Environmental Awareness

[metromarvel.livejournal.com]

Warftown Harbor, around noon. A hunched, pudgy man sits on a bench, his back to what could charitably be called water, but Metropolitans called Hob's River. The worn old workhorse of the City of Tomorrow, Hob's River fought a continual battle with polution, filth, mutated fish, and Greenpeace activists trying to get the whole thing dammed up before it spreads. The city hustled and bustled without an ounce of shame as a hundred busniesses great and small tighten their iron grip on the time and attention of the average person, allowing a blessed few minutes of peace, relaxation, and needed sustinance, known to lesser mortals as lunch hour. Well, for regular workers, at least. Then there are the strangers, the freaks, the night people, criminals, police officers, prostitutes, delivery people...

...and reporters. The news never sleeps, and therefore a reporter has to catch what food and rest he or she can whenever possible. It's merely fortune that Clark Kent is able to enjoy a freshly purchased chili dog. Sure, no one to eat with except for the occasional snickering group of teenagers murmering the latest fat jokes, but that's one of the downsides to super hearing, Clark has told himself over the years. And, for once...Clark looks left. Clark looks right. Wow, no interuptions. The dog rises, slowly, Clark opening his mouth and closing his eyes in anticipation...

"What is that thing?!" Someone screams.

...it can wait for a bite, Clark thinks, squeezing his eyes shut and getting closer...

"It's unstoppable..." Another man shouts, "...some kind of watery collossus!"

...closer...

"Hasn't that allready been used?"

"You try coming up with a good name on the fly!"

...closer...

"Oh God!" A woman shouts, "Those arguing monster-namers have been grabbed by its terrible seaweed tentacles! Who will save them?!"

Damn it, Clark sighs, looks whistfully at his chili dog, and hands it to the little stray dog that always seems to find his way to Kent in situations like this. "This looks like a job for..." Adjusting his tie, Clark looks left, right, and seeing that chaos is reigning, turns around. "....golly."

Six stories tall, at least, the green-gray thing is vaguely humanoid in shape, a hunched beast with a small head, beady red eyes, iron hard slimy toad's skin, long, ropey limbs ending in clawed fingers, and covered by a hundred layers of thick...glowing seaweed, that move, no, slither with dread purpose, a pair of innocent bystanders getting closer and closer to...a cut runs out along the thing's gut, it hunches up a little, and a second mouth, a massive jaw, forms in its stomach! The Filth King's horrible tounge licks its teeth, gray gunk dripping from the maw as...

...it screams from its upper mouth, the smell of burning seaweed filling the air as a blue and red blur surges forward, blasting the set of seaweed tentacles into fried atoms and quickly grabbing the pair of bystanders! Landing on a nearby Stop-An-Shop, Superman looks over the sheepish pair and decides there's only one thing to do. "It's name is the Filth King, I think. Aquaman showed me a picture in an old Atlantean book of legends. Go! Get out of here! The Science Police should be here soon, I'll hold it off until then!" And with that, Superman kicks into the air, charging through the stratosphere...

...only to be blasted with a hunk of the gray goop, slamming into the ground, the Man of Steel groans, feeling his strength start to subtly ebb away as he's exposed to the toxic loogie from hell. Superman struggles, aiming his heat vision to try and melt through his prison, or at least weaken it enough to break out of, but even as it begins to work, the Man of Steel cannot escape one, overriding thought. 'I might need some help on this one...'