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Chapter 3

It was past noon when Lucille soared just over the treeline looking around with her x-ray vision to make sure she wasn’t spotted. She gracefully landed on top of the shopping mall in front of a maintenance door and looked down at her wrinkled dress and flattened it with her hands, accidentally tearing it from the waist down. She regretted not taking a moment to wear a new pair of shoes, but it felt weird not to use her feet at all. She easily pushed in a security door and went inside. As she walked around and looked at the storefronts she became increasingly annoyed by all the irrelevant conversations all around her.

"Agh! I… I can’t think with all these people talking!”

Increasingly annoyed Lucille got desperate. 

“How did Superman deal with this nonsense, all the time?”

Lucille covered her ears with no avail. She strongly closed her eyes and all of a sudden the sounds stopped. She opened them and now she could only hear the usual sounds of the mall.

"Did I lose my super hearing?" She murmured, only to notice that she could still hear everything, but in a different way. It was only a matter of concentration, and now she had a way to stop the overwhelming flow of sounds going to her consciousness to send it to a different flow of thought, a new way of thinking she didn’t have before. “So that’s the way” Lucille smirked. She switched her attention to different conversations around her.

“They’re saying that the money truck disappeared out of nowhere, and that those two reporters were headed to where it was last seen. Could they be the ones who stole it?” A woman asked in the distance. Lucille focused her X-ray vision and pinpointed her location. She was in a nail salon chatting with another woman.

“I’m sure Superman will find them and we’ll know soon enough, as always,” her friend replied.

Lucille chuckled “Keep waiting you idiot. Now it’s just me” she murmured to herself, proud of her control of her new ability.

“Now, where was I?”

She decided to first solve the dress and shoes problem, going to an expensive dress shop with outfits she had only seen in magazines. As she walked in, one of the attendants saw her rugged appearance, no shoes and oil stained dress, and gave her an annoyed look.

“Yeah yeah, I know, I don’t look too hot, but you are going to help me with that” She took out a couple of hundred dollar bills and gave them to the attendant.

“There’s way more where that came from. I’m in a hurry so dress me up! ” She commanded. Shocked, the man took the cash and smiled. Lucille gave him another couple. “And you never saw me, you hear me?”

“Of course madam, I’m at your service.”

They both went around the store, and after some fittings she chose a purple business jacket and matching pencil skirt. She found a pair of t-strap high heels that wouldn’t slip off mid-air and added a big pair of sunglasses to complete the look. Everything was over 5,000 dollars and she paid with the bank’s money with a grin on her face.

Next, she headed to the best hair salon in the mall. The stylist washed her hair and helped her carefully fit a high-quality wig. Lucille opted for a casual and subtle makeup look, always with the priority of being unnoticed. When everything was done, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled at her convincing new disguise.

Leaving the salon and the mall, Lucille hailed a taxi to the museum. She entered carefully, mindful of her new strength. Despite her best efforts, she closed the door with a bit too much force, startling the driver who shot her an annoyed look. Ignoring him, she adjusted her sunglasses and smiled, feeling confident of her new, low-profile look as the taxi drove off.

At the museum, she went straight to the geology wing, where she found a large chunk of green kryptonite on display with no physical barriers at all. It was almost too easy, she thought. Keeping her distance from the rock, she approached a guard.

“Excuse me, can you tell me if that stone over there is real kryptonite?” 

“Oh no miss… that one is a representation.”

“Of course it is! Ugh!” Lucille yelled startling the guard. She had been played by Clark Kent and now she felt like a fool.

Lucille left the museum in fumes ready to have a violent talk with Superman. She held the suitcase Nelle had given her with an urge of squashing it but suddenly stopped. She stood in the middle of the stairs looking at the distance and moved the wig’s hair behind her ear to hear better with no difference, she could hear perfectly. Her new alternate train of thought which listened and processed every conversation around had picked up a particularly interesting one and now it had her full attention.

“So why would Luthor want such a big piece of Kryptonite anyway?” said a man’s voice, somewhere around her.

“That’s none of your business. Now here’s your money.” another voice replied.

Using her x-ray vision and her improved hearing, Lucille searched for the source of the conversation as she did in the mall. After a minute, she found a group of men in an underground parking lot two blocks away. They seemed to be trading off what seemed to be a glowing green object.

Lucille gasped and trembled in excitement. “Oh! This day keeps getting better and better” She murmured.

She looked for a way into the parking lot and found that it was underground in an abandoned building. She walked quickly making sure not to draw any attention, and, reaching the back of the building easily tore the thick chains that were barring the door with one hand. She went inside and floated down a spiral staircase. She focused her attention on the men using her x-ray vision. They were heavily armed with pistols and assault rifles. Lucille gracefully landed on the lower lever and opened the doors to the parking lot just to find the car accelerating. Lucille lowered her black glasses and shot a controlled burst of heat from her eyes, bursting the front tires of the armored car forcing it to stop. The confused men got out and looked in her direction.

“Hey you idiots! If you value your lives you will give me that stone!” Lucille's booming voice echoed across the underground parking lot as she walked towards the vehicle. One of Luthor’s men pointed his gun at her.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” the man yelled. Lucille kept walking toward him with a confident grin. The man fired, but Lucille, not wanting to damage her dress, instinctively moved aside with her super speed. Surprised, the man shot again and again, each bullet missing as she effortlessly dodged them appearing instantly at a side. The man saw powerless as she closed the distance between them, yanked the gun from his hands, and crushed it to dust.

“The stone? I'm not going to ask again!” she demanded. The other men, now outside the vehicle, aimed their rifles at her and fired. Lucille rolled her eyes, watching the bullets approach her in slow motion. She casually disappeared, leaving the men shooting at empty air.

“My turn,” Lucille said, now behind the burliest man. She delivered a sloppy bone-crushing blow on the man's jaw, rendering him unconscious. Lucille stared at her fist with a smile and became a blur again, this time going on the offensive and delivering blows that sent all five men to the air in less than a second. Finally, she pinned the last thug against the wall with her suitcase.

“You are going to put the kryptonite in here! You understand?” Lucille commanded, as the other men crashed around screaming in pain.

“Agh!... Okay, okay!” The man replied. Lucille released him and walked a couple steps back as she stared at him through the car with her x-ray vision. She could see the glowing kryptonite before it vanished inside the suitcase. The man, trembling, came out of the vehicle and handed it to her. Lucille took the case with her right hand and in a blur pushed the man with her left palm, breaking his rib cage and making him smash against a wall. “Thanks,” she said with a grin on her face.

Lucille raised the case and looked at it with curiosity. Nelle warned her about the kryptonite, but she was so desperate to finally claim those powers as her own! She got anxious, reflecting on how Superman was probably right in telling her that green kryptonite would break the link of the super powers between them, but he had also tried to fool her into going to the museum and draw her to a fake stone so that she would never be able to put her hands on a real one on time. But now, casualty and fate had brought her an actual piece of green kryptonite. She smiled and knew that this stone was the solution she was waiting for.

“You failed to fool me Superman! These powers are now mine!”

As she closed her hands on the locking mechanism to open the case, a new train of thought showed her in a fraction of a second thousands of negative scenarios if she were to be wrong. The flow of rational thought was new to her and she gasped in awe at the shocking experience, quickly taking her hand off the lock. She looked at her hand, grinned and laughed loudly.

“Wow! I would have actually opened it! What an idiot!” She murmured. “These superpowers are amazing, my mind was also improved. I’ll make sure to know what this kryptonite does to me first, but how?” Again, her mind provided thousands of options in a couple of seconds making her grin in satisfaction.

“Surely Nell can figure this out. Maybe I could also provide some help,” she murmured. She turned to leave and as she walked away, her enhanced train of thought made her reflect on Lex Luthor and the thugs she had just beaten. The less their leader knew, the better, she concluded.

Lucille turned back toward the men, who were groaning and struggling to get up. With a calm but menacing stride, she approached them, grabbing one by the hair and easily lifting him up.

“You’re going to leave and never come back,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “If I ever see any of you in this city or even this country again, you will beg I didnt kill you today. And trust me, I can see and hear everything!” Lucille looked around and with a wicked smile, released her heat vision at full power, targeting the gas tank of the armored car blowing it up with a tremendous explosion.

“Do you understand?” Lucille demanded. The men, terrified by her imposing presence, nodded frantically.

“Good. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind!” She released the man and the men scrambled to their feet to leave. Lucille felt a rush of power as she saw their expressions of fear.

Lucille floated off the ground. "I guess I'll have to take care of Luthor at some point as well." She murmured as she gently went up the stairs and reached the garage's entrance. She exited the building, checked the surroundings to ensure no one was watching and blasted to the sky.