"And who might you be?" Metallo asked.
"Special Agent Davison. MHD." He answered. "You are under arrest! Release Superman, get down on your knees, and place your hands behind your… skull."
Metallo tilted his head to one side, an odd gesture considering the rest of his body was facing the other direction. "You have got to be joking."
"Drop Superman or I will shoot you!" Davison barked.
"You tried that already, remember."
Davison opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it.
"Tell you what," Metallo continued. "You want Superman, you can have him. Catch!" and with amazing speed, Metallo's body twisted at the waist and he flung Superman head first towards the agent.
Davison was barely able to dodge in time, diving further into the chamber to avoid the humanoid missile. He rolled forward and to his feet just as Metallo closed on him. He had just enough time to raise his weapon, aim, and fire off a round, hitting the metal menace right between his emerald hued electronic eyes.
Metallo froze and looked down at him, not so much a scratch across his brow. "That really isn't going to work." he said, and then punched Davison across the room.
He hit the wall with a bone jarring thud and slid to the floor. Davison tried to stand, but everything was blurry and he couldn't tell which way was up.
He was suddenly in the air.
His vision finally focused and he looked down at Metallo's visage.
"Who invited you to the party?" Metallo asked. "You here to see the reactor go 'boom'?"
"Not exactly!" Davison answered. He raised the gun and slammed it hard against the side of Metallo's metal skull. His arm reverberated painfully with the blow and Metallo's head tilted slightly to one side.
And that was it.
"Now that wasn't very nice." Metallo said.
He twisted and slammed the smaller man hard into the floor, the air rushing from Davison's lungs, and audible "snap" coming from his chest.
He raised the agent back into the air then.
Davison tried to breathe and couldn't. Intense blinding pain filled his entire left side. One or more of his ribs were broken. He tried again, and this time, the air rushed into his lungs with a gasp. He immediately regretted it, the expansion of his lungs intensifying his pain.
"You ready to behave?" Metallo asked.
Davison spit a cursed at him.
"Now, now, Agent… Davison was it?" Metallo began. "Just because I'm about to rip this suit off you and watch your body boil in this heat… well, that doesn't mean we can't be civil."
Through his suits HUD, Davison could see the temperature in the room was well above two thousand degrees. He could already feel the heat through the layers of protection, the suits internal computer trying desperately to compensate by pumping oxygen and coolant through the suit. Davison knew that if he lost the suit, he wouldn't last five seconds in the chamber.
There was a sound like thunder and the entire chamber shook. Davison looked up and saw the walls begin to crack, the metal splitting like fractured glass.
"Looks like the shows about to start." Metallo said, looking around as well. His electronic eyes fell back on Davison. "I'm in a good mood," he began. "So how about I give you the choice. I can either pull this helmet off of you…" a robotic hand hovered over Davison's visor, the fingers dancing excitedly. "Or you get to say you saw reactor meltdown from the inside before you die. Your choice!"
Davison seemed to consider it for a moment.
"How about option 'C"…" he said finally. "I watch Superman kick your ass." He shouted, looking over Metallo's left shoulder.
Metallo followed his gaze, ready to dodge and attack, or even use the agent's body as a shield.
But Superman still lay motionless on the floor near the chamber door.
"Made you look!" Davison shouted. And he squeezed the trigger of his weapon, firing repeatedly into Metallo.
A half dozen shots echoed throughout the chamber, then the gun finally clicked empty, the chamber sliding back into a locked position.
And still, Metallo held him aloft, completely un-phased by the attack.
The robotic eyes looked at him. "Wow." Metallo said. "You're really thick. I told you, bullets don't affect me. I'm as impervious as Superman."
And even though he was foot in the air, held aloft by a metallic monster about to rip away the only thing keeping him from a slow, agonizing death, Special Agent Davon Davison of the Meta-Humans Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; looked down at him and smiled.
"Not all of you." He said.
It took Metallo a second to realize what he meant. Then, he looked down, and he saw it.
His Kryptonite heart was shattered and lay in a hundred pieces around his metallic feet.
Metallo roared in rage. He flung Davison to the side like garbage and fell to his knees, his metal fingers trying desperately to pick up the small kryptonite shards in fit them back into the chamber in his chest. Sounds of frustration escaped his vocal processor as every piece he placed in his chest slipped away quickly and back to the floor.
"No." he shouted. "No! Not my heart. I need my heart!"
And already he could feel his power supply draining. In a matter of minutes, he would be unable to move.
The metal man knelt there, trying desperately to put his heart back together.