The Calling Card. (Seraphim/Zenaki)

A bearded man sat on the sidewalk of Metropolis, he watched others walk by, with smiles on their faces. The citizens were either carrying suit cases or coiling their arms around the shoulders of their loved ones. And this man.. he had no one.. nothing. He closed his eyes and had the memories flash in his head, reminding himself of who he was. He was Cadmus.. hence was, but now he was the Man of Steel.. Superman. But yet he had no home, he served the people of Earth, and could fly and lift a building easily! Yet.. he was broke, on the streets. 

He was weakened after the fight with Doomsday, and he couldn't even fly.. anymore. For the past few weeks the sun had been covered by the clouds, raining everyday, draining his powers. The sun had been blocked by these devilish clouds, that he loathed. After a day of walking around Metropolis, he went into HIS ally way, and sat next to the dumpster. his right hand inched into his jacket pocket and he removed a plastic card. This was the number of his old friend Zander that he was staring at all day. There seemed to be no trouble anyway in Metropolis.. And he had no friends.

He removed his phone and dialed a number, putting it to his ear and leaving Zander a message. "This is.. Superman, Zander. Meet me at the Metropolis Hotel.. Goodbye." 

Zander looked down at his phone, the damn thing hardly ever went off and now he had a missed call from an unknown number. He held it in his left hand and in his right he held a man who had just been attempting to rape a woman on her late night job. He put the phone to his ear and hit the button to hear the message, it was Cadmus. he quietly listened to the man speak before closing the phone and putting it back in his pocket. He was only a few blocks from the hotel in question.

"Did you learn your lesson?" he calmly asked the whimpering man who nodded feverishly. He nodded twice to the man before pivoting and throwing him into a tree, breaking the man's arm and cracking his head. He walked up to him and knelt down to his level, whispering into his ear. "I know you, I know everything about you and if you ever harm another woman again I will kill you." he said calmly, the man crying like a child from his wounds and from the fear.

Zander stood up and walked toward where he knew the hotel to be, sending the number Cadmus had called him from a text, but not before taking the would be rapist's wallet. The text read, be there in twenty, meet me out front. He looked in the wallet and whistled, it was stacked with a load on hundreds and a debit card that the man had stupidly left the pin number on. He smiled before putting it in his back pocket, crime didn't pay but law keeping did. As he walked he whistled a small tune to himself.

Christopher walked down the street and fixed his dirty jacket. He slowly twitched his right ear. Turning around and staring back at a man running with a gun. He kept turning and shooting at the Police Officer running toward him. The officer was hit in the knee, and fell onto his behind. The man turned around once more and fired.

Christopher ran at a fast pace, he took the bullet in his right hand and then collapsed onto his back. He closed his eyes and looked at his hand. It was.. bleeding. His eyes were wide.. but he cursed at himself. He couldn't cry because of his weakness now. Christopher ran and bumped into people, making several men and women fall down. Why was it so hard to catch this criminal?

The weakened Kryptonian leaped up and grabbed the shoulders of the criminal, they both got up and began to trade punches. Christopher swung his right fist and hit the criminal's jawline, but was then hit in the solar plexus with a hard knee. He held his stomach and coughed blood. Two officers ran toward the criminal, one stopped and looked at Superman. "Just let the cops handle this.. don't be a hero." The cop ran off with his partner toward the criminal. 

He held his wound and put pressure on it with the left hand with his shivering thumb. He moved into the Hotel and looked around, he sat down on one of the couches as many people moved around. He put his hands in his pockets and looked around.

Zander walked into the hotel, holding the door open for an older woman so she could walk in. A smile on his face as she walked passed and thanked him for assisting her. He entered the lush hotel lobby behind her and made a quick scan for Cadmus, his eyes falling on a face almost identical to his own, except for the ragged beard.

He walked over to his partner and sat, only just now noticing his skin was a few shades paler than it should be and a cold sweat was breaking out on his brow. Something was wrong, he could smell something metallic about the man, his lips were a few shades darker than normal, blood. He looked at the man's hands, stuffed in his pockets, the jacket pockets being a darker shade, the metallic smell coming in more force from the area. "Are you... Bleeding?" he asked before wrenching the man's hands free rom his pockets, holding Cadmus's wrists with his own hands. He noticed a bloody hole in the man's right hand, a gunshot wound....

"But bullets bounce right off of you, I saw it in Alaska. Why did this one hurt you? was it Kryptonite?" he asked quietly, worried about this man that he called a friend considering how they first met. Then his mind recalled the lack of sun outside, the storms that had gone on for days. He thought of how Cadmus was a clone of Superman and would need the sunlight to get stronger...... "Put your hands back in your pockets and follow me." he said before standing up and walking to an elevator, an idea coming to mind as he went.

Christopher walked toward Zander, the man behind the counter eyed Cadmus mysteriously. Soon he walked over towards him. "Hey buddy let me talk to y--" The elevator doors shut right in front of his face. He held his wound and backed up into the wall, moving his hair to the side from his eyes. 

"I've gotten very weak after fighting this villain. Right now.. you could possibly call me Human. I'm so weak I couldn't stop this small criminal." The Kryptonian sighed. "Where are we going?.." 

Zander stepped out of the elevator onto the top floor of the hotel, waiting for The Ever Paling Superman to catch up before he walked toward a door labeled no entrance, meaning it led to the top of the building, to the outside where maintenance could fix broken air conditioners and such. The skin over his right fist turned a dull grey color before he punched the door right where the lock was, destroying it and forcing the door to cave in. " I wager we have ten minutes tops before we get caught so here's my plan. we're going to the roof and I'm going to throw you, throw you as high as I can in hopes of you absorbing enough sun light to heal and maybe fly, if you heal you'll survive the fall even if you cannot fly." He said before walking down the hallway toward the stair case that led to the roof top door.

Once there he opened it and stood outside in the strong winds, feeling a chill from them. He turned back to Cadmus, "Any questions? If not let's do this before you lose more blood." he said, his left hand held outward for the man to take.

Christoper removed his thick jacket and dropped it to the ground. His somewhat muscular arms showed because of the short sleeved black t-shirt. He nodded at  Zander and stepped towards him. But he stopped and his right ear twitched, his super hearing kicking in a bit. He winced as for a second, loud voices exploded through his ears. Every voice in Metropolis rung through the air. He shook his head and stared at the Elevator, seeing that the man behind the counter was coming up.

Quickly he grasped the right hand of Zander and moved to his side. "Hurry, this guy wont stop. Believe me, he's a snoop."