[center][img]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/logocomics/images/0/0f/1966-The-New-Adventures-Of-Superman-Season-1-1_0.png/revision/latest?cb=20130507003411[/img][/center]

[b]March 20[sup]th[/sup], 2005
12:00 PM 
Metropolis [/b]

[center][i]Prologue[/i][/center]
[hr]
[i][center][b]”This just in with Channel 4 Breaking News in Downtown Metropolis. A scene of chaos has developed outside the Metropolis Children's Museum where a group of armed individuals have stormed the building and taking the occupants inside hostage. Sources say these criminals are asking for 10 Million and noncompliance will only result in the deaths of those inside......[/b][/center]

An entire city halted by the tremendous shadow of fear and doubt. Men and women glued to their televisions screens and listening to their radios. Across the city and country people watch in horror looking down upon the scene from the viewpoint of the news helicopters like gods on high unable to stop the world below them. They watched, shuddered and prayed hoping that the facade would crack and that they would wake up from the terrible dream they were in. Nobody would go that low would they? Would they really harm hurt a bunch of kids?

While the world on the outside reacts in horror in the inside there is only fear. Entire groups of children were backed against walls and in corners looking down the barrel of assault rifles, of death as the blood of the security guards slowly leaks on the tile floor each individual white square slowly becoming crimson. Some among the teachers and employees are crying, crying because it isn't fair, and it's true nobody wants to die. Though many more are reaching out to the children that surround them, to the tiny faces with big innocent eyes trying to give them at least some form of comfort in their final hours. 

But something is strange here, [i]these children do not need comfort.[/i] They are perfectly calm and resolute and instead they are the ones finding the resolve in the moment. It is because they know something that the others don't. A shared whisper that seemed to circulate the  building and radiate outwards to all those young faces watching the events unfold, a whisper that became a comment, a comment that became their words of comfort to their parents and elders. Three Words that had been spoken before and would be spoken again but somehow every time carried the hopes of an entire world upon their shoulder. [i]Superman was coming.[/i]

He had appeared after the tragic events of September 11[sup]th[/sup], rising from the ashes of a changed America in a time where America needed heroes again. A beacon of hope to keep the darkness at bay. Ever since then “Superman” had become a household name in Metropolis and the greater world. For he came at the most opportune time, as a new hero for the resurgent America in a time of great patriotic fever and unity. The children followed his every action on the television news as if he was some great sports hero instead of an alien crimefighter. Slack Jawed and wide eyed they watched him soar across the world fighting for truth and justice and always making sure the bad guys lost. They didn't have to be scared anymore because instead they could be inspired and awed.

Parents and adults weren't deemed for these childish fantasies  either. It was impossible not to be swapped up in the fervor of it all with the news, reporters and seemingly all their co-workers portraying the man in blue like he was the second coming.  After their children would do some death defying stunt or try and punch out the schoolyard bully in the name of justice, after rempemeninding them in front of their betters once back in the safety of their own cars or homes the smile would crack and they would ask. [I]Trying to be Superman again?[/I]

To the children though he was the [i]perfect[/i] hero, he could do anything. If they could just be superman for just one moment of time, they could do anything. So they knew that at any moment [b]he[/b] would  come and make the bad guys wish that they never woke up in the morning.

The adults were understandably more cynical.The news always blew things out of proportion, they made it all appear bigger and more magnificent to tell a better story. They knew the truth, that their was no knights in shining armor and heroes no matter if they could fly or punch a hole through the air, they were still decidedly human. And most importantly of all they remember. They remember when they were young and they had their own heroes, they remembered the Justice Society and their position of the old beacons of hope in the world and those older remembered the likes of Captain America fighting the shadows of the Third Reich. But where had they gone? Where were they when they needed them the most, when their friend was killed or that bank was robbed? They were gone.... because they abandoned them like everybody else.

So they look on with fear in their hearts as they know how the score will settle. They are scared because they couldn't possibly feel the change in air currents and notice the startled birds; because they couldn't see a blue streak racing high above the  clouds from halfway across the sky. They couldn't see that this streak was a singular man with a determined expression upon his face; nor could they know that with superhuman sight and hearing he had already knew the locations of all the gunmen inside the museum and he already had a plan.

[i]He was only one man.

But one man was enough. [/i]

Superman was coming.[/i]
[hr]

Clark did not flinch as he hit into the roof of the Children’s Museum punching a man sized hole through the roof. The hostages flinched and pulled away at the sudden noise and the man of steel was upon their assailants before they could react. There were six in total and he moved towards the one watching the hostages first as Clark came down from the ceiling atop of him feet first. Clark could hear the sternum crack under the pressure as he feet made contact. He spun around quickly as the five others moved to return fire. He acted first leaping to the right taking the hostages out of the cone of fire. Fingers hit the trigger as soon as he landed and a wave of 7.62x39 ammunition came to meet him.

He began to walk to meet them in the middle. They almost tickled as they made contact as the faces of the hostage takers grew with fear as they unloaded round after round into Clark to no effect. He reached the lead man and wrapped a hand around the barrel of the assault rifle and in one jerking motion pulled him forward by it, driving a palm into his head and sending him flying across the room before hitting the ground. He was lucky that Clark had the decency to pull his punches or else his head would of came clean off.  Two more charged on either side and as they were about to smash their rifles against his head, he shot up into the air. Already in movement the forward momentum of their swings and in such close proximity the two hit one another yelling out in pain as they collapsed on the ground in a pile.

One of the two remaining had swung his gun over towards the hostages but before he could shoot, hands suddenly started burning as the metal became scorching to the touch as a heatray from across the room made contact. He landed in front of the last man and very simply took a deep breath and breathed on the man and the force alone propelled him several feet before he slammed into an installation about simple physics and dropped. All in all less than four minutes had passed since he had crashed through the roof and it was already over. 

A hushed silence had fallen over the area outside of the museum. They heard gunshots and screams but they couldn't get contact from the inside. They all waited with baited breath as the seconds passed by and nothing happened. A sign of movement, the whole crowd gasped as the door swung open. SWAT raised their guns and trained them on the door as it fully but as it did there was no moans of horrors but cheers resounding through the crowd at the sight in front of them. Children and teachers walking out of the museum in big groups, parents rushing over the police barrier to find their kids as a collective sigh held across the nation had been released. Now the cameras did not focus on the building but on the man in the center of the crowd that all the children seemed to be flocking around. Superman.

And for a moment, the darkness was gone.