{Lift-off in Ten, ...}

The space shuttle is on the countdown...

{... Nine, Eight, Seven, ...}

The people outside are all counting down together with the command center leading.

Lex Luthor, currently standing side by side with several other important figures like the U.S. Army generals, the vice president of the United States, and some elite politicians and scientists, is smiling as he waits for the launch.

{... Six, Five, Four, ...}

Clark Kent has kept his eyes on the shuttle, looking at Lois Lane seated within, as Lois Lane reports the situation from inside the shuttle.

{Three, Two, ...}

Matthias, now hiding in the janitorial locker room, is starring at his phone tablet. He’s watching the live report of the local television channel broadcasting the launch of the spacecraft.

{One...}

*SWOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!*

The sound of the shuttle’s thrusters blaring loudly as it launches the spacecraft, especially to the ones close by; like the viewers who are inside the observation tower.

The shuttle launches towards the sky, and broke the limit to reach the far space.

The whole United States are cheering upon the launch, as Lois Lane is reporting the situation and showing around the insides of the shuttle as she started floating around in zero gravity.

...

“Well, that was certainly fun...”

Matthias closes the news application currently broadcasting the news of the shuttle launch. He then looked around him; fainting guards filling up the security station room.

“Well, I don’t expect it to be easy to sneak inside LexCorp Tower, but for there to be this many guards around the building...”

The LexCorp Tower is the heart of the LexCorp, and thus, will always have better security, even when the true head of the corporation is away from home.

‘I need to move quickly. Nobody has noticed my arrival yet, and I haven’t set off any alarm... yet.’ Thought Matthias as he moved around the station room and place a couple of listening bugs; one behind a monitor, another under the desk of the computer keyboard.

Next, Matthias began placing a USB drive into the main hub of the security station, and began hacking. The USB contains his own created malware in order to crack the Tower’s entire security system.

Matthias increases his intelligence and his hand agility as he typed and focuses on hacking the main hub of the security system.

*Clickety-clack*, high speed typing noises echoing from inside the quiet room, which amusingly also accompanied with some slow breathing of the fainting guards around.

About five minutes passed, Matthias successfully hacked into the system. He took the USB, and began typing again, this time to mask his presence inside the security system to prevent anyone from noticing that Matthias has hacked inside.

“Now I can always have eyes inside LexCorp Tower from my own personal computer back at the safe house.” Matthias muttered.

Matthias then moved all the fainting guards inside a large compartment for storing weapons and equipment in an attempt to hide them. ‘Won’t really help much, but it could give me extra time before they got discovered.’

After it’s done, Matthias moved away from the security station and proceed to stealthily move towards the next location: Lex Luthor’s private office.

Dashing through the wide hallways of the building, Matthias skillfully evades the guards and watchmen and easily avoids the employees and workers of the Tower.

He found out that Luthor’s office is in the top most floors, and quickly went for the stairs to move up since using the elevator will make it easier for the employees to notice him.

Increasing his strength and speed, Matthias sped through the stairs, and quickly approached Luthor’s private office.

But then a problem remains...

‘Shit, there’s only one entrance, and Luthor’s got stationed guards right outside the door...’

The entrance; a luxury wooden double with intricate carving on its frames, is the only entrance that leads to Luthor’s office. It is also well guarded, and Matthias can’t risk triggering alarm if he is to deal with them head on.

Which prompts Matthias to quickly enhance his intelligence in full boost as he hides; he needs to make a plan of attack.

‘Seven guards... let’s try decreasing some of them first...’

...

“Yo, look at this, the boss’ rocket just launched.”

“Yeah-yeah, I’m currently looking at it from my phone now.”

“Bruh, this Lois Lane is too lucky, man... like, I wanna be in that thing too, y’know? Seems awesome, with all that zero-g and everything.”

“You know, you saying that made me remember my childhood... maaan, I once had a dream of becoming an astronaut.”

“I get ya, dude, It’s like that one movie about soaring through space, and then floating in zero gravity... man do I wanna be there...”

“Hush! All of you, we got a job to do. Even if the boss-man isn’t here, you guys still need to be professional.”

The two guards loudly chatting on their station were being scolded by their leader. The other guards in the vicinity were lightly chuckling at the scene.

The guards are all resuming their guard task, when...

{*Zzzt* This is Headwatch, there seems to be something stuck on the rooftop helipad, I need some people to check out and unstuck whatever’s up there, preferably the ones stationed on the top floor can assist?}

The walkie-talkie of the guard leader was transmitting the com chatter.

“Hey, Headwatch’s the name of the main station, right?”

“Yeah, it is...”

“Shut up, you two, and go check out the helipad. I don’t know what thing is stuck up there, maybe a dead bird or a flying kite or something.”

“You ain’t coming with us, cap’n?”

“No, and stop getting all informal with me and get to it!”

“... Aye, sir...”

“... Geez, who pissed on this dude’s pants this morning...”

The two talkative guards from earlier were walking away from their station.

A shadow lurks above the two guards as they walked away from the field of view of the rest of the other guards, and after they are far enough, the shadow drops upon them.

*Ugh!* *Ack!*, the two guards silently drop. Matthias drags their unconscious bodies and hid them nearby.

“Now, for the rest of the guards...”

Matthias took a remote trigger from his belt, and pressed it.

*PSSHHH*, black smoke coming out from the corners of the area.

“What the hell?” The guards were surprised, and wary.

Matthias did not waste time, and sneaked inside the smoke. With the help of his upgraded mask, he uses the built in thermal vision to see from inside the smoke.

“*Cough!*, what is this smoke, is something burning? Why isn’t the smoke detector activa-- *Ooof!*”

“What the-- *Ack!*” “Ugh!” “Urk!” - - - One by one, the guards are all dropping down in less than four seconds each. One guard remains; the leading guard.

“*Cough!* *Cough!* Hey, who are you!” The guard leader said as he pulled a gun. He then points at Matthias’ shadow, and was about to shot when the shadow whipped out his black blade and stroke the guard’s weapon.

Matthias dashed forward, and put the guard on a choke hold.

“Ack!.. w-who... the h-heck...”

“Me?” Matthias said with a gruff and deep voice using his ability, “I’m a Wraith.”

Matthias then strengthen his choke hold, and the guard fell unconscious.

Matthias then quickly clean up the place; he dragged all the unconscious guards and put them all in the corner, pilling them up. He then recollected his smoke spreaders to make sure to decrease any trace of him in the building.

The process took five minutes, and Matthias quickly hasten his pace and entered Luthor’s office.

‘I really have little time now, let’s quickly find his personal computer and hack it.’

Matthias scoured the entire office’s nook and cranny with the help of his mask’s detective vision, placed several bugs around the hidden parts of the room, and then proceed to open Luthor’s personal computer.

Matthias placed his USB device into the PC, and began enhancing his intelligence and hand agility.

‘Let’s make it that I can always know what you are planning should you actually want to do some evil masterwork...’

Matthias began accessing the computer. It was not easy to crack Luthor’s PC, especially with the fact that Lex Luthor is one of DC’s smartest characters.

Matthias planned to hack in and put a malware that enables him to see whatever Luthor has on his (Matthias’) own computer, when he found something...

“Hmmm, entry logs, documentary of research... an unknown ship-like object?”

Intrigued with the title of the file he found, Matthias clicked on it and began reading them...

~

Meanwhile, at the Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida...

“Sir, I’m picking up strange readings on one of the engines of the shuttle.” One of the NASA engineer reports.

“Impossible! Everything is tested and properly simulated. There shouldn’t be any sort of error!” Luthor states.

The situation has become a bit chaotic in the monitoring station. This is because fifteen minutes ago, it was found out that there’s a bit of a weird error in the calculation found as the shuttle launches.

It was late... extremely late, and everyone was confused and worried about the safety of the pilots... and the reporter inside the shuttle.

“Dammit! Something’s wrong, but it wasn’t on our end!” Luthor yells. He was right; the problem was not from the miscalculation or his own negligence, but rather... “Someone may have been sabotaging the shuttle!”

Everyone in the monitoring station all looks at Luthor. For someone to sabotage this project...

They thought Luthor was only making an excuse to not be responsible with this, but Luthor does not care, rather, he cares about the matter of fact.

Luthor then went to call for his assistant.

“Jenny, make a call for me.”

“Yes, Sir!”

His assistant quickly pulled a phone, typed the numbers, and gave it to Luthor.

It was then that a loud and rumbling sound blared from the sky.

“Sir! One of the thrusters just blew up!”

“WHAT?!”

The shuttle had one of its thruster blew up, and is now currently losing altitude. The shuttle is falling fast towards the Earth.

Everyone’s looking in horror as the rocket plunges nose diving towards the surface.

The reporter on board, Lois Lane, is now reporting the situation... trying to be professional in her panic.

... “It’s bad! We have lost control over the ship! The shuttle is falling down, ... and ... I-I’m not... s-sure if we’re going to... make it back...” Lois’ voice is shaking hard. She’s scared for her life.

Everyone can feel themselves holding their breath. The entire United States of America are currently watching a tragedy about to unfold.

The shuttle is twenty seconds before reaching the hard Earth, and it’s in no shape of recovering any time soon.

Lois Lane, on the shuttle, closes her eyes. Everyone sees Lois Lane closing her eyes before the channel got redirected to avoid any explicit sight from going public.

... Everyone is closing their eyes...

... But... It was then!

A figure soars through the sky! It was fast, it was quick, and it was approaching the shuttle.

Some people on the site saw this figure; they all point their fingers to the new existence now approaching the shuttle, and in its appearance, had people asking.

“What is that?”

“Is it a bird?”

“Is it a plane?”

... “No, it’s-- it’s... what is it?”

The new figure then flew in high speed towards the falling shuttle from bellow... and proceeds lifting it off...

The shuttle did not fall, and was instead carried by this new figure.

It’s a man, or rather someone humanlike. He’s flying, and on top of his body was carrying a several-ton space shuttle. He wore a blue and red bodysuit, or maybe spandex? Well, he also has a long, flapping red cape behind his back. There’s also a symbol on his chest; a letter “S” like symbol embedded on the man’s outfit.

Everyone was watching in silence; this surreal scene of a man carrying a space shuttle with him... And he flies. This man had saved the falling shuttle, and everyone on board.

Just after the man safely dropped the shuttle to the ground, a slow clap greeted him. The man looked around, as he sees the people giving him a large round of applause.

The man did not react, and instead flew upwards; the sudden high speed flight creates a sonic boom, and the crowd stopped clapping.

Superman is now born...

...

And yet, Matthias has found something...

“Are you kidding me, Luthor!”