All hell broke out faster than Turpin had ever seen. Everyone who had a gun began to open fire upon the alien looking robot. Turpin had lost control of the operation, and there was no way to get everyone to caease firing. From his experience, these last few months, he knew that showing aggression in these strange circumstances never worked out well for them. That was why he and Sawyer were the only two not firing. One bullet was more than enough to understand the threat they were now facing. Provoking this thing was only going to cause more innocent fatalities before the big man could arrive.

Lois also could sense more chaos coming, and was quick to get out of the car and get out of the danger zone. It was a good thing she did, because the android was quick to retaliate against the gun fire. The android pointed his right palm forward and unleashed a nearly invisible pulse. The tiny shockwave took all the bullets that were in mid-air, and shot them back to their original destinations. Instantaneously, a dozen men and women died on the spot; their lifeless bodies collapsed to the ground.

"Holy crap!" Turpin was taken aback by the ease that this android was able to take more than a handful of Metropolis' finest down.

Brainiac did a quick mental calculation for the best way to cause fatalities. He turned his focus to one of the armored vehicles and fired his eye beams. The vehicle erupted in a giant explosion. An unfortunate MPD officer was caught in the flames of the explosion. Letting out an agonizing scream as if he was fighting the flames of hell, the poor soul erratically ran for his life as his entire body was engulfed in flames. The flames were so intense; his comrades were incapable of helping to extinguish the flames. The man was as good as dead.

Brainiac was not done with the carnage yet. With a slow wave of his right hand, half of vehicles began to slide to the right in reaction. All the officers and agents using them for shields were being pushed with their vehicles. He did the same with his left hand and the other half of the vehicles reacted in similarly.

Serving as a warm-up to what he was about to do, the android stretched both arms forwards. He flicked the fingers of his right hand, and one of the cars to his right flipped up into the air like popcorn. The terrified agents on the ground leaped out of the way as it came crashing back down to the ground, head first. With a flick of his left fingers, the same thing happened on that side. This time, however, one MSCU agent could not escape the falling car. It came crashing down on his head, killing him instantly.

Brainiac continued the chaos, flipping another car in the air. This one was coming right for Tuprin and Sawyer. "Crap!"

He grabbed Sawyer by the arm and the two of the leaped out of the way, barely avoiding being crushed to death like the previous agent. "What the hell is that thing?"

"Something tells me that this is beyond Lexcorp's capabilities." Sawyer commented.

A soft sound of rushing wind slowly intensified. Something big was coming towards them, and based on the reaction of Brainiac, it was not coming from him. The battered group of officers and field agents were looking to the sky, not quite sure from where the sound was emanating from. All they knew was that they were at ground zero of something big that was about to happen.

A red and blue blur flew through the sky like a missile, and sped right towards Brainiac. The sudden impact was so intense that the ground began ripple like water. The foundation of the warehouse cracked, having severely been compromised. The ground shaking made it difficult for many of the officers and field agents to stay on their feet.

When everything settled down, a giant dust cloud remained where the android had been standing. Everyone in the area only dared to take a few steps closer to attempt to see what had just happened. As for Tarpin and Sawyer, they already had a fairly good guess. "Is that who I think it is?" Sawyer asked.

"I'd stake a year salary on it!" Turpin replied.

From within the dust cloud, they could hear what sounding like the crackling of a series of small bombs. When the sounds ceased, Superman came flying out of the dust cloud, backwards. He went sailing diagonally upward right into an electric tower. Sparks showered around him as electricity coursed through his body. As he fell to the ground, the tower and all the wires connected to it collapsed to the ground around him.

Brainiac stepped out of the dust cloud and looked past all the officers, towards Superman whose body was smoking from all the electricity as he climbed up onto his right knee. "Son of Jor-El, I was beginning to surmise that you were hiding behind these feeble humanoids."

Superman returned to his feet. He could afford Brainiac time to monologue. That last thing the people of Earth needed to hear about right now was about Darkseid. The people of Earth could not afford to lose hope, after already being demoralized by the Intergang for so long. They needed the hope that things were going to get better. He was going to do everything he could to make that happen.

He charged at Brainiac with such speed, he virtually floated over the ground in the process. Raising his fist over his head until the right second, he sped towards the android like a bullet. As he approached, he threw his fist forward, hoping to puncture through the metal of the android's body. Instead, his fist hit some kind of impenetrable, and invisible shield surrounding its frame.

Superman tried again with a volley of randomly located punches, but the shield would not yield
to his super strength. Brainiac fought back with a few punches of his own. The first punch knocked the wind out of the Kryptonian, giving him the chance to plant two more painful jabs.

Brainiac shoved him away and dropped a strange-looking disk onto the ground in front of him. The disk lit up and before Superman knew it, a pyramid of light formed, imprisoning him inside. He cautiously went to reach for the light, but found that it was a strange, solid barrier, unlike anything he had ever seen. He tried to punch through the barrier, but it remained impenetrable.

The disk which powered this pyramid barrier was still powering up, which told him that this weapon was not yet done. Something inside of him told him that he did not want to be here when the device finished powering up.

Looking around, he seemed to be completely trapped inside of this trap. When he looked down to the ground underneath his feet, he could see his feet still leaving marks in the dirt below. There was no barrier between him and the ground, and that meant there was a way out.

Crossing his arms in front of him, he spun in place with such speed, that he had become a drill. He drilled through the ground until he was deep underground. A green light lit on the disk, and immediately, the pyramid-shaped chamber was engulfed with green, electrical bolts. In seconds, the intense bolts ceased and the chamber was deactivated.

"Error, I have miscalculated the ingenuity of Kal-El. Chance of successful termination… minimal."

The ground underneath his feet began to tremble. Piercing through the ground, Superman came up right underneath him and delivered a devastating uppercut. The impact sent Brainiac flying diagonally upward, back through the upper level of the warehouse. Knowing that all he had really accomplished was to surprise the android, Superman took flight, following the path that Brainiac had been thrown.

With the battle taken out of view from everyone, some of the police officers curiously began to approach the severely weekend warehouse. With their weapons drawn, they were ready to look inside and inspect the damage, hoping that Superman had taken the fight elsewhere. Running out from the hole in the wall, and startling all the officers, Jimmy and Lucy were glad to, finally, be out of the warehouse.

"Lucy?" Lois recognized Jimmy instantly through his lousy disguise, but she hardly recognized her younger sister; she looked like a whole different person. "Thank goodness!"

"Lois!" Lucy shouted, seeing her older sister off to the side.

The two young adults ran for her, running from this whole mess and anxious to return to the real world. They had spent enough time in the underworld for one lifetime.

"Thank the stars you two are alright. What were you thinking?" Lois scowled grabbing Lucy by the nap of the neck and pulling her towards safety. Somehow, she knew that the fight between Superman and that android was about to commence.

The moment that thought entered her mind, parts of the warehouse exploded as yellow beams blasted through the wall. Another set of beams broke through the wall. This time Superman came spiraling out of the warehouse, only to collide into the side of one of the armored vehicles.

Brainiac paced out of the warehouse emotionlessly. Cold, calculatedly, and unremorseful, he pointed the palm of his right hand towards him and a large metal coil sprung out at him. The coil wrapped around Superman twice, after which it became electrified.

Superman screamed as the intensity of the electricity slowly increased. Fighting against the pain, he struggled to break free from the coil. As the energy in the coils increased, the harder it was to concentrate on mustering more strength.

He forced his mind to concentrate on anything but the pain he was in. He thought about what would happen if he should fall to this android. He had visions of the future of this planet should he fail. This planet would not survive Darkseid's tyranny. The planet would burn in unquenchable flames, and the humans would be tortured and mutilated into submissive servants to the dark lord.

No, he could not allow that to happen; he could not fail here. He found that surge of energy he needed. He pushed his arms out as hard as he could, ignoring the pain. Finally, the coil snapped, and an instant feeling of relief washed over him.

Now free from Brainiac's hold, he was ready to do whatever it took to end this fight. Brainiac was proving to be even more of a menace than he could have imagined. His eyes began to glow red as he took a deep breath. He unleashed two heat beams from his eyes, putting a massive amount of power behind them.

The beams hit the android, but the shield around his body only reflected the beams away from him. Superman continued his assault, none-the-less; perhaps he could crack that thin-layered shield.

Brainiac looked up to the sky to see another helicopter still flying overhead. It was time to test a theory that he had. He had studies Kal-El's personality all the way to Earth. Up to this point, he had miscalculated his resolve to protect earth. Based on what's happened in this fight, he calculated that he had a seventy percent chance of killing Superman. To someone, like Brainiac, those was not good enough odds; he desired perfection. If this test proved accurate, then he had a key to increase the odds completely in his favor. It would also serve as an opportunity to escape to pursue this new 'perfect' strategy. Brainiac fired two eye beams at the helicopter's tail, cutting it off.

"No!" Superman ceased his attack immediately and looked up at the helicopter that was spinning out of control. He leaped to the sky, racing as fast as he could to reach the helicopter. Just as he was about to grab hold of one of the landings bars, two yellow beams hit him like giant fist in the ribcage, sending further away from the helicopter.

He grunted, as he clasped onto his side. His ribs felt like there were on fire. Ignoring the pain he made another attempt to save the news crew in the helicopter, but once again, Brainiac pushed him away with his eye beams, this time hitting him in the chest. Now his chest was on fire, and making it hard to breath.

He tried again, as the helicopter was getting dangerously close to crashing into the warehouse. Brainiac again shot in the right shoulder blade with such impact; it pushed him past the point of no return. He could only watch as the helicopter crashed through the rooftop of the warehouse. The resulting explosion was the straw that broke the camel's back, and the foundation gave way. The warehouse collapsed inward until it was nothing more than a pile of rubble.

Superman hovered there for a second in pain and in utter shock. That shock quickly turned into anger. The anger became rage, but before he had the time to act on it, Brainiac fired another set of beams, tagging him right in the center of the 'S' on his chest.

The pain became too much for him and found himself plummeting to ground. He landed on the roof of one of a police car, which collapsed under his weight. Never in his life did he feel so sore and weak. Almost all of his muscles felt like they were on fire. It took everything he had to roll himself off the car. Still a little unstable on his feet, he took a limping step forward.

When he looked straight, he noticed that Brainiac was gone. Had all of this been just a distraction, so he could escape? Why did he even feel the need to escape when he had pretty much over powered him? Whatever the reason, there was a part of him that was glad that he did. If he was completely truthful, to himself, he had to admit that he was no longer a match for the Kryptonian android in his present condition.

"Wow, I've never seen you man-handled like that before," Turpin said, walking up to him cautiously.

"Are you… hurt?" Sawyer asked.

Superman looked up at the two MSCU agents who were concerned for him. They were not the only ones worried about him. From a distance, he could see Lois looking at him with a nervous look on her face. She had seen how badly Brainiac had beaten him.

"I will be fine," Superman replied. "My metabolism allows me to heal quickly. I'll be ready the next time he shows his face."