Post by Clark Kent on Jul 25, 2014 4:23:23 GMT
"This is breaking news from WBGS, with on-site reporter Linda Layword. What's the situation, Linda?"
Cutting from the anchor room to the scene in question, a young, pretty reporter stood outdoors... behind her was a thick crowd of people, all gathered around a police cordon. Behind that cordon, glimpsed through the throng of people behind her, hot, bright flames flickered hungrily along a massive factory building a safe distance away.
"As you can see behind me, John," she said primly, adjusting her hair as she raised her voice to be heard over the muttering crowd, "some sort of fire has broken out at the McMillion Chemical Plant here downtown. Fire response vehicles are trying to combat the blaze, but for the moment there doesn't seem to be any way to suppress it. Surrounding structures are being evacuated, and people in the area are being warned to be prepared in case the fire begins to spread. The source of the fire..."
The crowd behind her was beginning to shout, pointing upwards and drowning out her report. Glancing over her shoulder, looking a little irritated, Linda finally looked up to where they were pointing... at which point her eyes widened. Seeming to forget about the camera entirely, she turned to face the crowd, still looking upwards; her microphone picking up her voice as she muttered.
"It's... my God, he is flying! There's, like, no strings or... jetpack or..."
"Linda!" the anchorman sounded like he was bordering on panic. "What's happening over there?!"
Shaken out of her stupor, the reporter whirled back around, gesturing frantically towards the camera. Or, more specifically, at the cameraman... the footage shook a little as the cameraman similarly glanced up- a muffled curse just barely heard from him- before he finally aimed it upwards as well. The camera blurred and shook for a moment, the display all but useless, but finally, slowly, it sharpened... there was a figure, high above. Though too high up to see many details, there was a bright, red, fluttering cape, a blue costume...
"John, it would seem that Metropolis' mysterious vigilante has arrived on the scene," Linda was finally explaining; with the camera lifted, only her voice suggested she was still there at all. "He seems to be surveying the fire, I just... I don't know what he thinks he's going to do!"
Hovering high above the blaze, Clark's thoughts were more or less on the same page.
What am I going to do?
This particular fire was significantly bigger than the pair of apartment fires he had put out in the past, and the buildings it engulfed were considerably less stable. Whatever the Chemical Plant had been storing, some of the compounds were clearly very flammable, and it was a small miracle that the smoke hadn't grown truly toxic.
Not yet, at least. Peering through the crumbling walls and crackling flames, he could see that there were a number of vats and containers that hadn't yet been touched by the flames. He had no idea what they contained, but at this rate, every substance in the compound would be exploding or burning within ten minutes. Eyes narrowing, he focused his senses, willing clarity on the chaotic crackle of flames, forcing himself to peer through the near-blinding light of the fires... and then his breath caught in his throat.
Somebody was inside.
No, two... no, three people. Scattered throughout the plant, one shouting for help, two reduced to little more than coughing.
It was that immediate threat that shook him out of his uncertainty, eyes focusing and vision passing through every roof, wall and piece of debris in its path to pinpoint where they were. Dropping his hands in front of him, he drew in a deep, deep breath and swooped down into the acrid smoke, passing through one of the smouldering holes in the roof and pulling up sharply to rocket through one of the hallways, the tips of his boots barely brushing against the floor..
The first trapped citizen, a woman, was trapped in an office underneath a chunk of ceiling, unconscious. Bursting through the door, he dropped to the ground over her in a split second, shielding her from the hungry roar of flames that swept into the open room; once the initial blast had passed, a flick of his wrist tossed the piece of debris from her, and he lifted her up into one arm.
The second, only a few doors down, was a young man who was also unconscious, but slumped up against a wall in the bathroom, a cut on his forehead suggesting he'd slipped and fallen. Several pipes around him had burst, flooding the small room with water... a godsend, as it was keeping the fires outside at bay. It took Clark a split second to slip into the room and collect him as well, tucking the senseless man under his free arm.
He took advantage of another hole in the roof, bursting out of the building and clearing the cloud of smoke. He could hear shouts of surprise as he landed across the street, quickly- but carefully- setting down both on the sidewalk. Paramedics were already sprinting over, along with a couple of firemen, and police, and a few reporters to boot, but Clark was already back in the air, eyes straining to find that third trapped man.
The first two rescues had taken mere seconds, but it might have been too long; the fires had reached another set of vats, and even as the hero found the third man, trapped by flames in one of the Plant's main processing chambers, one of the storage vats exploded.
Time passed by in a crawl as Clark slammed through the wall, only a couple dozen feet from the last occupant; he could see the man, standing with his mouth open in a silent, frozen scream, lit and the growing glow and heat from an ever expanding explosion. Rather than let momentum carry him forward, the hero twisted in midair and altered course, extending an arm to grab the man by the midriff and haul him along before the flames consumed him. But the explosion was still expanding, coming from two directions at once as another vat detonated... the hole he had made in the roof was already blocked off by the expanding shockwave. Head lifting straight up, Clark finally released the held breath, in a single, titanic blast.
The force of the released breath punched a hole clean through the plaster, wood and steel of the Chemical Plant's roof, one that Clark passed through a split second before the explosions sent a fiery pillar into the sky. Clearing the smoke and flames by a comfortable margin, the hero found a relatively quiet corner away from the fire to drop off his last passenger, trying to calm him.
The third man was still conscious, gibbering and struggling in Clark's grip... not out of fear of his rescuer, but simply built-up panic. When they both landed in a nearby parking lot- on the other side of the plant from where he'd dropped off the last two- the man's eyes finally craned up towards his rescuer.
"Y-y-you're... you're him!" he sputtered.
"Yes, I'm..." the hero paused, then finished lamely; "...him."
"The guy!"
"Are you alright?"
"You're that guy!"
Clearing his throat, Clark lifted a hand to half-greet, half-beckon another group of people- once more a mix of safety workers and reporters- over. Giving the still-gibbering man what he hoped was a reassuring smile, the hero took a couple of steps back and launched himself back into the air, ignoring the shouts, questions, and general cries for attention from those below. Higher and higher he climbed, until he would have been a scarcely visible dot on the horizon... and once up there, he allowed himself to go right back to feeling helpless.
Normally, he just used a bit of freezing breath to put out a fire, but those were generally much smaller fires. He wasn't sure whether he'd be able to freeze one portion before another thawed and caught flame again... and if he tried to freeze it all at once, he'd need to put so much power into it, it would probably blow the entire building down, hurling rubble onto the gathered crowd.
The longer he floated there, the more doubt and frustration seeped in. Maybe he should let the proper authorities handle this. Could they even handle something this substantial? What if the fire started to spread elsewhere? What if something truly toxic started to burn?
"Come on, Clark," he murmured, eyes darting across the fire. "Think!"
Struck by a sudden inspiration, his eyes sought out the bathroom he'd rescued the second victim from; it was easy enough to find, and the pipes were still jetting water. Eyes narrowing, focus shifting, his gaze passed through the bathroom floor and began to track the water pipes deeper and deeper beneath the pavement until he found what he was looking for.
A ghost of a smile crossed his face then, and drawing in another deep breath- squeezing on it with his lungs until he felt a chill build in his chest- he shot back down into the inferno.
Once he'd had a strategy, it had actually been surprisingly easy to subdue the fire. He'd found the water main, punched through about six feet of concrete in four key locations to expose the pipes, then wrenched them upwards to douse the interior with thousands of gallons of water. The Chemical Plant used vast quantities of water for processing, sanitation and- ironically ineffective- sprinklers, and so the hidden pipes had been massive. From the inside, they proved far more effective at dousing the flames than the distant jets from the firemen.
There had been some particularly troublesome spots, areas where the fires were being sustained by chemicals too stubborn to be halted by water alone, but a few blasts of his breath- condensed by his lungs until it was freezing cold- had left even the most stubborn segments extinguished tinged with frost.
Within less than a minute, the fire had gone from an uncontrollable beast, to a pile of smouldering ashes. Even as the firefighters had closed in to finish the job, and douse any stray embers, Clark had wasted no time moving on, flying straight up through the cloud of smoke and steam to depart before anyone even knew he had left. His costume and hair was streaked with ash and soot, but the same bioelectric field that protected his body and costume from harm kept the filth from sinking into the fabric; all it had taken was a quick dunk in the bay to clean up, and within moments he was high above the city, head tilted up towards the soothing rays of the midday sun.
He had been operating in Metropolis for a little over two months now, having chosen to make the trip from South Africa under his own power rather than by plane. From his debut costumed appearance, a rather rushed affair that involved nothing short of catching a falling plane, to countless interventions in the troubles of the city's citizens, he'd stopped robberies, caught fleeing criminals, put out two (sorry, now three,) building fires, and even prevented an industrial accident from demolishing an entire construction site.
On an almost daily basis it seemed, the news outlets in Metropolis, and throughout the rest of the country, had featured the hero's exploits, but many of the articles were purely speculative. Many different names had been used to describe him- protector, guardian, vigilante, even menace a couple of times- but there was one in particular, coined by a reporter at the Daily Planet, that he liked; Superman. The modest farmboy in him was slightly mortified to be called that, but at the same time... it stuck. Even if the article that had first used it also featured the writer, Lois Lane, delivering some decidedly, er, unkind words about his constant secrecy.
Brushing those thoughts aside, he once more tuned his senses towards the city below, wincing as he slowly, carefully let the cacophony of sounds wash over him. For his entire life, he had focused on keeping his incredibly sensitive hearing suppressed, blocking out the sounds of what sometimes seemed like half the country; only recently had he begun harnessing it, carefully trying to control it so he could monitor as much as the city as possible.
Maybe the fire had scared people indoors- by now, the smoke was shrouding half the city- but Metropolis was unusually quiet tonight. There weren't any sirens, not so much as a cry for help or a gunshot to alert him to trouble.
Which was fortunate, because Clark had somewhere he needed to be.
Pumping a fist into the air, he began to ascend at a rapid pace, drawing in a reflexive breath as the air began to thin around him. Once he'd climbed to an altitude a comfortable thousand feet or so above even the most ambitious passenger jet, he adjusted his course, following the curvature of the Earth towards the Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. His speed increased, moment by moment, until he was little more than a red-blue rocket, untrackable even by the most advanced instruments.
He had a bit less than two hours to fly to Africa, land in the small motel he'd rented without being seen, change into his street clothes, then take a cab to the airport. While he wasn't particularly worried about whether he would make it in time, he did push himself a bit harder than usual, fists tightening as a grin crossed his face.
Today, finally, was the day Clark Kent was finally coming home.
The thought spurred him to put on another burst of speed, gradually descending when the coast of northern Africa came into view far below.
He had a plane to catch.
About twenty hours later, one small corner of the Metropolis Central Airport found itself the victim of mild excitement, as a bumbling, oft-apologizing, disaster zone of a man wandered from his exit gate towards the Customs desk. Carrying no less than three assorted suitcases, dressed in an old brown jacket, tattered green turtleneck and blue jeans that smelled of smoke, the man's hair was a complete, scattered mess, and his eyes were nearly completely obscured by dark sunglasses.
He collided into several people just trying to get in the line at Customs, always accompanied by mortified apologies and stammered explanations that it had been a long flight, he was tired, did anyone by any chance have a breathmint he could use...?
The tired, bleary-eyed woman working at the Customs desk eyed the tall man as he gradually drew closer and closer to her window, paying the other travelers only brief glances; when he finally reached her window, head bobbing in a friendly fashion, arms straining to keep hold of all his luggage, she glanced hopefully at the clock...
Nope. Still two hours until the end of her shift.
"Passport and identification, please," she said, brow lifting when the man immediately reached for his jacket pocket... which sent all three suitcases clattering to the ground.
With an 'Ohmygoodness,' the man ducked down beneath the counter, rustling filling the air as he apparently tried to bring order to his possessions. Finally, his hand snapped into view, slapping his passport onto the table before vanishing from sight again. It was with a long-suffering sigh that the woman collected the passport, flipping through it and taking note of the surprising number of stamps he'd accumulated.
"So, Mister..." her eyes glanced at the passport, then at the sheepish man's bent back. "Kent?"
"Yes, yeah, that's..." Straightening, glasses slightly askew, he nodded. "That's me."
Grunting and fumbling to tuck the heavy suitcase under one arm, the other pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, then extended for an enthusiastic shake. The woman in question eyed the offered hand as if it were some alien creature, then hesitantly, and briefly, shook it before turning back to her display.
"Well, Mister Kent, our records show you've been out of the city for quite some time... almost five years now. Were you traveling for business, or pleasure?"
"Oh, just a bit of a fact-finding tour, see the world, lot of really, um, fascinating people out there, like the Masai tribe I was able to visit in Tanzania, did you know that it is a social ritual to remove the two front teeth and-"
"Mister Kent!"
Completely taken aback, Kent jumped slightly, which caused his suitcase to slip out from under his arm and go crashing back to the floor all over again. Clearing his throat, wincing and flushing with embarrassment, he leaned towards the clerk's window, eyes darting back and forth beneath his shades.
"Y-yes?"
Staring at him blankly for a long moment, the woman finally sighed and held out the passport. "Everything... seems to check out. Welcome home."
"Oh, um..." Taking the passport, he gave a little salute across his temple with it before tucking it into his front jacket pocket. "Yes, thank you."
The woman could only watch, a mixture of irritation and amusement sliding across her face, as the man awkwardly stooped to retrieve his suitcase, turned, nearly collided with the man waiting in line behind him, and finally departed even as he emitted a string of apologies for the near collision. The story of the bumbling, fumbling dolt who'd come through customs today was likely one she'd be retelling more than once over the next couple of days, and it was definitely going to be good for a few laughs.
Stepping from the cab and paying the driver, Clark adjusted his sunglasses and considered the twelve-story apartment building that was now his new home. Once more fidgeting with his many bags, he stumbled and wavered his way up the steps, mumbling under his breath as he slipped inside. A low groan passed his lips when he saw the elevator was broken- his new place being on the eleventh floor- but he nonetheless stoically began to make his way up the stairs, smiling tersely at other residents as they squeezed past him on the way down.
The apartment he had rented was modest, and the first month's rent had taken the rest of his accumulated money; his mother, a master bargain hunter, had been kind enough to find him some furniture and have it shipped to his new home, along with clothes and other household necessities. Unfortunately, when Clark opened the door to his new apartment, he was confronted with a solid wall of furniture and boxes... clearly, whoever had been hired to deliver them had settled for simply leaving them all clustered just inside the doorway.
Sighing, he set down his bags and patted his pockets, wanting to call home before he started bringing order to this chaos. Aside from this unfortunate little hiccup, his day was actually going pretty well so far...
As was his plan..
Today's little homecoming wasn't for Clark himself, as he'd already been in Metropolis for months, but was instead for the name and identity that would go into the government's records. He knew that if he moved into Metropolis on the same week that he started saving citizens, it would just be too massive a coincidence to ignore. Now, with months having passed since his costumed persona's first appearance, and records proving that Clark had been overseas until today, he hoped the alibi would hold up under any scrutiny that might occur.
More specifically, he hoped it wouldn't occur to anyone that he could achieve cross-continental flight on his own.
A few minutes later, he was in the middle of a conversation with his mother- more a formality given he'd quietly visited her in person only two days ago- even as he shifted through the mess of boxes and furniture.
"The flight was a bit longer than I would have liked, but..." Hefting an easychair over his shoulder and moving it to the cramped living room, he paused when his mother interrupted. "Hmm? Oh, no, I think it went well enough, but I'm worried I might have overdone it a little. I'm going to try and tone it down a bit for the interview at the Planet, I'm worried if I keep knocking things over it'll draw more attention than it's worth. All right, well, enjoy the card game, I'm going to unpack. Love you too, Ma. Bye."
Setting the chair down and pulling off his glasses, he tossed them and the phone onto the chair and, thus unburdened, exploded into a sudden blur of motion. The remaining furniture, rugs, packed boxes and suitcases full of possessions were spread out throughout the modest apartment, unpacked and placed in their appropriate closets, shelves and cupboards faster than the eye could track. In mere seconds, his new home went from looking like an abandoned husk to a well-settled home.
Unfortunately, those few seconds of super-sped feet and furniture elicited a series of sharp raps on the ceiling from the apartment below him, which prompted Clark to come to a dead halt in the bedroom with the last box under his arm.
"Sorry!" he called down, clearing his throat as he unpacked the final box at a far more modest rate.
That last box, appropriately enough, held some of the clothes he'd asked his mother to deliver. It was going to be another part of the Clark Kent persona, one that he had considered very carefully... looking at them now, though, he was starting to wonder if he'd made a terrible mistake.
Even his mother had burst out into disbelieving laughter when he had suggested he should wear suits, fondly asking him if he wasn't really trying to disguise himself as Clark Gable. He couldn't blame her for the surprise; as a farmboy, up until he left, he had hated, hated wearing suits with a deep passion. They were restraining, uncomfortable, unbearably heavy things that, invulnerability aside, made him itch... the few times he'd had to dress formally, he'd wanted nothing more than to squirm.
In this case, though, being awkward and uncomfortable was exactly what he was counting on, and reservations aside, he intended to see it through.
He took his time changing into the new clothes; the button-up shirt, brown trousers, light gray suit jacket and black tie... all of it was a size or two too large for him, and second-hand to boot, bagging just enough around his shoulders, chest and midriff to add a slovenly edge to his appearance, and hide his formidable physique. He still looked pretty tall, and broad in the shoulders, but the imposing bulk of the blue, red and yellow-clad hero was replaced by a bulky, uncoordinated mess. His hair, which had generally been left tousled and slightly unruly, was meticulously slicked back, not a strand awry.
Next, the glasses; large, thick and horn-rimmed, he had picked them up at a local flea market in Kenya, and they were sturdy enough for his purposes. At first, the excessively strong prescription all but blinded him when he put them on, but a few moments of concentration allowed him to adjust his eyesight to compensate.
Most importantly, when he turned to look in his bedroom mirror, he could see that the thick lenses had dulled the brilliant color of his eyes, turning a bright sapphire into a far more watery shade of blue.
The transformation, as it was, was nearly complete.
The most important element, though, wasn't the physical disguise, but the personality change he'd need to perform. When he'd first taken to the streets as in costume, the entire point had been to portray strength, confidence, and unwavering dedication; the perfect posture, deep voice, all were designed to create a person who could be seen as supremely capable and trustworthy.
The new Clark Kent, on the other hand... well, he wasn't willing to drop the trustworthy aspect, as it would require crossing lines he simply didn't want to. Capable, on the other hand, was something he could let slip. He needed to be quiet, unassuming, someone who wouldn't quite leap to your mind as a candidate for a risky or difficult task.
He had enough suitably awkward years in high school to call upon for that particular performance, and there were some tricks that would help. A lack of eye contact, fidgeting, and poor posture could help sell the image, but above all else, the voice would be the key to distancing his bespectacled alter-ago from the cape-clad hero.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
A little too deep, and too loud. The voice actively echoed through the room and so, clearing his throat, he tried something a bit more low-key.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
He winced. Too nasally, and far too forced; he sounded like he was trying a bad Woody Allen impression. Clearing his throat again, he once more tweaked the tension in his throat, licking his lips before trying one more time.
"Hi, uh, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
Better. High tenor pitch, soft emphasis on the syllables, a slight pause between the first two words as if asking for confirmation that the listener wanted anything to do with him. He repeated those words, in the same voice, even as he slouched his shoulders just a bit lower, tugged his collar slightly askew, loosened his tie just a bit too much for it to be considered neat. In many ways, he looked like a pre-teen attending his first school dance; being told how to dress formally, but not quite grasping the subtleties.
Perfect.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent-"
"-I'm here about the job offer?"
Perry White, the borderline patriarchal chief editor of the Daily Planet, glanced up from his desk at the young man who'd poked his head in... something which in and of itself was silly given the door was made of glass, letting White see the newcomer's entire body anyway. Then he did a bit of a double-take, brows lifting, mouth slackening as he considered the new arrival with rising disbelief.
"Kent. You're Clark Kent?"
Clark blinked, head still poking in the doorway. "Um, yes sir."
Perry seemed to have trouble grasping it. "The same Clark Kent who's been sending us freelance correspondence pieces from overseas."
"Y-yes, sir?"
"The same Clark Kent who did that piece with Kobe Asuru?"
"Yes, yes sir. Is... is there a problem?"
Perry continued to stare at Clark for a moment, then finally cleared his throat and waved him in without directly answering the question. Knowing better than to ask it again, Clark slipped into the room, adjusting his tie- and only sending it all the more askew as a result- and settled onto one of the chairs in front of White's desk, putting down his suitcase and adjusting his glasses.
Perry White, for all intents and purposes, seemed an embodiment of an older generation of reporters.
"So, son," Perry said distractedly as he turned his attention to his computer, clearly searching for something on it, "how's it feel having your feet back on American soil?"
"Oh, it, um, feels good, sir." Clark nodded a little before adding; "I mean, I've never really been to Metropolis before, there isn't actually that... much soil here... mostly sidewalks and roads..."
Clark's addendum petered out under White's incredulous stare. Perry, for his part, opened his mouth to say something, but then again decided to let it slide, instead turning towards his computer and calling up a file. When the Editor in Chief turned the monitor around for Clark to see, the young man quickly recognized one of the stories he had e-mailed to the Planet for publication.
"This," Perry said gravely, pointing at the article, "is damned fine work."
"Oh, thank you, sir, it's-"
"Drop the Sir, Kent."
"Yes, s- um, Mister White."
"Now, like I was saying," Perry continued, eyes narrowing a little. "You've sent us, what, a dozen stories over the last two years, sent a dozen more to our competitors, all of em damn good because they were looking in places no once else would, and finding scoops that nobody else had bothered to track down. The man who wrote these stories, he's got stones, guts, hoop-la! Are you that man, son?"
"Am I...?" Clark shifted in his seat before nodding a little. "Yes, yes. I have... hoop-la?"
From the look Perry was giving him- which bordered somewhere between annoyance and disbelief- it was pretty clear that he didn't buy it. Clark was starting to worry that he was playing the role he'd given himself a little too well. Although there were other newspapers he could apply to, he'd actually been a reader of the Daily Planet for a few years now, and he'd gladly have chosen this place over any other.
Something seemed to soften the older man's glower a little, though, and finally he slapped the tabletop, making Clark jump.
"Tell you what, Kent," Perry finally announced, fingers folded in front of him. "I'm gonna give you a shot. We'll start you off as a cub, minimum wage, lotta grunt work, writing about opening ceremonies and politicians saying whatever they gotta to get re-elected... and I'll pay a freelance premium, on top of that, for any other stories you can dig up on your own. Scoops, Kent! Give me scoops, we'll see about helping you climb the ladder a little, sound fair?"
Letting out a sigh of genuine relief, Clark nodded and reached across the desk to shake White's hand, wincing at the older man's tight grip.
"Yes, Mister White, thank you so much for the opportunity, I won't let you down, and-"
"Kent!"
"Um, yes, Chief?"
"This isn't the Academy Awards. You can stop now."
"Oh." Pushing up his glasses again, Clark nodded, clearing his throat and looking at his shoes again. "Right. Sorry."
"I like you, Kent. You're a well-dressed, polite young man, and you remind me of a much more timid version of myself at your age. And, like I said, you're a good writer. So I'm going to do you a favor; not only am I going to give you a chance to prove that you've got the guts and the gusto to impress me, I'm going to give you a golden egg of an assignment... and a partner to give you a hand."
"A partner?" By the time Clark turned from the window, White was already striding away, apparently growing more and more enthusiastic with the idea by the minute.
"She's a fine reporter," he called over his shoulder as he moved towards his office door. "Got enough fire to torch a small forest, and she has a knack for ending up in places she shouldn't at just the right time. 'Course, unfortunately that fire's been leaving more'n a few people burnt. She's only twenty four and it seems half the companies in this city're filing restraining orders to keep her away." Pausing, his hand on the doorknob, White chuckled to himself, casting a satisfied glance back at Clark. "Yeah, this is going to work just fine. She'll hopefully give you a little bit of the torch she's burning, and with any luck you'll help keep her from getting this newspaper sued. Again."
Pulling open the door, White's voice lifted to a sharp bellow, filling the entire news room and causing every head to spin towards his office like a family of raccoons.
"Lane!"
Cutting from the anchor room to the scene in question, a young, pretty reporter stood outdoors... behind her was a thick crowd of people, all gathered around a police cordon. Behind that cordon, glimpsed through the throng of people behind her, hot, bright flames flickered hungrily along a massive factory building a safe distance away.
"As you can see behind me, John," she said primly, adjusting her hair as she raised her voice to be heard over the muttering crowd, "some sort of fire has broken out at the McMillion Chemical Plant here downtown. Fire response vehicles are trying to combat the blaze, but for the moment there doesn't seem to be any way to suppress it. Surrounding structures are being evacuated, and people in the area are being warned to be prepared in case the fire begins to spread. The source of the fire..."
The crowd behind her was beginning to shout, pointing upwards and drowning out her report. Glancing over her shoulder, looking a little irritated, Linda finally looked up to where they were pointing... at which point her eyes widened. Seeming to forget about the camera entirely, she turned to face the crowd, still looking upwards; her microphone picking up her voice as she muttered.
"It's... my God, he is flying! There's, like, no strings or... jetpack or..."
"Linda!" the anchorman sounded like he was bordering on panic. "What's happening over there?!"
Shaken out of her stupor, the reporter whirled back around, gesturing frantically towards the camera. Or, more specifically, at the cameraman... the footage shook a little as the cameraman similarly glanced up- a muffled curse just barely heard from him- before he finally aimed it upwards as well. The camera blurred and shook for a moment, the display all but useless, but finally, slowly, it sharpened... there was a figure, high above. Though too high up to see many details, there was a bright, red, fluttering cape, a blue costume...
"John, it would seem that Metropolis' mysterious vigilante has arrived on the scene," Linda was finally explaining; with the camera lifted, only her voice suggested she was still there at all. "He seems to be surveying the fire, I just... I don't know what he thinks he's going to do!"
Hovering high above the blaze, Clark's thoughts were more or less on the same page.
What am I going to do?
This particular fire was significantly bigger than the pair of apartment fires he had put out in the past, and the buildings it engulfed were considerably less stable. Whatever the Chemical Plant had been storing, some of the compounds were clearly very flammable, and it was a small miracle that the smoke hadn't grown truly toxic.
Not yet, at least. Peering through the crumbling walls and crackling flames, he could see that there were a number of vats and containers that hadn't yet been touched by the flames. He had no idea what they contained, but at this rate, every substance in the compound would be exploding or burning within ten minutes. Eyes narrowing, he focused his senses, willing clarity on the chaotic crackle of flames, forcing himself to peer through the near-blinding light of the fires... and then his breath caught in his throat.
Somebody was inside.
No, two... no, three people. Scattered throughout the plant, one shouting for help, two reduced to little more than coughing.
It was that immediate threat that shook him out of his uncertainty, eyes focusing and vision passing through every roof, wall and piece of debris in its path to pinpoint where they were. Dropping his hands in front of him, he drew in a deep, deep breath and swooped down into the acrid smoke, passing through one of the smouldering holes in the roof and pulling up sharply to rocket through one of the hallways, the tips of his boots barely brushing against the floor..
The first trapped citizen, a woman, was trapped in an office underneath a chunk of ceiling, unconscious. Bursting through the door, he dropped to the ground over her in a split second, shielding her from the hungry roar of flames that swept into the open room; once the initial blast had passed, a flick of his wrist tossed the piece of debris from her, and he lifted her up into one arm.
The second, only a few doors down, was a young man who was also unconscious, but slumped up against a wall in the bathroom, a cut on his forehead suggesting he'd slipped and fallen. Several pipes around him had burst, flooding the small room with water... a godsend, as it was keeping the fires outside at bay. It took Clark a split second to slip into the room and collect him as well, tucking the senseless man under his free arm.
He took advantage of another hole in the roof, bursting out of the building and clearing the cloud of smoke. He could hear shouts of surprise as he landed across the street, quickly- but carefully- setting down both on the sidewalk. Paramedics were already sprinting over, along with a couple of firemen, and police, and a few reporters to boot, but Clark was already back in the air, eyes straining to find that third trapped man.
The first two rescues had taken mere seconds, but it might have been too long; the fires had reached another set of vats, and even as the hero found the third man, trapped by flames in one of the Plant's main processing chambers, one of the storage vats exploded.
Time passed by in a crawl as Clark slammed through the wall, only a couple dozen feet from the last occupant; he could see the man, standing with his mouth open in a silent, frozen scream, lit and the growing glow and heat from an ever expanding explosion. Rather than let momentum carry him forward, the hero twisted in midair and altered course, extending an arm to grab the man by the midriff and haul him along before the flames consumed him. But the explosion was still expanding, coming from two directions at once as another vat detonated... the hole he had made in the roof was already blocked off by the expanding shockwave. Head lifting straight up, Clark finally released the held breath, in a single, titanic blast.
The force of the released breath punched a hole clean through the plaster, wood and steel of the Chemical Plant's roof, one that Clark passed through a split second before the explosions sent a fiery pillar into the sky. Clearing the smoke and flames by a comfortable margin, the hero found a relatively quiet corner away from the fire to drop off his last passenger, trying to calm him.
The third man was still conscious, gibbering and struggling in Clark's grip... not out of fear of his rescuer, but simply built-up panic. When they both landed in a nearby parking lot- on the other side of the plant from where he'd dropped off the last two- the man's eyes finally craned up towards his rescuer.
"Y-y-you're... you're him!" he sputtered.
"Yes, I'm..." the hero paused, then finished lamely; "...him."
"The guy!"
"Are you alright?"
"You're that guy!"
Clearing his throat, Clark lifted a hand to half-greet, half-beckon another group of people- once more a mix of safety workers and reporters- over. Giving the still-gibbering man what he hoped was a reassuring smile, the hero took a couple of steps back and launched himself back into the air, ignoring the shouts, questions, and general cries for attention from those below. Higher and higher he climbed, until he would have been a scarcely visible dot on the horizon... and once up there, he allowed himself to go right back to feeling helpless.
Normally, he just used a bit of freezing breath to put out a fire, but those were generally much smaller fires. He wasn't sure whether he'd be able to freeze one portion before another thawed and caught flame again... and if he tried to freeze it all at once, he'd need to put so much power into it, it would probably blow the entire building down, hurling rubble onto the gathered crowd.
The longer he floated there, the more doubt and frustration seeped in. Maybe he should let the proper authorities handle this. Could they even handle something this substantial? What if the fire started to spread elsewhere? What if something truly toxic started to burn?
"Come on, Clark," he murmured, eyes darting across the fire. "Think!"
Struck by a sudden inspiration, his eyes sought out the bathroom he'd rescued the second victim from; it was easy enough to find, and the pipes were still jetting water. Eyes narrowing, focus shifting, his gaze passed through the bathroom floor and began to track the water pipes deeper and deeper beneath the pavement until he found what he was looking for.
A ghost of a smile crossed his face then, and drawing in another deep breath- squeezing on it with his lungs until he felt a chill build in his chest- he shot back down into the inferno.
Once he'd had a strategy, it had actually been surprisingly easy to subdue the fire. He'd found the water main, punched through about six feet of concrete in four key locations to expose the pipes, then wrenched them upwards to douse the interior with thousands of gallons of water. The Chemical Plant used vast quantities of water for processing, sanitation and- ironically ineffective- sprinklers, and so the hidden pipes had been massive. From the inside, they proved far more effective at dousing the flames than the distant jets from the firemen.
There had been some particularly troublesome spots, areas where the fires were being sustained by chemicals too stubborn to be halted by water alone, but a few blasts of his breath- condensed by his lungs until it was freezing cold- had left even the most stubborn segments extinguished tinged with frost.
Within less than a minute, the fire had gone from an uncontrollable beast, to a pile of smouldering ashes. Even as the firefighters had closed in to finish the job, and douse any stray embers, Clark had wasted no time moving on, flying straight up through the cloud of smoke and steam to depart before anyone even knew he had left. His costume and hair was streaked with ash and soot, but the same bioelectric field that protected his body and costume from harm kept the filth from sinking into the fabric; all it had taken was a quick dunk in the bay to clean up, and within moments he was high above the city, head tilted up towards the soothing rays of the midday sun.
He had been operating in Metropolis for a little over two months now, having chosen to make the trip from South Africa under his own power rather than by plane. From his debut costumed appearance, a rather rushed affair that involved nothing short of catching a falling plane, to countless interventions in the troubles of the city's citizens, he'd stopped robberies, caught fleeing criminals, put out two (sorry, now three,) building fires, and even prevented an industrial accident from demolishing an entire construction site.
On an almost daily basis it seemed, the news outlets in Metropolis, and throughout the rest of the country, had featured the hero's exploits, but many of the articles were purely speculative. Many different names had been used to describe him- protector, guardian, vigilante, even menace a couple of times- but there was one in particular, coined by a reporter at the Daily Planet, that he liked; Superman. The modest farmboy in him was slightly mortified to be called that, but at the same time... it stuck. Even if the article that had first used it also featured the writer, Lois Lane, delivering some decidedly, er, unkind words about his constant secrecy.
Brushing those thoughts aside, he once more tuned his senses towards the city below, wincing as he slowly, carefully let the cacophony of sounds wash over him. For his entire life, he had focused on keeping his incredibly sensitive hearing suppressed, blocking out the sounds of what sometimes seemed like half the country; only recently had he begun harnessing it, carefully trying to control it so he could monitor as much as the city as possible.
Maybe the fire had scared people indoors- by now, the smoke was shrouding half the city- but Metropolis was unusually quiet tonight. There weren't any sirens, not so much as a cry for help or a gunshot to alert him to trouble.
Which was fortunate, because Clark had somewhere he needed to be.
Pumping a fist into the air, he began to ascend at a rapid pace, drawing in a reflexive breath as the air began to thin around him. Once he'd climbed to an altitude a comfortable thousand feet or so above even the most ambitious passenger jet, he adjusted his course, following the curvature of the Earth towards the Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. His speed increased, moment by moment, until he was little more than a red-blue rocket, untrackable even by the most advanced instruments.
He had a bit less than two hours to fly to Africa, land in the small motel he'd rented without being seen, change into his street clothes, then take a cab to the airport. While he wasn't particularly worried about whether he would make it in time, he did push himself a bit harder than usual, fists tightening as a grin crossed his face.
Today, finally, was the day Clark Kent was finally coming home.
The thought spurred him to put on another burst of speed, gradually descending when the coast of northern Africa came into view far below.
He had a plane to catch.
About twenty hours later, one small corner of the Metropolis Central Airport found itself the victim of mild excitement, as a bumbling, oft-apologizing, disaster zone of a man wandered from his exit gate towards the Customs desk. Carrying no less than three assorted suitcases, dressed in an old brown jacket, tattered green turtleneck and blue jeans that smelled of smoke, the man's hair was a complete, scattered mess, and his eyes were nearly completely obscured by dark sunglasses.
He collided into several people just trying to get in the line at Customs, always accompanied by mortified apologies and stammered explanations that it had been a long flight, he was tired, did anyone by any chance have a breathmint he could use...?
The tired, bleary-eyed woman working at the Customs desk eyed the tall man as he gradually drew closer and closer to her window, paying the other travelers only brief glances; when he finally reached her window, head bobbing in a friendly fashion, arms straining to keep hold of all his luggage, she glanced hopefully at the clock...
Nope. Still two hours until the end of her shift.
"Passport and identification, please," she said, brow lifting when the man immediately reached for his jacket pocket... which sent all three suitcases clattering to the ground.
With an 'Ohmygoodness,' the man ducked down beneath the counter, rustling filling the air as he apparently tried to bring order to his possessions. Finally, his hand snapped into view, slapping his passport onto the table before vanishing from sight again. It was with a long-suffering sigh that the woman collected the passport, flipping through it and taking note of the surprising number of stamps he'd accumulated.
"So, Mister..." her eyes glanced at the passport, then at the sheepish man's bent back. "Kent?"
"Yes, yeah, that's..." Straightening, glasses slightly askew, he nodded. "That's me."
Grunting and fumbling to tuck the heavy suitcase under one arm, the other pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, then extended for an enthusiastic shake. The woman in question eyed the offered hand as if it were some alien creature, then hesitantly, and briefly, shook it before turning back to her display.
"Well, Mister Kent, our records show you've been out of the city for quite some time... almost five years now. Were you traveling for business, or pleasure?"
"Oh, just a bit of a fact-finding tour, see the world, lot of really, um, fascinating people out there, like the Masai tribe I was able to visit in Tanzania, did you know that it is a social ritual to remove the two front teeth and-"
"Mister Kent!"
Completely taken aback, Kent jumped slightly, which caused his suitcase to slip out from under his arm and go crashing back to the floor all over again. Clearing his throat, wincing and flushing with embarrassment, he leaned towards the clerk's window, eyes darting back and forth beneath his shades.
"Y-yes?"
Staring at him blankly for a long moment, the woman finally sighed and held out the passport. "Everything... seems to check out. Welcome home."
"Oh, um..." Taking the passport, he gave a little salute across his temple with it before tucking it into his front jacket pocket. "Yes, thank you."
The woman could only watch, a mixture of irritation and amusement sliding across her face, as the man awkwardly stooped to retrieve his suitcase, turned, nearly collided with the man waiting in line behind him, and finally departed even as he emitted a string of apologies for the near collision. The story of the bumbling, fumbling dolt who'd come through customs today was likely one she'd be retelling more than once over the next couple of days, and it was definitely going to be good for a few laughs.
Stepping from the cab and paying the driver, Clark adjusted his sunglasses and considered the twelve-story apartment building that was now his new home. Once more fidgeting with his many bags, he stumbled and wavered his way up the steps, mumbling under his breath as he slipped inside. A low groan passed his lips when he saw the elevator was broken- his new place being on the eleventh floor- but he nonetheless stoically began to make his way up the stairs, smiling tersely at other residents as they squeezed past him on the way down.
The apartment he had rented was modest, and the first month's rent had taken the rest of his accumulated money; his mother, a master bargain hunter, had been kind enough to find him some furniture and have it shipped to his new home, along with clothes and other household necessities. Unfortunately, when Clark opened the door to his new apartment, he was confronted with a solid wall of furniture and boxes... clearly, whoever had been hired to deliver them had settled for simply leaving them all clustered just inside the doorway.
Sighing, he set down his bags and patted his pockets, wanting to call home before he started bringing order to this chaos. Aside from this unfortunate little hiccup, his day was actually going pretty well so far...
As was his plan..
Today's little homecoming wasn't for Clark himself, as he'd already been in Metropolis for months, but was instead for the name and identity that would go into the government's records. He knew that if he moved into Metropolis on the same week that he started saving citizens, it would just be too massive a coincidence to ignore. Now, with months having passed since his costumed persona's first appearance, and records proving that Clark had been overseas until today, he hoped the alibi would hold up under any scrutiny that might occur.
More specifically, he hoped it wouldn't occur to anyone that he could achieve cross-continental flight on his own.
A few minutes later, he was in the middle of a conversation with his mother- more a formality given he'd quietly visited her in person only two days ago- even as he shifted through the mess of boxes and furniture.
"The flight was a bit longer than I would have liked, but..." Hefting an easychair over his shoulder and moving it to the cramped living room, he paused when his mother interrupted. "Hmm? Oh, no, I think it went well enough, but I'm worried I might have overdone it a little. I'm going to try and tone it down a bit for the interview at the Planet, I'm worried if I keep knocking things over it'll draw more attention than it's worth. All right, well, enjoy the card game, I'm going to unpack. Love you too, Ma. Bye."
Setting the chair down and pulling off his glasses, he tossed them and the phone onto the chair and, thus unburdened, exploded into a sudden blur of motion. The remaining furniture, rugs, packed boxes and suitcases full of possessions were spread out throughout the modest apartment, unpacked and placed in their appropriate closets, shelves and cupboards faster than the eye could track. In mere seconds, his new home went from looking like an abandoned husk to a well-settled home.
Unfortunately, those few seconds of super-sped feet and furniture elicited a series of sharp raps on the ceiling from the apartment below him, which prompted Clark to come to a dead halt in the bedroom with the last box under his arm.
"Sorry!" he called down, clearing his throat as he unpacked the final box at a far more modest rate.
That last box, appropriately enough, held some of the clothes he'd asked his mother to deliver. It was going to be another part of the Clark Kent persona, one that he had considered very carefully... looking at them now, though, he was starting to wonder if he'd made a terrible mistake.
Even his mother had burst out into disbelieving laughter when he had suggested he should wear suits, fondly asking him if he wasn't really trying to disguise himself as Clark Gable. He couldn't blame her for the surprise; as a farmboy, up until he left, he had hated, hated wearing suits with a deep passion. They were restraining, uncomfortable, unbearably heavy things that, invulnerability aside, made him itch... the few times he'd had to dress formally, he'd wanted nothing more than to squirm.
In this case, though, being awkward and uncomfortable was exactly what he was counting on, and reservations aside, he intended to see it through.
He took his time changing into the new clothes; the button-up shirt, brown trousers, light gray suit jacket and black tie... all of it was a size or two too large for him, and second-hand to boot, bagging just enough around his shoulders, chest and midriff to add a slovenly edge to his appearance, and hide his formidable physique. He still looked pretty tall, and broad in the shoulders, but the imposing bulk of the blue, red and yellow-clad hero was replaced by a bulky, uncoordinated mess. His hair, which had generally been left tousled and slightly unruly, was meticulously slicked back, not a strand awry.
Next, the glasses; large, thick and horn-rimmed, he had picked them up at a local flea market in Kenya, and they were sturdy enough for his purposes. At first, the excessively strong prescription all but blinded him when he put them on, but a few moments of concentration allowed him to adjust his eyesight to compensate.
Most importantly, when he turned to look in his bedroom mirror, he could see that the thick lenses had dulled the brilliant color of his eyes, turning a bright sapphire into a far more watery shade of blue.
The transformation, as it was, was nearly complete.
The most important element, though, wasn't the physical disguise, but the personality change he'd need to perform. When he'd first taken to the streets as in costume, the entire point had been to portray strength, confidence, and unwavering dedication; the perfect posture, deep voice, all were designed to create a person who could be seen as supremely capable and trustworthy.
The new Clark Kent, on the other hand... well, he wasn't willing to drop the trustworthy aspect, as it would require crossing lines he simply didn't want to. Capable, on the other hand, was something he could let slip. He needed to be quiet, unassuming, someone who wouldn't quite leap to your mind as a candidate for a risky or difficult task.
He had enough suitably awkward years in high school to call upon for that particular performance, and there were some tricks that would help. A lack of eye contact, fidgeting, and poor posture could help sell the image, but above all else, the voice would be the key to distancing his bespectacled alter-ago from the cape-clad hero.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
A little too deep, and too loud. The voice actively echoed through the room and so, clearing his throat, he tried something a bit more low-key.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
He winced. Too nasally, and far too forced; he sounded like he was trying a bad Woody Allen impression. Clearing his throat again, he once more tweaked the tension in his throat, licking his lips before trying one more time.
"Hi, uh, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent."
Better. High tenor pitch, soft emphasis on the syllables, a slight pause between the first two words as if asking for confirmation that the listener wanted anything to do with him. He repeated those words, in the same voice, even as he slouched his shoulders just a bit lower, tugged his collar slightly askew, loosened his tie just a bit too much for it to be considered neat. In many ways, he looked like a pre-teen attending his first school dance; being told how to dress formally, but not quite grasping the subtleties.
Perfect.
"Hi, Mister White, I'm Clark Kent-"
"-I'm here about the job offer?"
Perry White, the borderline patriarchal chief editor of the Daily Planet, glanced up from his desk at the young man who'd poked his head in... something which in and of itself was silly given the door was made of glass, letting White see the newcomer's entire body anyway. Then he did a bit of a double-take, brows lifting, mouth slackening as he considered the new arrival with rising disbelief.
"Kent. You're Clark Kent?"
Clark blinked, head still poking in the doorway. "Um, yes sir."
Perry seemed to have trouble grasping it. "The same Clark Kent who's been sending us freelance correspondence pieces from overseas."
"Y-yes, sir?"
"The same Clark Kent who did that piece with Kobe Asuru?"
"Yes, yes sir. Is... is there a problem?"
Perry continued to stare at Clark for a moment, then finally cleared his throat and waved him in without directly answering the question. Knowing better than to ask it again, Clark slipped into the room, adjusting his tie- and only sending it all the more askew as a result- and settled onto one of the chairs in front of White's desk, putting down his suitcase and adjusting his glasses.
Perry White, for all intents and purposes, seemed an embodiment of an older generation of reporters.
"So, son," Perry said distractedly as he turned his attention to his computer, clearly searching for something on it, "how's it feel having your feet back on American soil?"
"Oh, it, um, feels good, sir." Clark nodded a little before adding; "I mean, I've never really been to Metropolis before, there isn't actually that... much soil here... mostly sidewalks and roads..."
Clark's addendum petered out under White's incredulous stare. Perry, for his part, opened his mouth to say something, but then again decided to let it slide, instead turning towards his computer and calling up a file. When the Editor in Chief turned the monitor around for Clark to see, the young man quickly recognized one of the stories he had e-mailed to the Planet for publication.
"This," Perry said gravely, pointing at the article, "is damned fine work."
"Oh, thank you, sir, it's-"
"Drop the Sir, Kent."
"Yes, s- um, Mister White."
"Now, like I was saying," Perry continued, eyes narrowing a little. "You've sent us, what, a dozen stories over the last two years, sent a dozen more to our competitors, all of em damn good because they were looking in places no once else would, and finding scoops that nobody else had bothered to track down. The man who wrote these stories, he's got stones, guts, hoop-la! Are you that man, son?"
"Am I...?" Clark shifted in his seat before nodding a little. "Yes, yes. I have... hoop-la?"
From the look Perry was giving him- which bordered somewhere between annoyance and disbelief- it was pretty clear that he didn't buy it. Clark was starting to worry that he was playing the role he'd given himself a little too well. Although there were other newspapers he could apply to, he'd actually been a reader of the Daily Planet for a few years now, and he'd gladly have chosen this place over any other.
Something seemed to soften the older man's glower a little, though, and finally he slapped the tabletop, making Clark jump.
"Tell you what, Kent," Perry finally announced, fingers folded in front of him. "I'm gonna give you a shot. We'll start you off as a cub, minimum wage, lotta grunt work, writing about opening ceremonies and politicians saying whatever they gotta to get re-elected... and I'll pay a freelance premium, on top of that, for any other stories you can dig up on your own. Scoops, Kent! Give me scoops, we'll see about helping you climb the ladder a little, sound fair?"
Letting out a sigh of genuine relief, Clark nodded and reached across the desk to shake White's hand, wincing at the older man's tight grip.
"Yes, Mister White, thank you so much for the opportunity, I won't let you down, and-"
"Kent!"
"Um, yes, Chief?"
"This isn't the Academy Awards. You can stop now."
"Oh." Pushing up his glasses again, Clark nodded, clearing his throat and looking at his shoes again. "Right. Sorry."
"I like you, Kent. You're a well-dressed, polite young man, and you remind me of a much more timid version of myself at your age. And, like I said, you're a good writer. So I'm going to do you a favor; not only am I going to give you a chance to prove that you've got the guts and the gusto to impress me, I'm going to give you a golden egg of an assignment... and a partner to give you a hand."
"A partner?" By the time Clark turned from the window, White was already striding away, apparently growing more and more enthusiastic with the idea by the minute.
"She's a fine reporter," he called over his shoulder as he moved towards his office door. "Got enough fire to torch a small forest, and she has a knack for ending up in places she shouldn't at just the right time. 'Course, unfortunately that fire's been leaving more'n a few people burnt. She's only twenty four and it seems half the companies in this city're filing restraining orders to keep her away." Pausing, his hand on the doorknob, White chuckled to himself, casting a satisfied glance back at Clark. "Yeah, this is going to work just fine. She'll hopefully give you a little bit of the torch she's burning, and with any luck you'll help keep her from getting this newspaper sued. Again."
Pulling open the door, White's voice lifted to a sharp bellow, filling the entire news room and causing every head to spin towards his office like a family of raccoons.
"Lane!"