7.21 Apocalypse by TW and AM (Part III)

as retold by Bill C

AM: We come back to a long shot of Martha power-walking out of the tunnel, and we hear Lois's voice.
ED: Great!
AM: "Hey, let go! You can't do this to me!"
MR: "I don't want to wear the glasses again!"
AM: Pan over as Martha walks to the guard shack from the last scene, where Lois is being patted down by the same soldier from earlier. And still bitching about it. "Oh, for God's--"
AoT: And Martha walks up. "Lois? What are you doing here?"
JG: Trolling for dates.
ED: Shh. Lois gets a reaction shot. "Senator?"
AoT: "I asked first, Lois."
ED: Lois scowls at the soldier who had frisked her. "I was just in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd give this knucklehead a remedial course on the importance of the fourth estate."
MR: Tom, you wrote that, didn't you?
TW: What's wrong with it?
MR: Lois isn't that wordy.
ED: Hey!
JG: And she didn't use the word "bitch" once.
AoT: Give her time, John.
ED: Oh, shut up!
AoT: So...Martha looks at the soldier. "First, let this woman go. She has access. Second, I need to return to the airfield--I have to go back to Washington."
TW: The soldier looks at Martha like she's only a little crazy. "The second thing I can do, Senator. The transport that brought you here is being refueled for a second run to Washington. The first...I'm sorry, Senator. No reporters allowed."
AM: Of course, since Lois isn't really a reporter...damn, that was my outside voice again, wasn't it?
ED: But...but neither is Chloe!
JG: Whoa. Was that an actual comeback?
AM: Even a broken clock, John.
JG: Good point.
AoT: Martha shakes her head...and beats me to it. "There seems to be a misunderstanding here, Captain."
TW: "Command made it clear--"
AoT: "Yes, but Lois isn't a reporter."
ED: What? Oh, come on!
JG: Positive reinforcement in-show? How refreshing.
AM: It'll make sense in a minute, so calm down.
TW: Both Lois and the captain go "I'm not?" and "She's not?" at the same time.
AoT: And Martha calmly riffles through her purse, finally pulling out what appears to be an ID card. "There it is...Lois, did you forget something?"
ED: Lois looks confused.
JG: As usual.
ED: "What?"
AoT: Martha hands her the card. "You forgot your ID." She then turns back to the captain. "Lois is my chief of staff."
JG: Didn't she quit or something?
AM: Yeah, but it's not like anybody remembered to shred the ID card.
JG: Wait. So the only reason Lois is here is because you remembered the prop?
[TW and AM look at each other]
TW: ...basically, yeah.
ED: You suck, Tom!
AM: We needed some space filler.
ED: You suck, Allison!
MR: What are you complaining about? It's a free opportunity to show some cleavage.
ED [after a beat]: Okay, there is that. So...Lois ponders for a second. "Yes! My chief of staff badge! Right! Where was my head this morning?" [to TW] That makes her sound really ditzy, Tom.
TW: Allison wrote that part.
AM: After the "fourth estate" crack, well...
[ED pouts]
TW: The captain looks pissed while checking the ID card as Lois clips it to her jacket, but he finally shrugs. "Okay, Miss Lane. I'll have someone take you in. Senator Kent, the corporal here will take you back to the airfield."
AM: And on cue a nearby soldier jogs over to a Humvee and starts it up, driving it over to the guard shack.
AoT: And Martha gets into it. "Lois, go ahead."
ED: "But what about--"
AoT: "Don't argue with me, Lois. Get in there and do your job." Martha pauses for emphasis. "Your real job."
JG: The stripper pole must be in the mess hall or something.
ED: Quick zoom on Lois as she realizes what Martha means. "Ahhh...OK, Senator. You're the boss."
AoT: Martha nods as the Humvee pulls away.
TW: And go from that to a close shot of one of the gray figures from earlier, now revealed to be a large humanoid suit of armor, firing some sort of arm-mounted weapon into an oncoming mob of parademons. We go into this one-minute-long battle sequence where--
MR: Team Iron Lex kicks ass!
AM: Sort of.
MR: What? There's no "sort of" in kicking ass!
TW: Well...we hit the dramatic action music as this one suit charges around, punching and shooting at parademons, for a few seconds. Then a couple of parademons jump on its back, it takes off into the sky and manages to throw them off, then hooks up with two other suits flying around and a couple of Apache attack helicopters--and then one of the newcomers is blown out of the sky by concentrated fire from three Apokoliptian fighters.
AM: At this point, we do a quick pull-back to a wide shot of the battlefield. It's to show that the human forces are really outnumbered, partially because of the boom tube in mid-air occasionally spitting out a few parademons or fighters.
AoT: Team Iron Lex is about to become someone's collective bitch.
MR: Bullshit! Team Iron Lex will never give up!
ED: That's kind of depressing.
TW: That's the whole point, Erica.
AM: After the wide shot, we cut to the rear of the transport we saw earlier...now parked on a snowy runway. Slow overhead pan and zoom on Lex, who is standing just to one side of the lowered cargo ramp, surrounded by armed soldiers, with Hope next to him manning some sort of satellite dish-topped portable computer terminal.
MR: And her transformation into Mercy is complete.
TW: No, she hasn't gotten into a serious fistfight yet.
MR [hopeful]: "Yet"?
TW: Yet.
MR: Nice!
AM: Anyway. Both Lex and Hope are wearing headsets. Hope says something about Unit One being pushed back from the west side of the city, near the pipeline, by a massive group of alien forces.
MR: I got this...Lex says into his headset, "General Lane, Unit One needs to pull back. They're being overrun."
AoT: Never giving up all the way to the grave.
MR: That's really bad, Annette.
TW: We hear the general's voice over the headset. He doesn't sound happy. "Luthor, we're about to lose that entire quadrant! We're going to have to pull back ground forces as well!"
MR: "General, we need to disable the portal over downtown."
TW: Quick cut to over the center of the city, where the boom tube is, as Lane replies. "Nothing we've got has been able to touch it. What else do you have in your bag of tricks, Luthor?"
MR: Lex looks down off-camera, then over at Hope. "Is it ready?"
AM: Pan over as Hope briefly consults her console. "It's ready."

MR: Lex looks off-camera, towards the sounds of battle. "Have Colonel Miller come back and retrieve it." He then speaks urgently into his headset. "Okay, General Lane...we have one thing which might close that portal: an EMP discharge missile--it emits a massive energy discharge which should destabilize the portal. We need to get it within a thousand feet of it."
TW: Cut to a windshield's-eye view of Lane, still in the front seat of his Humvee as it bounces along. Now it seems to be a bit beat up, and there's a small jagged hole in the windshield. "I'll have the Apache wing provide cover, Luthor." He looks out his window, and we cut to a tracking shot of another runway with three transport aircraft on it. Soldiers are loading people onto all of them.
JG: This isn't going to be another "we had to destroy the city to save it" thing, is it?
TW: Quiet. "This is General Lane to all units. Fall back to Defense Point One! Repeat, fall back!"
AM: Quick jump cut to Mackenzie in the driver's seat as he suddenly yells, "General!" Another jump cut to a view out the front windshield of the Humvee as a parademon suddenly lands on the hood, growling and so on.
ED: Aw!
AM: Side shot of the general as he manages to pull his sidearm and unloads most of the clip directly at the parademon, with brief cuts back to the parademon to show the shots bouncing off its armor. Then it punches a bigger hole through the windshield with one hand and grabs him by the throat.
JG: Why is it that the guest star on this show always gets the big macho moments?
AM: You got to kill Martian Manhunter, John. What do you want?
JG [thinks]: I want...more.
AoT: You always do.
JG: This is surprising how?

Continued...