It was two days after the kidnapping happened. After the three soldiers had disappeared in an almost magical smoke, Superman had searched high and low for some kind of clue as to who those people were and why they did what they did, but he came up with nothing, until now. The room was the same as it had been when he left, everything was tossed around, broken and burnt from the fire of the blast and there was a giant hole where the door to the room had been along with several other desks along the railing. He had come in as quiet as possible, hoping that no one saw what he was about to do to find the truth. He had a medallion wrapped around his hand.
The meeting with Zavim didn't go great after his business proposition.
The words "destroy every building without the mark" hung in the air in their silence. Zavim looked at Clark with a look of excitement, waiting for the Kryptonian to take up his call.
But he didn't. All Clark could do was look at the old man in front of him and just stare in confusion. Finally, Clark gave his answer.
"No."
Zavim's face fell from excitement to disbelief, and finally to anger. "You do not understand the gravity of the situation Kal-El!"
"I understand enough. What you're talking about is putting hundreds of citizens out of their jobs and then out of their homes as well. I refuse to do that, there must be another way. What about putting a mark on the buildings without them?"
Zavim's face turned into a deep shade of red. "It. Won't. Work. Like. That. The buildings have already taken a tole on my power and my brethren. Destroying the buildings is our only choice."
"Then I'll just have to find another one."
Zavim gave Clark a look of general loathing at that remark and then reached at his neck, snapping a gold chain and pulling it to reveal a golden medallion with a crystal at the center from his shirt. "Take this then. I know you're weakened by magic, at least with this you'll be able to see some evidence if any of my kind have been near an area."
Clark took it from the man's hand, and Zavim watched as he made his way through the street, no longer protected by his powers. "That stubborn son of a..."
Now, Superman unravels the chain from his hand and holds the crystal center up to his eye, suddenly filling his vision with a spectrum beyond that he has ever seen.
Suddenly, Superman could see footprints left by soldiers, a blast mark from where they teleported, and even some residue of whatever the soldiers were firing from their guns.
"Wow."
From across town, Monica Jackson screamed at the top of her lungs, dried tears speckle her cheeks from where her mascara had ran down days ago. She was a reporter, and a good one, she had liked to think, but somehow going for just one stupid interview was the thing that would end up killing her. The people that had kidnapped her had been as silent as shadows, never making even a little sound until her chains dangled as they bound her to the wall. There was no sign of Hughes anywhere, she never even saw him when they were taking her to her cell, she thought about him, not in a 'I hope he's alright' kind of way, but as a 'I'll kill that man for getting into this' kind of way. Suddenly, her cell door opens, and standing in the frame, silhouetted by the light flooding into the dark room, was Hughes, holding his book in one hand, and another one in the other.
"Come my dear," he said, "It's time to make history."
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