FIC: "JLA: Necessary Force" (Part 14: "Sticking Place" - 2nd Half 1)
Aaaaaaaannnndddd .... we're back. *g*
Sorry for the couple days' delay in posting the second half of Part 14 here, folks - not only was my trip back to the coast a bit rough and lengthy, (though less so than if I'd attempted to drive the highways and canyons) I've been a bit under the weather, and dealing with extreme mad winter weather and startling power outages, and then the mad rush of school beginning again. Always an adventure! *g*
So's posting fic for me on LJ. *sighs sadly* All of those problems on Jan. 3rd and 4th trying to post, and I'd hoped they'd have ended by now. But LJ still won't let me post the fic part as is, so once again I'm forced to split the half into halves yet again. (how, HOW can this be? It's not a RT problem, as cmer, you suggested, as it happened with trying in html too - it just keeps telling me even the short fics are too large, even without pics or fancy formatting! *shakes wolfy head in despair* (I am nearly convinced LJ doesn't want me to post fic here!)
Anyhoo, here's the next bit of Part 14 "Sticking Place, to be followed hopefully immediately by the conclusion"! Hope you like! :-)
- Pax, Pooped Puppy 0_o
Title: JLA: Necessary Force - Part 14: "Sticking Place" (2nd half - part 1)
Author: Paxwolf
Fandom: JLA/Justice League
Rating: PG-13 (R in parts)
Warnings: Mature Situations, Language, Violence
Disclaimer: The JLA and its characters are owned by DC Comics and their parent company. Mine are owned by me. ;-)
Summary: When a powerful terrorist threatens the safety of the planet, the Justice League must go to extremes to stop him, and Superman and Batman may have to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
Summary of This Part: Superman's powers are waning yet further, and as he struggles to escape from Ayestrom's stronghold, he must fend off new obstacles and just maybe makes some new allies.
JLA
“Necessary Force”
By Paxwolf
Part XIV:
“Sticking Place”
(B)
Rao, I never want to have to do that again.
After several long minutes, Superman's violent shivering began to ease, and he managed to catch his breath at last. He had to admit he had not enjoyed the experience of that massive drop one bit. He had definitely gained perspective on the terrors of free-falling that non-flight-capable beings often felt.
As his muscles slowly unclenched and the cold in his bones gradually eased, he began to be perversely grateful for the tremendous heat of those lower levels.
Well, back to the drawing board, as it were. He sighed.
As soon as he had gathered enough strength to manage his feet again, he struggled up the wall, slowly edged out of the tunnel and began to hobble towards the living quarters area of the massive cave system.
It seemed to take an inordinately long amount of time, and he had to fight both against his impatience and to keep up his guard for signs of more sentries and scanners. He watched as the inhabitants who shuffled past his shabby form eyed him suspiciously, and kept his own eyes averted to avoid any questions or potential confrontations. His disguise was serving him well in that capacity, at least. Few would want to approach a man who looked - and smelled - as bad as he did.
Thank you, Kyle and Bruce!
Some of the odour had evaporated along with the ice when he had melted his frozen skin and clothing earlier, and some of the dirt had unfortunately washed off, but, he grinned a little grimly, it was still likely enough to ward off unwelcome attention.
So intent was he in planning a way past the guards at a ladderway, together with his wearing vigilance, that he failed to see the two small children playing on the stone floor right at his feet. He felt the cheap metal of a jack’s spikes flatten beneath his boot before he could reduce his forward weight in time. He stopped in surprise and looked down. He closed his eyes in silent beratement as he carefully withdrew his foot. The ragged boy and girl looked at the crushed jack and then up at him.
“Entschuldigung,” he said softly in German, quickly calculating whether a frail old man’s body weight would have been enough to squash a jack, cheap or not. At his gentle apology, the boy looked up at him, scowling.
“Nous ne parlons pas le Deutsch, vieillard!” he said, snatching up the ball and the remaining jacks.
The little girl looked down at her flattened jack, and then began to cry.
Toys, Superman realized with a flash of fresh regret, must have been terribly hard to come by down there, even inexpensive common things like jacks.
“I did not see you,” he said, switching to French. “Je m’excuse. Je ne peut pas bien voir.” I can't see well.
Instead of either arguing or accepting his words, the two children looked up at him in astonishment. Superman inwardly winced, wondering whether his mistake had been the new language he’d spoken with fluency, or the gentility with which he had expressed his apology. His sudden fear was amplified at their next words.
“Qui est-ce?” the girl asked the boy tremulously.
The boy pulled the girl to her feet, gripping her hand tightly, lips white with terror.
“Je ne sais pas, mais je pense … peut-etre il est un espion du seigneur Übermensch!”
The little girl’s eyes widened, absolute fear filling them.
They think I’m a spy? Of the lord … what? Superman puzzled. Well, they’re astute, at any rate. They’re half right.
“Non, non, mes amis, je ne suis pas un espion,” he tried, raising both hands in front of him in denial of their assumption.
“Nous ne que jouions, monsieur!” the little girl cried, backing away from him. Superman frowned a little, trying to translate that, though the phrase wasn't quite right. We were only playing?
While he was trying to suss that out, with abrupt suddenness, the children turned and disappeared into the warren of makeshift walls and chambers.
Why did they think I was a spy? What’s going on here?
He hoped they weren’t running off to report him to some authorities. He realized he needed to find out more of what was happening here before he could try to escape again. And who better to ask?
“Attendez!” he called out to them to wait, and catching sight of them with his enhanced vision, he swiftly followed them, once making sure no one was observing his quick change of gait.
They were hiding behind a clothesline laden with drying laundry. When he had struggled through a tangle of damp and torn bedsheets and spotted them crouched below him, he tried to smile, but realized in dismay that with his disguise it was not likely a reassuring sight at all. They stared up, eyes wide, frozen in place like prey animals.
“Arretez, s’il vous plait!” he said quickly, and drew breath, continuing in French. “I mean you no harm, I promise.”
“W-we didn’t d-do anything!” the boy stammered, clutching the little girl’s hand in his own. “We didn’t mean to be in your way, monsieur.”
“You weren’t anything of the sort,” Superman hastened to assure. “It was entirely my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Why did you follow us then?” the boy demanded, suspicion rising again in his dark eyes.
“I ... wanted to again say how sorry I am to have ruined your game.”
They stared up at him as if they hadn’t understood a word he had said despite the language he used. He felt he should be holding his breath for fear of scaring them further. Then the girl shuffled towards him a bit.
“Then … then you’re not going to … punish us, monsieur?”
“For playing?” Superman wondered with contempt at the treatment that these and the other children here must have received at the hands of Ayestrom’s men. “Certainly not.” He looked at them, trying to convey his sincerity with everything he had in him. “Et Ayestrom n’est pas mon patron." He is not my boss. "Non. Je ne travaille pas pour … le seigneur Ayestrom.”
Far from it. I’m working against him, not for him.
But he couldn’t say that.
“You’re not a spy?”
“No.” Well, he amended, not for Ayestrom, anyway. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“And … and you won’t take us to the Übermensch and tell?”
Without thinking, Superman almost asked who the Übermensch was, but thought better of it in time and closed his mouth. Were they referring somehow to himself? Was he some sort of bogeyman to these people?
“Of course not,” he said aloud, and suddenly remembered that Batman had made an oblique reference to an übermensch in their last conversation. Why had he forgotten that? “On the contrary, mes enfants, I wanted to ask for your help.”
The two children looked quite bewildered at that, as if no one had ever asked before asked for their help in anything.
“Nos secours?” the little girl repeated, frowning.
“Ah, oui, mes jeunes amis. Aidez-moi, s’il vous plait?” he asked for their help hopefully.
The two children looked at each other, and then suddenly sprang to their feet and broke into a run again. “Allez-vous-en, étranger!”
Superman sighed, feeling his weariness threaten to wash over him again. Trust is apparently in pretty short supply around here.
He turned to continue his search, to go away as they’d asked, resolved to finding out the answers to his questions elsewhere, after he had made good his escape.
Almost funny, he thought, mind beginning to wander blearily. They called me 'stranger' there. And in French the word is the same as for ‘alien’. Funny.
Then he halted in mid-step, his enhanced hearing still acute enough to pick up the sounds of a scuffle in the near distance and the cries of children in distress.
What?
For the merest fraction of a second, he hesitated.
He - and the hostages - couldn’t afford to risk him being discovered and caught. And helping anyone down there wouldn’t exactly lend itself to the low profile he’d been attempting to maintain.
But how can I not protect those in danger, even here, even now? He shook his head in frustration. Especially here, especially now.
Never being one to ignore the needs of others, he turned around and started in the direction of the sounds, furiously debating with himself the perils and wisdom of interfering with anything that went on in this base.
I can just hear you now, Bruce, he thought, not a little wryly, yet quickened his steps.
And so, against his head’s better judgement but true to his heart’s better nature, Superman found himself running towards the source of the overheard disturbance.
He rounded the corner of a makeshift chamber and pulled up. Two bristly-jawed, heavily built men, dressed in the same ragged clothing everyone else not a soldier down there wore, had backed the children against a wall, looming over them menacingly. One was holding a little plastic disk in his hand and shaking it front of the boy’s ashen face. The other brandished a knife, and leered down at them unpleasantly while his companion spoke.
“Como se chama isto?” he was growling in what Superman recognized as broken Portuguese. “We know you got more chits, boy. So give ‘em here! Agora!”
Although the boy obviously could not understand the words, it was clear he understood their assailants’ intent. He clutched the girl’s hand and shook his head vehemently.
“Non, non, monsieur! Nous n’avons pas les argents!” He showed his empty hands frantically.
“Claro,” sneered the second man. “You filthy little liar.” He lunged forward to grab at the arm of the little girl and drag her forward. She screamed.
The boy shouted as the first man gripped the collar of his shirt and lifted him up, even as the other man raised his massive hand to smack the girl across the face. Before the blow could land, he felt his arm caught in a steel grip.
“I don’t think so,” Superman said coldly, in flawless Portuguese. “Chega!”
The man turned his head and gaped at him, jaw working like a caught fish, as he stared at this seemingly frail old man who had somehow stopped his brutal blow in its tracks. Then he smiled unpleasantly.
“That’s enough?” he repeated mockingly. “Desculpe. I don’t think so.”
“Adeus, o avo. Va-se embora,” his companion hissed at him. “Before we take you apart.”
“Tenho pena,” Superman answered with a hard smile, not regretful at all. “Esta preocupadola?”
“Oh, we’re not worried,” snorted the man, and then without warning, rushed forward and threw a punch with one beefy fist straight at Superman’s face.
Superman saw it coming and blocked the blow with his forearm, simultaneously twisting the wrist of the man he’d caught. The knife fell with a clatter to the floor. Superman flung up his own arm straight from the shoulder, sending the thug spinning into the stone floor. He then pivoted before the first attacker could recover and lashed out with a foot, catching the man under the jaw and hurtling him into a nearby partition.
The resultant crash resounded loudly in the cave and Superman tensed at the noise, spinning to face both men now slowly regaining their feet. He had to end this now. His strength was still sufficient for fending off these two bullies, but not without cost, and he doubted he would encounter the same success against a whole patrol of guards, armed or not.
“How despicable for you to prey on small children!” he said authoritatively. He straightened in as intimidating a posture as he could manage just then. “Walk away, ladraos, and things won’t get messy.”
“Cuidado, mi caro,” grinned the first, rising, and rubbing his hands together.
“Things’ll get right bloody messy before we’re finished with you, ‘hero’,” the other huffed, still in Portuguese. “And you surely won’t be walking away anywheres.”
The man picked up a broken piece of the partition wall he’d crashed into and snapped it off with a boot, brandishing the long piece like a weapon.
“Que engracado,” smirked his friend, as he bent and scooped up the knife in his meaty hand, though Superman himself didn’t see anything amusing about the line. “You won’t be able to.”
They began to circle Superman warily, obviously having some skill at street brawling. Superman clenched his teeth and backed up, keeping an ear out for the sounds of approaching sentries, and turned slightly. He was careful to keep himself between them and the children cowering against the wall.
“Quer jogar artes marciais?” the first taunted. “Fancy fightin’ won’t save you.”
“Oica, pare,” Superman said in a last ditch attempt to avert the fight. “ I suggest you both leave now.” He straightened. “Before I call the troops to restore discipline in here.”
He doubted his bluff would work, and sure enough both men were smiling more widely.
“They’ll just come in, and lay bets on who’ll win,” one guffawed. “As if there’s any question.”
“And if it comes to the attention of Ayestrom himself?” Superman tried, watching them both narrowly. Both hesitated a fraction; the fear of Ayestrom was very real even in these lowlife predators.
"You got a lot of gall to call him by name, old man," one of the men sneered at him. "You just askin' for trouble."
“Heh. The lord, well, he don’t have time to deal with the garbage down here,” the first said, watching him from his small, pig-like eyes, “He leaves that to us that can.”
And then without warning, they both attacked. Superman instantly dropped to a crouch, sweeping out one long leg, swiftly tripping up the nearer of the two. It was a standard move in the Kryptonian Torquasm-Ro discipline he had once mastered, and surprisingly similar to Batman’s own technique he had observed over the years. It did him in good stead now. The man went down - hard.
But the other was upon him before he’d regained his footing, and swung at Superman with his makeshift weapon. Superman flung himself backward in time to avoid the initial strike, and stepped sideways to evade the second one, but the man was quicker with his backhand, and the third blow connected. Much to his own surprise, Superman felt the weapon strike the side of his head, sending him reeling. For a split second, he saw stars. Neither did the narrow plank shatter on impact as it normally ought to have when thrown with such force against his - former - invulnerability.
So much for being thick-skinned, Superman thought, a bit dizzy. He struggled to see clearly and regain his balance.
“Queres dancar?” the hoodlum taunted, as Superman leapt backwards from his sudden kick.
“I don’t dance with bullies,” he shot back, and blocked another thrust with his leg, grunting as he absorbed the weapon’s force against the muscle of his thigh.
As the man slashed out again with the board, Superman abruptly whirled, dropped below range, and caught the cut squarely across the haft of his walking stick he’d speedily drawn from inside his tattered jacket. The man stared at him in surprise and then threw another blow at him. Superman grinned a little savagely, and parried the attack again. Building on the advantage a longer weapon gave him, Superman quickly riposted against the third advance, employing his stick almost like a sword, and in a few moves, disarmed the brute, breaking his fingers with a clever little twist, and knocked him back down to the floor.
Maybe those fencing lessons he’d taken to learn finesse back at Met. U. had been worthwhile after all.
“Regarder par!” screamed the boy.
Superman spun just in time to see the thrown knife. He didn’t know if it would have been able to cut him, but with the way he was feeling, and depleted as he was, he didn’t want to take that chance. He threw his head back. The knife sliced by, whispering against his cheek, and thudded into the wall behind him. He sprang up just in time to meet the charge of the second attacker, who hurled him right off his feet, and slammed him bodily into the stone of the cave wall itself. For just a second he was stunned, and couldn’t seem to catch his breath. His ribs hotly protested the rough treatment in a voice hard to ignore. The man gripped his throat in one hand and snarled into his face, chopping down hard with the other. Superman felt his neck and shoulder go numb from the blow, and couldn't help the small cry that tore out of him.
The man was huge, his body weight more than enough to pin Superman against the rock. He couldn’t seem to find any leverage to push him back. It should have been as easy as thought to flick him away with just a finger. Not any longer. The man punched down again, brutally.
Superman shot his free hand forward fast, jabbing the man in his larynx with stiffened fingers, simultaneously whipping up a knee into his solar plexus. His attacker gagged for a moment, and that second was all Superman needed to wrench up his arm and smash his elbow straight across the thug’s nose. The man fell backwards to the floor, nose gushing blood.
Breathing a little heavily, Superman pulled himself away from the wall, picked up his walking stick with his good hand and fell into a fighter’s stance, performing an impressive looking series of whirling mulinettes and around-the-head coronnés with the stick. The eyes of his two adversaries widened.
“It is none too wise to underestimate your opponent on the basis of appearance alone,” he said calmly, struggling to disguise the true extent of his fatigue and weakness. “Now, do I summon the guards and let them wager on the winner?”
The two thugs glared daggers at him, and then, gasping, heaved themselves to their feet. Superman flexed his knees, ready to defend himself or the children again, but they looked at each other and began to limp away.
“Nao. Estou pressa,” the one whose fingers he'd smashed flung back, and he did look in a bit of a hurry now. “You’re not worth it, trash like you.” He was holding his broken hand in the other.
“But you should watch your back, hero,” the one with the broken nose wheezed out. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
“When you least expect it, we’ll be on you,” the first thug snarled, “and no amount of fight in you will save you. You wait. Ciao.”
Superman did not bother with a reply. He had neither the need nor the breath for it at that moment, and simply kept up his guard until he saw with X-ray vision that the two attackers had indeed left the vicinity, muttering curses and threats the entire way.
Then he turned to the children, and saw to his alarm that a small crowd of onlookers had encircled them during the brief fray, unnoticed by him until now. They were regarding him with a rather alarming mixture of awe and suspicion.
---
To be Continued right This Way! :-)
All Previous Parts can be found at the Main Table of Contents Page.
Sorry for the couple days' delay in posting the second half of Part 14 here, folks - not only was my trip back to the coast a bit rough and lengthy, (though less so than if I'd attempted to drive the highways and canyons) I've been a bit under the weather, and dealing with extreme mad winter weather and startling power outages, and then the mad rush of school beginning again. Always an adventure! *g*
So's posting fic for me on LJ. *sighs sadly* All of those problems on Jan. 3rd and 4th trying to post, and I'd hoped they'd have ended by now. But LJ still won't let me post the fic part as is, so once again I'm forced to split the half into halves yet again. (how, HOW can this be? It's not a RT problem, as cmer, you suggested, as it happened with trying in html too - it just keeps telling me even the short fics are too large, even without pics or fancy formatting! *shakes wolfy head in despair* (I am nearly convinced LJ doesn't want me to post fic here!)
Anyhoo, here's the next bit of Part 14 "Sticking Place, to be followed hopefully immediately by the conclusion"! Hope you like! :-)
- Pax, Pooped Puppy 0_o
Title: JLA: Necessary Force - Part 14: "Sticking Place" (2nd half - part 1)
Author: Paxwolf
Fandom: JLA/Justice League
Rating: PG-13 (R in parts)
Warnings: Mature Situations, Language, Violence
Disclaimer: The JLA and its characters are owned by DC Comics and their parent company. Mine are owned by me. ;-)
Summary: When a powerful terrorist threatens the safety of the planet, the Justice League must go to extremes to stop him, and Superman and Batman may have to make the biggest sacrifice of all.
Summary of This Part: Superman's powers are waning yet further, and as he struggles to escape from Ayestrom's stronghold, he must fend off new obstacles and just maybe makes some new allies.
JLA
“Necessary Force”
By Paxwolf
Part XIV:
“Sticking Place”
(B)
Rao, I never want to have to do that again.
After several long minutes, Superman's violent shivering began to ease, and he managed to catch his breath at last. He had to admit he had not enjoyed the experience of that massive drop one bit. He had definitely gained perspective on the terrors of free-falling that non-flight-capable beings often felt.
As his muscles slowly unclenched and the cold in his bones gradually eased, he began to be perversely grateful for the tremendous heat of those lower levels.
Well, back to the drawing board, as it were. He sighed.
As soon as he had gathered enough strength to manage his feet again, he struggled up the wall, slowly edged out of the tunnel and began to hobble towards the living quarters area of the massive cave system.
It seemed to take an inordinately long amount of time, and he had to fight both against his impatience and to keep up his guard for signs of more sentries and scanners. He watched as the inhabitants who shuffled past his shabby form eyed him suspiciously, and kept his own eyes averted to avoid any questions or potential confrontations. His disguise was serving him well in that capacity, at least. Few would want to approach a man who looked - and smelled - as bad as he did.
Thank you, Kyle and Bruce!
Some of the odour had evaporated along with the ice when he had melted his frozen skin and clothing earlier, and some of the dirt had unfortunately washed off, but, he grinned a little grimly, it was still likely enough to ward off unwelcome attention.
So intent was he in planning a way past the guards at a ladderway, together with his wearing vigilance, that he failed to see the two small children playing on the stone floor right at his feet. He felt the cheap metal of a jack’s spikes flatten beneath his boot before he could reduce his forward weight in time. He stopped in surprise and looked down. He closed his eyes in silent beratement as he carefully withdrew his foot. The ragged boy and girl looked at the crushed jack and then up at him.
“Entschuldigung,” he said softly in German, quickly calculating whether a frail old man’s body weight would have been enough to squash a jack, cheap or not. At his gentle apology, the boy looked up at him, scowling.
“Nous ne parlons pas le Deutsch, vieillard!” he said, snatching up the ball and the remaining jacks.
The little girl looked down at her flattened jack, and then began to cry.
Toys, Superman realized with a flash of fresh regret, must have been terribly hard to come by down there, even inexpensive common things like jacks.
“I did not see you,” he said, switching to French. “Je m’excuse. Je ne peut pas bien voir.” I can't see well.
Instead of either arguing or accepting his words, the two children looked up at him in astonishment. Superman inwardly winced, wondering whether his mistake had been the new language he’d spoken with fluency, or the gentility with which he had expressed his apology. His sudden fear was amplified at their next words.
“Qui est-ce?” the girl asked the boy tremulously.
The boy pulled the girl to her feet, gripping her hand tightly, lips white with terror.
“Je ne sais pas, mais je pense … peut-etre il est un espion du seigneur Übermensch!”
The little girl’s eyes widened, absolute fear filling them.
They think I’m a spy? Of the lord … what? Superman puzzled. Well, they’re astute, at any rate. They’re half right.
“Non, non, mes amis, je ne suis pas un espion,” he tried, raising both hands in front of him in denial of their assumption.
“Nous ne que jouions, monsieur!” the little girl cried, backing away from him. Superman frowned a little, trying to translate that, though the phrase wasn't quite right. We were only playing?
While he was trying to suss that out, with abrupt suddenness, the children turned and disappeared into the warren of makeshift walls and chambers.
Why did they think I was a spy? What’s going on here?
He hoped they weren’t running off to report him to some authorities. He realized he needed to find out more of what was happening here before he could try to escape again. And who better to ask?
“Attendez!” he called out to them to wait, and catching sight of them with his enhanced vision, he swiftly followed them, once making sure no one was observing his quick change of gait.
They were hiding behind a clothesline laden with drying laundry. When he had struggled through a tangle of damp and torn bedsheets and spotted them crouched below him, he tried to smile, but realized in dismay that with his disguise it was not likely a reassuring sight at all. They stared up, eyes wide, frozen in place like prey animals.
“Arretez, s’il vous plait!” he said quickly, and drew breath, continuing in French. “I mean you no harm, I promise.”
“W-we didn’t d-do anything!” the boy stammered, clutching the little girl’s hand in his own. “We didn’t mean to be in your way, monsieur.”
“You weren’t anything of the sort,” Superman hastened to assure. “It was entirely my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Why did you follow us then?” the boy demanded, suspicion rising again in his dark eyes.
“I ... wanted to again say how sorry I am to have ruined your game.”
They stared up at him as if they hadn’t understood a word he had said despite the language he used. He felt he should be holding his breath for fear of scaring them further. Then the girl shuffled towards him a bit.
“Then … then you’re not going to … punish us, monsieur?”
“For playing?” Superman wondered with contempt at the treatment that these and the other children here must have received at the hands of Ayestrom’s men. “Certainly not.” He looked at them, trying to convey his sincerity with everything he had in him. “Et Ayestrom n’est pas mon patron." He is not my boss. "Non. Je ne travaille pas pour … le seigneur Ayestrom.”
Far from it. I’m working against him, not for him.
But he couldn’t say that.
“You’re not a spy?”
“No.” Well, he amended, not for Ayestrom, anyway. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“And … and you won’t take us to the Übermensch and tell?”
Without thinking, Superman almost asked who the Übermensch was, but thought better of it in time and closed his mouth. Were they referring somehow to himself? Was he some sort of bogeyman to these people?
“Of course not,” he said aloud, and suddenly remembered that Batman had made an oblique reference to an übermensch in their last conversation. Why had he forgotten that? “On the contrary, mes enfants, I wanted to ask for your help.”
The two children looked quite bewildered at that, as if no one had ever asked before asked for their help in anything.
“Nos secours?” the little girl repeated, frowning.
“Ah, oui, mes jeunes amis. Aidez-moi, s’il vous plait?” he asked for their help hopefully.
The two children looked at each other, and then suddenly sprang to their feet and broke into a run again. “Allez-vous-en, étranger!”
Superman sighed, feeling his weariness threaten to wash over him again. Trust is apparently in pretty short supply around here.
He turned to continue his search, to go away as they’d asked, resolved to finding out the answers to his questions elsewhere, after he had made good his escape.
Almost funny, he thought, mind beginning to wander blearily. They called me 'stranger' there. And in French the word is the same as for ‘alien’. Funny.
Then he halted in mid-step, his enhanced hearing still acute enough to pick up the sounds of a scuffle in the near distance and the cries of children in distress.
What?
For the merest fraction of a second, he hesitated.
He - and the hostages - couldn’t afford to risk him being discovered and caught. And helping anyone down there wouldn’t exactly lend itself to the low profile he’d been attempting to maintain.
But how can I not protect those in danger, even here, even now? He shook his head in frustration. Especially here, especially now.
Never being one to ignore the needs of others, he turned around and started in the direction of the sounds, furiously debating with himself the perils and wisdom of interfering with anything that went on in this base.
I can just hear you now, Bruce, he thought, not a little wryly, yet quickened his steps.
And so, against his head’s better judgement but true to his heart’s better nature, Superman found himself running towards the source of the overheard disturbance.
He rounded the corner of a makeshift chamber and pulled up. Two bristly-jawed, heavily built men, dressed in the same ragged clothing everyone else not a soldier down there wore, had backed the children against a wall, looming over them menacingly. One was holding a little plastic disk in his hand and shaking it front of the boy’s ashen face. The other brandished a knife, and leered down at them unpleasantly while his companion spoke.
“Como se chama isto?” he was growling in what Superman recognized as broken Portuguese. “We know you got more chits, boy. So give ‘em here! Agora!”
Although the boy obviously could not understand the words, it was clear he understood their assailants’ intent. He clutched the girl’s hand and shook his head vehemently.
“Non, non, monsieur! Nous n’avons pas les argents!” He showed his empty hands frantically.
“Claro,” sneered the second man. “You filthy little liar.” He lunged forward to grab at the arm of the little girl and drag her forward. She screamed.
The boy shouted as the first man gripped the collar of his shirt and lifted him up, even as the other man raised his massive hand to smack the girl across the face. Before the blow could land, he felt his arm caught in a steel grip.
“I don’t think so,” Superman said coldly, in flawless Portuguese. “Chega!”
The man turned his head and gaped at him, jaw working like a caught fish, as he stared at this seemingly frail old man who had somehow stopped his brutal blow in its tracks. Then he smiled unpleasantly.
“That’s enough?” he repeated mockingly. “Desculpe. I don’t think so.”
“Adeus, o avo. Va-se embora,” his companion hissed at him. “Before we take you apart.”
“Tenho pena,” Superman answered with a hard smile, not regretful at all. “Esta preocupadola?”
“Oh, we’re not worried,” snorted the man, and then without warning, rushed forward and threw a punch with one beefy fist straight at Superman’s face.
Superman saw it coming and blocked the blow with his forearm, simultaneously twisting the wrist of the man he’d caught. The knife fell with a clatter to the floor. Superman flung up his own arm straight from the shoulder, sending the thug spinning into the stone floor. He then pivoted before the first attacker could recover and lashed out with a foot, catching the man under the jaw and hurtling him into a nearby partition.
The resultant crash resounded loudly in the cave and Superman tensed at the noise, spinning to face both men now slowly regaining their feet. He had to end this now. His strength was still sufficient for fending off these two bullies, but not without cost, and he doubted he would encounter the same success against a whole patrol of guards, armed or not.
“How despicable for you to prey on small children!” he said authoritatively. He straightened in as intimidating a posture as he could manage just then. “Walk away, ladraos, and things won’t get messy.”
“Cuidado, mi caro,” grinned the first, rising, and rubbing his hands together.
“Things’ll get right bloody messy before we’re finished with you, ‘hero’,” the other huffed, still in Portuguese. “And you surely won’t be walking away anywheres.”
The man picked up a broken piece of the partition wall he’d crashed into and snapped it off with a boot, brandishing the long piece like a weapon.
“Que engracado,” smirked his friend, as he bent and scooped up the knife in his meaty hand, though Superman himself didn’t see anything amusing about the line. “You won’t be able to.”
They began to circle Superman warily, obviously having some skill at street brawling. Superman clenched his teeth and backed up, keeping an ear out for the sounds of approaching sentries, and turned slightly. He was careful to keep himself between them and the children cowering against the wall.
“Quer jogar artes marciais?” the first taunted. “Fancy fightin’ won’t save you.”
“Oica, pare,” Superman said in a last ditch attempt to avert the fight. “ I suggest you both leave now.” He straightened. “Before I call the troops to restore discipline in here.”
He doubted his bluff would work, and sure enough both men were smiling more widely.
“They’ll just come in, and lay bets on who’ll win,” one guffawed. “As if there’s any question.”
“And if it comes to the attention of Ayestrom himself?” Superman tried, watching them both narrowly. Both hesitated a fraction; the fear of Ayestrom was very real even in these lowlife predators.
"You got a lot of gall to call him by name, old man," one of the men sneered at him. "You just askin' for trouble."
“Heh. The lord, well, he don’t have time to deal with the garbage down here,” the first said, watching him from his small, pig-like eyes, “He leaves that to us that can.”
And then without warning, they both attacked. Superman instantly dropped to a crouch, sweeping out one long leg, swiftly tripping up the nearer of the two. It was a standard move in the Kryptonian Torquasm-Ro discipline he had once mastered, and surprisingly similar to Batman’s own technique he had observed over the years. It did him in good stead now. The man went down - hard.
But the other was upon him before he’d regained his footing, and swung at Superman with his makeshift weapon. Superman flung himself backward in time to avoid the initial strike, and stepped sideways to evade the second one, but the man was quicker with his backhand, and the third blow connected. Much to his own surprise, Superman felt the weapon strike the side of his head, sending him reeling. For a split second, he saw stars. Neither did the narrow plank shatter on impact as it normally ought to have when thrown with such force against his - former - invulnerability.
So much for being thick-skinned, Superman thought, a bit dizzy. He struggled to see clearly and regain his balance.
“Queres dancar?” the hoodlum taunted, as Superman leapt backwards from his sudden kick.
“I don’t dance with bullies,” he shot back, and blocked another thrust with his leg, grunting as he absorbed the weapon’s force against the muscle of his thigh.
As the man slashed out again with the board, Superman abruptly whirled, dropped below range, and caught the cut squarely across the haft of his walking stick he’d speedily drawn from inside his tattered jacket. The man stared at him in surprise and then threw another blow at him. Superman grinned a little savagely, and parried the attack again. Building on the advantage a longer weapon gave him, Superman quickly riposted against the third advance, employing his stick almost like a sword, and in a few moves, disarmed the brute, breaking his fingers with a clever little twist, and knocked him back down to the floor.
Maybe those fencing lessons he’d taken to learn finesse back at Met. U. had been worthwhile after all.
“Regarder par!” screamed the boy.
Superman spun just in time to see the thrown knife. He didn’t know if it would have been able to cut him, but with the way he was feeling, and depleted as he was, he didn’t want to take that chance. He threw his head back. The knife sliced by, whispering against his cheek, and thudded into the wall behind him. He sprang up just in time to meet the charge of the second attacker, who hurled him right off his feet, and slammed him bodily into the stone of the cave wall itself. For just a second he was stunned, and couldn’t seem to catch his breath. His ribs hotly protested the rough treatment in a voice hard to ignore. The man gripped his throat in one hand and snarled into his face, chopping down hard with the other. Superman felt his neck and shoulder go numb from the blow, and couldn't help the small cry that tore out of him.
The man was huge, his body weight more than enough to pin Superman against the rock. He couldn’t seem to find any leverage to push him back. It should have been as easy as thought to flick him away with just a finger. Not any longer. The man punched down again, brutally.
Superman shot his free hand forward fast, jabbing the man in his larynx with stiffened fingers, simultaneously whipping up a knee into his solar plexus. His attacker gagged for a moment, and that second was all Superman needed to wrench up his arm and smash his elbow straight across the thug’s nose. The man fell backwards to the floor, nose gushing blood.
Breathing a little heavily, Superman pulled himself away from the wall, picked up his walking stick with his good hand and fell into a fighter’s stance, performing an impressive looking series of whirling mulinettes and around-the-head coronnés with the stick. The eyes of his two adversaries widened.
“It is none too wise to underestimate your opponent on the basis of appearance alone,” he said calmly, struggling to disguise the true extent of his fatigue and weakness. “Now, do I summon the guards and let them wager on the winner?”
The two thugs glared daggers at him, and then, gasping, heaved themselves to their feet. Superman flexed his knees, ready to defend himself or the children again, but they looked at each other and began to limp away.
“Nao. Estou pressa,” the one whose fingers he'd smashed flung back, and he did look in a bit of a hurry now. “You’re not worth it, trash like you.” He was holding his broken hand in the other.
“But you should watch your back, hero,” the one with the broken nose wheezed out. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
“When you least expect it, we’ll be on you,” the first thug snarled, “and no amount of fight in you will save you. You wait. Ciao.”
Superman did not bother with a reply. He had neither the need nor the breath for it at that moment, and simply kept up his guard until he saw with X-ray vision that the two attackers had indeed left the vicinity, muttering curses and threats the entire way.
Then he turned to the children, and saw to his alarm that a small crowd of onlookers had encircled them during the brief fray, unnoticed by him until now. They were regarding him with a rather alarming mixture of awe and suspicion.
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To be Continued right This Way! :-)
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