"An on-site accident? Really?"Lois' eyes radiated skepticism as the MPD officer on the scene sighed heavily. The rather unfortunate man had been fielding questions from residents, firefighters, city officials, and reporters for the last hour due to his standing position outside of the gate adjacent to the now-smoking hole in the east wall of the Manufacturing Plant. Thrust into the role of temporary liaison between the department and the public while his peers worked the scene inside, the officer had been doing a serviceable job at deflecting questions that neither he nor the MPD had any real answers to - after all, this was a Luthorcorp scene. The minute that squad cars and ambulances had arrived, there had been at least three lawyers already present and outfitted with PPE gear to guide the rescue workers onsite, maintaining absolute discretion when needed. Whatever had happened was being kept a closely guarded secret until Luthorcorp decided that it was nessescary to inform any official channels. That was just how it had worked for the last twenty years. The way they conducted themselves, the company may aswell have been operating as its own sovereign nation within Metropolis.But then there was Lois Lane. Already infamous for her journalistic exploits before being promoted to leading anchor of The Daily Planet, there were few in the city or even on the force who weren't aware of her dogged tactics. How she'd project an interviewee's carefully redacted misdeeds back at them to get a confession while live on the air had brought the career of many campaigning politicians to a screeching halt, and that was just when she was feeling generous. Several had outright declined being seated with her for any press at all, a fact of which she had often touted with pride - truthfully, she had never wanted to waste more airtime on the sleazy underbelly of city politics than nessescary. Her focus had always been on the middle to lower class, the average man and woman that had been too often overlooked in the rush to kiss the feet of capitalists like Lex Luthor and Bruno Manheim.So when it came to a story involving salaried workers - who were already paid less than a living wage - being put into direct peril due to possible negligence of one of the world's leading megacorporations, Lois wasn't about to pull any punches. Nor had she ever been afraid of trying to punch well above her weight class. Even as the officer tried in vain to come up with an official line that might have gotten the other inquiries off of his back, Lois could tell that he knew exactly who she was. And that apparent intimidation on his sweat-frocked brow was all that she needed to crowbar her way past the corporate slogans to some tangible answers."Look, I don't know what else to tell you. My bosses are in my ear telling me that it was an electrical malfunction, Luthorcorp's people are telling them that the CCTV footage was wiped out by the blast. Nobody has any concrete answers at the moment. We're just focusing on making sure everybody got out okay."
Lois retracted the ready microphone in her hand, bringing it toward herself. "And while I'm sure that the brave people down at Metropolis Central are doing what they can, you have to admit, officer..."The officer indicated the nametag above his badge. "Harper. Forty-second precinct."
"Officer Harper. You have to admit that things are looking a little sketchy from the outside, right? I mean, take what you just said about Luthorcorp. If this was truly an accident where no video surveillance can be pulled, why would their lawyers already have that information cleared for public airing? That can't be standard procedure, can it?"The officer glanced over at Lois' accomplice, the ginger-haired young man with the camera resting over his shoulder. Before she had formally started asking questions, the reporter had assured Harper that this wouldn't be a live broadcast. But the way that he kept getting shots of the blast site, making sure to follow the movements of the rescue crews? Part of him knew that whatever he said would find its way to the nine o'clock news. In truth, he had no reason to lie - Metropolis PD truly knew about as much as anyone here. But he also knew Lois Lane's reputation. The best path forward was to stonewall his answers before he accidentally found himself facing a suspension."Wouldn't know. Not my department."
Lois' brow furrowed. "But surely...""Sorry, ma'am. Even if I knew what to tell you, they'd be on me with so many NDAs that I'd be begging for the standard paperwork."
Her mouth opened to form a rebuttal, but Lois was silent. As frustrating as it was to admit, the officer had a point - Luthorcorp was nothing if not incredibly litigious. Though she could tell that there was something more going on even as she approached the scene, whether it was a potential cover-up or otherwise, Lois still possessed the fundamental instincts of a good reporter. And one of the more important tenants of the business was knowing when a source was going to wind up as a dead-end. Perry White had taught her that on the first week of the job, and she had been mentally cursing his name for it ever since. Partly because so much of his advice always wound up following her out into the field."If you need anything else, call up the precinct tomorrow morning. They'll have a statement prepped for you and all of the other outlets. Until then..."
With a nod, Officer Harper turned to address another group of civilians slowly approaching from the sidewalk, leaving Lois and Jimmy with little to show for their efforts beyond some B-Roll and a couple of vague quotes. Jimmy shrugged to himself as they turned in the opposite direction in an attempt to move out of the way, considerably less bothered by the snubbing than his visibly frustrated colleague."All in all, at least he was nicer than most of the cops you've tried to wring a quote out of.""Nice doesn't get us any closer to an exclusive. Or answer why Luthorcorp's already clamping down on leaks. Even when they're trying not to be suspicious, it's like they're..."Jimmy gave her a look. Lois sighed, waving it off. "Ah, nevermind. You wouldn't get it.""Probably not. Maybe we should just stick with pedestrian talking heads? Get an angle on the blast from the outside?"Lois looked back, visually scanning the area of the blast and squinting to see if she had missed something. There wasn't any way to explain it, but her instincts told her there had to be much more to this than some faulty equipment gone haywire. Luthorcorp was still an incredibly shady organization, but their boss had spared little to no expense whenever it came to anything. Security, lawyers, public relations, and even the basic consumer software that lined department store shelves. It was all top-of-the-line, largely paid for by Lex Luthor's legendary eye for business. Ever since he took control of the board of directors, the company had enjoyed watching its stock climb to new heights every quarter. So in the face of overwhelming success, with a CEO who had become infamous for triple-checking the data and running a tight ship with policies that lent itself to meticulous testing, when did that leave room for subpar factory equipment? And with such an overwhelmingly public result? It didn't add up. And while Lois knew she was onto something, there was virtually no way for her to turn a hunch into a top story worthy of The Planet's broadcast."I doubt that'd get us anywhere. And if I did, I would've put a recorder in the intern's hand. Make him gather snippets from the crowd for us."Olsen smirked. "He has a name, you know.""And I'm sure it's very memorable, but c'mon. We've seen more than our fair share of guys like him. Guys who think they can cut it in television now, only to get in way over their heads and jump ship. In a week, I guarantee this one'll have left for some corner-office website or a video vlog. Or God forbid, newsprint.""Wow. If they could bottle your cynicism, someone would make a fortune."Lois let out a small chuckle as they crossed over to the next block, where a larger crowd of onlookers had gathered. "Is it cynicism if it's true? Mark my words, Olsen. One week and you'll have forgotten his name, t---"Lois and Jimmy both paused. They had both felt some vibration rumbling from the ground a minute prior, but that was always to be expected at the site of a destructive event. In Lane's time as a broadcaster, she had even been to a couple of particularly nasty scenes with some measure of aftershock. Entire apartment buildings that had caved in after a fire. Rows of houses destroyed by violent forces of nature. But whatever they had experienced in the past, the two slowly looked at eachother in acknowledgment of the fact that this felt different. In fact, the ground was practically quaking."Lois? What's...""I... don't know. Something's off. It feels like..."A silence had befallen the crowd ahead, each of them sharing a similar expression. A few even asked what was happening amongst themselves. But as their eyes collectively began to dart upward, the tone of their reaction changing one by one, Lois elbowed Jimmy hard in the shoulder and immediately started sprinting toward the crowd. Something was definitely happening, and the only difference between the crowd's peripheral vision and theirs was a massive cloud of smoke billowing upwards. Silently directing Olsen to start filming towards the sky as they got closer, Lois maneuvered beneath some yellow-and-black tape, popping back up to join the crowd's gaze while trying to see what the hell was going on for herself.And what Lois saw was something no one on the scene could believe at first: with little immediate indication of what it was, an enormous object had suddenly breached through the large factory roof and was in the process of rising, splintering the already structurally damaged factory wide open. Screams could immediately be heard crying out from the inside, and a small batch of rescue workers were spotted fleeing from the object's path. Police officers around the perimeter began to panic, shouting barely intelligible orders into their walkie-talkies. Lois and Jimmy could do nothing but watch the scene unfold, mouth agape, as the moving object began to reveal itself: its hull made of an unpainted-but-strikingly toned metal, with pistons roaring to life and visible armed weapons jutting out from two sides, it was some sort of advanced military-looking craft. And as it rose fully, it turned violently towards the crowd."Uh... what is that?"Lois' eyes widened. The hardened reporter thrust in a state of disbelief."Holy shit.""People of Metropolis. How long have we been playing this game?"
The voice was heavily distorted, but broadcasting off of a speaker loud enough for the next block to hear and then some. It was the same voice that many in the crowd had recognized from a collection of fringe rants against Luthorcorp and its owner that had been garnering millions of views over the past few months. Lois herself had broadcast samplings of a few of them on The Daily Planet, and Jimmy had even mocked them amongst his co-workers in the breakroom over the last month. Now, it seemed, the anonymous hacker's threats had become very real."The world mocked me. They couldn't see. They didn't see the truth, and continued to peddle their admiration towards a man whose greed is unparalleled."
The large craft took an imposing step forward, bringing down an entire wall as it approached. The crowd dispersed, screaming, while the Metropolis PD brought out their guns and began to fire on the seemingly mindless drone. The bullets simply ricocheted off of the hull, bouncing into the debris that surrounded it. An ear-piercing whine emanated from whatever engine was powering it, which sounded angrier than a machine like this seemed capable of."I warned you all that this would happen. I promised it would. But you refused to believe."
Jimmy's camera was affixed to its approach, with the cameraman holding no regard for his safety. Lois was still in too much shock to say anything, but she did move forward, her gaze still on the drone, and grab him hard by the back of his shirt's collar. Olsen nearly dropped the camera as she violently pulled him out of the way, but he quickly realized that she was right. This wasn't the time or place to try and get the perfect shot."Man has often valued machines over people. Now machines will be the ones to reap what men like Luthor have sown."
To the onlookers' horror, the weapons trained at either side of the drone began to move upward from a stationary position.Lights flickered to life. Even to the uninitiated, that clearly meant one thing:It was aiming."I am The Toyman. And I'm not playing anymore."
Move it, Clark...Kent had heard the disturbance from over half a mile away. Not merely content to stay seated in the back of Lane's car, the wannabe journalist had managed to track down a couple of passing bystanders and ask for their thoughts on what had caused the initial factory explosion, recording the brief conversations with a hastily installed app on his phone. While no one he'd talked to could necessarily agree on the details, it had all pointed towards a very sudden and hastily covered disaster that had rocked the immediate area of Hob's Bay: all the local businesses had closed shop early, patrons were preparing to be gridlocked in traffic leading out of the city, and the residents living in the surrounding apartment buildings had all filed out to the streets to try and understand what was happening. Clark didn't have any answers for them himself, but he'd tried to assure them that it looked like the emergency services were handling it the best that they could. Most of them merely balked at that assertion, claiming that they'd barely cared to make the effort before.But this was Luthorcorp. If Clark knew one thing about living in Metropolis for most of his life, it was that if the tech-giant were at risk, the police, firefighters, ambulances, and even the National Guard might arrive to help as quickly as they could. None of the local government could risk losing out on a potentially game-changing grant drawn from Lex Luthor's personal account, and they knew it. People's livelihoods depended on the reclusive billionaire's every whim, and that had proven to be as predictable as the changing tides. It was a sentiment that had never sat right with Clark, for obvious reasons, but such a city-wide mantra had always made for a good way to tell when something was going to be done to solve serious problems. If you needed anything to change, get Luthorcorp involved.Clark had tried to ring Jimmy's phone, but he realized that despite their friendly conversation in the days before, he'd never gotten a number to call. Lane had even instructed him to contact one of them if something went awry, but again, there was no way to get ahold of either of his co-workers. And whenever he finally sought to contact The Daily Planet offices themselves, his signal seemed to be interrupted by... something. So after stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Kent had seen no choice but to start running towards the scene himself. He was still several blocks away whenever his acute hearing had picked up the loud noises of metal crushing against concrete, but he knew something was severely wrong. The ground had been vibrating for several minutes and people had been leaving the area as quickly as possible."C'mon. C'mon."What bothered him most was the sound of the screams. Even miles away, people were reacting to whatever was happening in absolute terror. He'd never heard anything like it within the city, but he'd heard it elsewhere. Massive fires half a world away. Natural disasters that had swept up countless innocent lives in the span of seconds. Emergencies that someone, anyone would be powerless to try and stop... Except for him. Even in the most extreme of circumstances, someone of his abilities was more than capable of trying to prevent as many human casualties as possible. And before today, he had dabbled in trying to lend a hand to whoever needed it. Going back to when he was thirteen and beginning to feel his powers manifest, Clark had actually secretly been visiting areas of impending disaster for some time. Always in the background, just out of sight of watchful eyes and camera feeds. Trying to be as careful as possible as he moved certain obstacles out of the way, or grabbed a person in danger and placed them just shy from being killed. Part of him had wondered if he had any right to interfere, whether it was his place to do what was needed.But the simple fact of the matter was that it was needed. Even his parents understood, whenever he'd been forced to admit to them what he'd been doing after coming home with his clothes singed from a fire or his school belongings missing, having left them behind to perform a so-called miracle save. No one had ever really spotted him, and he kept to himself so carefully that few had any reason to believe they had been helped by anything more than luck or divine intervention. Still, Clark had never felt like he had done enough. His need for anonymity had constantly put him at odds with his own beliefs in what was right. If he weren't so afraid of revealing his powers to the world and how the world would collectively look at him, this mild-mannered stranger that had somehow been given gifts that science had yet to be able to explain, Clark had long-since fantasized about the idea of being able to save as many people as he could every day. But he knew that the world was more complicated than that. He knew that if he openly tried to do something to stop disasters and prevent even petty crime, the world would fear him, and that fear would eventually turn to hatred. And the truth was that ever since he had gotten these powers, all Clark had ever wanted was to be seen as normal. To have friends and to make a life for himself where he was never perceived as anything more than anybody else.So he'd taken to wearing the glasses. To dressing himself down, to making his hair a little unkempt all the time. It was what little he could do to ensure that he'd never stood out. The tint of his glasses' lenses helped to hide the radiant blue that his irises had developed into. The hair had always maintained a slightly unnatural sheen to it, like it wasn't the result of human genetics. And as far as his physique went, well, Clark had to admit: he'd never needed to hit the gym in his life. These were all qualities that he couldn't help, but with time and practice, he could hide them effectively enough.Now, though? None of that felt important. Even his running speed seemed to pick up from a practiced normality to something slightly above the norm as he bolted across the next block, his anxiety picking up over the thoughts of what was happening closer to where Lois and Jimmy were still standing. It hadn't even occurred to him that something was necessarily attacking until he'd made it about a block and a half away. His eyes fixated on the buildings ahead, Clark immediately lowered his glasses and squinted - well, focused - on what he could see once his vision cycled past the solid matter. Another one of his gifts at work.But he was a few precious seconds too late."Oh my God, it's heading the overpass! Run! Run!"Clark's eyes widened as he finally saw what was happening. Just above where Lois' car had been parked, there was an overpass full of emptied cars. The reason being that their former occupants had gotten out to see what was happening with the plant explosion. Now they were all trying to climb over themselves in a panic because an object had been seen rocketing through the air and coming straight towards them... in the unmistakable shape of a small missile.No...Before he could even flinch, the missile hit with a deafening boom. The overpass immediately splintered with heavy cracks, and bodies went flying through the air. Without a second's hesitation, Clark moved toward the overpass as soon as he saw that there were still people in the cars under it. He had been too late to save the ones above, as some were already visibly dead, but if he moved quickly enough - he hoped, with every possible prayer that he had - he might be able to prevent others from befalling a similar fate. Clark didn't know where the missile had come from yet, and he didn't care. Removing his glasses and tossing them aside, all he knew was that it was time to stop hiding. The world could hate and fear him later."STAND CLEAR!"Leaping into the air and crossing over several coming vehicles in a single bound, Clark reached the middle of the overpass' undertow and lodged himself under the rapidly collapsing concrete, pressing himself as hard as possible against it. The collapse briefly slowed down, but even with his admittedly untested reservoir of strength, it wasn't enough. The enormous structure was bearing down against him, and he felt his legs buckle into the street below - and as crucial seconds went by, slowly through it.Please, just...
...hold... 
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