Superman - Son of Krypton

Chapter Fourteen - The Grand Escape

Night fell. Clark had kept time by occasionally glancing up at the numbers on the security cameras. He couldn't wait for some action. Anything would beat sitting in a cell all day. The upside to sitting in a cell all day was that he had a lot of time to think. About everything. He had gone over in his head many, many times what he had done wrong and what he had done right, if anything. He wondered if he had done anything to make Lex Luther hate him, or if it was just a blind fear of the unknown.

An hour later, it was time. Clark took a deep breath and began untying himself from the chair using his free hands. Ordinarily, he would have simply flexed a muscle and the chair would have gone flying, the ropes and chains flying off. But he couldn't do that anymore, not with the glowing green ring around Clark's chair. Somehow, it made him as weak as a human. Actually, weaker.

Clark successfully untied himself and stood up shakily. After sitting for so long, his legs were now failing him. They had probably fallen asleep several days ago, and they hadn't woken back up. And the green ring probably didn't help matters. Clark stumbled out of the green ring, but didn't feel any better. Although he was out of the ring, he still felt its power. He needed to get out.

Clark regained as much strength as he could and readied himself to burst through the door. He knew very well that he only had one shot. Even though the guards were staring continuously at a looped feed of Clark's cell; they would still be alerted by a door flying off its hinges.

Clark stepped back and rammed into the door, putting as much brute force as possible into the push. To Clark's mock surprise, the door flew backward. The designers of that cell obviously didn't expect someone to get out of the chair.

Clark stepped further from the ring and felt the power slowly returning to his body. It was as if he was absorbing pure energy, and it felt fantastic. Clark could fell the power flowing through his veins, and it did admittedly scare him a little. He couldn't blame everyone for being scared of him—he sometimes felt scared of himself, and what he could do. If the power Clark had was in the hands of someone else, bad things would happen. That was why everyone was so wary of him.

As soon as the door crashed to the floor, the guards were immediately on alert. They spun around like they'd probably been trained to do for years and starting firing at Clark.

The bullets hurt. Three of them found their marks in Clark's chest and waist. Clark doubled over. His powers had obviously not completely returned, so the bullets still hurt. They were probably not fatal, but they sure did hurt. Another round was fired on Clark, but they didn't hurt as bad as the first one. Instead they merely stung a little, causing a mere wince from Clark as they hit. Soon, Clark didn't feel the bullets. The guards were slow to realize that. They slowly stopped firing and looked at each other in pure fear.

Clark took a step toward them, but stopped himself. He needed to prove to people that he wasn't a monster, not prove to them that he was one. He caught the bullets from newly arriving guards, and let the drop to the ground. He looked each guard individually in the eye as they stopped firing. They were afraid. Some of them were coming to the realization that they were as good as dead. Clark felt bad for them. They had been influenced and convinced that Clark was evil, so they showed him no mercy. But it was Clark's turn, and Clark planned to show otherwise.

"Attack him!" a voice yelled. "What are you doing?"

Clark turned to see Lex Luther, the man's eyes red with rage. Lex focused his gun on Clark, and Clark saw the green energy within it. Clark braced himself for another impact from that lethal gun, but none came. The gun had been knocked out of Lex's hand and slid across the floor. Lex now stood shocked, a gun barrel against the back of his head. Holding it was Sergeant Cloud.

"Stand down!" Cloud commanded his men, who were now confused, now knowing whether to obey Cloud or Luther. "This man before you has done nothing wrong. You've tried to kill him, but he has shown you mercy. He is showing us all mercy. Don't you think he could have killed us by now if he wanted to?"

Some of the men agreed, others were not so sure. One guard spoke out, "But he's an alien. We fight aliens!" The were murmurs of agreement.

"We fight aliens that are dangers to us. Superman is not. Superman has done nothing but help this city. If there are more like him, we will be ready. Otherwise, we must be thankful that Superman is here," said Cloud.

"So you think we should let him go?" a man asked.

"No," Sergeant Cloud responded. "If there are evil aliens out there, Superman is our best chance of stopping them. I think we should hire him."