The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

Wraith

Rose was in pain.
Professor Smith was too.
And with one simple innocent stupid mistake I had caused it. Words have power. I KNEW that and still had blundered off the path, birds eating the breadcrumbs I left behind to find my way home. And now Rose was hurting, and even tho what I felt was new, it was strong, oh so very strong.

I shifted back. The shadows swirling around me and out stepped Kyle Greystone, the boy Rose needed, not the Wraith I had been.

I waked up behind her and laid my hand on her shoulder. In a low voice I whispered in her ear.

"Where there is love and while passion exists, hope can live and grow."

I looked over at the Professor and Pete.

"I apologize for bringing back that pain sir. I know how it feels to loose almost everything. My real name is Kyle Alec Greystone, and I know loss very well. You have my condolences, and my friendship if you choose to take it."

I stood by Rose, hand on her shoulder, there for her.

Sometimes being a hero means just being a man.

Var-Sen of Krypton stepped forward and offerred his hand to the boy that had been called Wraith.

He looked to Rose.

"There are, indeed, always possibilities," he told her, "but only time will tell if other Kryptonians make their way to Earth." Var-Sen remembered the Martian Manhunter he spoke to just a short time ago. "However," he added with a slight smile, "not all alien lifeforms are Kryptonian."

And abruptly, Chloe hung up on the boy before letting him say good bye. He held his phone away from his head for a moment, staring at it.

He chuckled. Chloe had a knack for reporting. He had to give that to here.

He opened the message section on his phone, and wrote a text to Chloe. Come over around six, I'll have everyone else come over at about seven thirty or so. Give us time to talk things out.

He shut his phone, and walked into his library. On the computer, he began looking up information.

Chloe

Merick's hand thundered like it was made of Uru.

And he made no bones about making with the hammerblows.

Chloe, meanwhile, like the sea captains of old, felt a strong desire to go down with the ship.

If a malevolent ethereal entity was going to poltergeist the crap out her beloved Torch, the flagship of her Fleet of Weird, she didn't want The Torch to suffer without her.

But then again?

For all of her fascination with Resurrection, Chloe did not have a death wish.

And if Merick was going to play full-contact spacial-displacement sports with this particular enclosed space, Chloe figured she'd be the worse for wear if she tarried overlong.

She moved like the wind.

She grabbed Var-Sen's Tablet, Kyle's dossier, Bruce's as-yet-neglected mystery books, moved faster than she'd ever moved before, shoved these all into a spare laptop bag. Her laptop followed suit, quickly vanishing into its own standard shoulder-bag. The Tablet and The File and The Tomes went on over one shoulder, the laptop went on over the other...

She paused.

And in a moment of utter frivolity and impulsiveness, Chloe scooped Merick's hat from the floor, popped it on her own head, and grabbed Merick's hand.

(If there was one thing she'd learned from the movies, it was to never leave a good Fedora behind.)

She grabbed Merick's hand and she looked at his face and she saw in his eyes the same meteor-emerald fire that had reigned in the eerie spook's eyes.

Looks better on you than it does on him, Tennylson, she decided. After all, green is the new black.

Out loud, she murmured, as she gave his hand a squeeze: "'Sherman, send the gate.'"

Rose and Pete

Rose beamed.

Kyle-- not The Wraith --had walked up beside her and whispered words of reassurance, returning the favour she'd done him in the cafeteria. He'd shown her he could be brave without being scary and that? That was the best news she'd received all throughout this topsy-turvy day.

She beamed, inside and out, exuding warm warm light and grinning from ear to ear as she threw her arms 'round his waist and hugged him tight.

"You are four dimensions of brilliant," she instructed him, blinking away her own little tears, "and a hypercube of cool."

Pete kind of gawked a little. His eyebrow twitched. His whole eye twitched.

"Greystone," he murmured. "Greystone, Greystone, Greystone."

His eyes widened huge, and then they snapped back down to narrow sharply.

"Secret identity," he muttered, and shook his head, and left it at that. This last couple of days had been full of surprises. What was one more?

"There are, indeed, always possibilities," Smith told Rose, as he offered his hand to Kyle, "but only time will tell if other Kryptonians make their way to Earth."

Smith smiled slightly.

"However," he added, "not all alien lifeforms are Kryptonian."

Pete nodded easily. "Now that I can grok," he pointed at Var-Sen. "Twenty-eight known galaxies, if there's no life out there 'cept on our two planets? To paraphrase Jodie Foster, that'd be a damn waste of space."

Rose's eyes glinted in the way they did when they were looking at the heat of things instead of the light of things.

"'Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations,'" she agreed, decisively. "And then you get into The Drake Equation, and-and-and a very Warren Ellis train of thought that suggests that the presence of one extraterrestrial species increases exponentially the chances of others existing? Where there's one there's more.

"Where there's life there's hope," she grinned. "And where there's more life, there's hope of more life still."

Merick

Merick was reassured by the warmth of Chloe's hand as it folded around his. His heart was lifted to a place it needed desperately to be. Merick locked eyes with Tommy again, and this time, Merick was solid. He never looked for trouble. He was quiet kid, but he would be damned if any one he cared about, even if he had only known them for a day, would get hurt because of him.

"He will know. He will come take you like he did me. Then we can be together, Merick. Together forever like it was meant to be" Tommy's eyes blazed once more and there was a mental shift in Merick's head. The pain was pouring in.

It can be hard to concentrate when facing down an etheral demon, seemingly focused on bringing about your utter destruction. Now try doing it while your brain is on fire. Merick narrowed his eyes, refusing to give an inch, even if it killed him. He would not let this be his or Chloe's end.

"Sorry Harvey. Not going to work this time. We're gone." Merick swung his foot in an upward motion, deftly tossing his jacket into the air. It landed a bit awkwardly straddling his shoulders. Merick gritted his teeth. Dozens of images flew through his mind. He wanted to get them out, but where? He couldn't very well drop them into the parking lot where students would be filing for the fire drill, and if he and Chloe went missing there were sure to be questions. Then it struck him. Merick quickly folded the world into many layers, and with a swoosh deposited himself and Chloe into a new place. A place no one was supposed to be. The Pool.

It happened in an instant. They were there. Then they we gone. Then they were somewhere else. Just as they where materializing, Merick realized his mistake. He had brought them in directly above the pool. Merick deftly swung that right arm, still sheathed in the writhing mass of force towards the water. This time rather than a blast he focused as hard as he could on recreating the barrier he had used in gym class. Suddenly, Merick and Chloe were standing in a quarter of an inch of water. In the middle of Smallville High's swimming pool.

Merick grinned that Tennylson Grin once more as he turned to face Chloe, fixing his jacket as he went. "Sorry. But, I bet you never thought you would get the chance to walk on water." Merick focused on making a bridge. He imagined the pieces coming together, and to his surprise they did. The emerald flame slowly faded out of his eyes. He looked at Chloe again, still smiling, still treasuring the warmth her hand lent. "Not quite the first impression i wanted to give you. But, I guess what's done is done. After you m'lady." Merick gestured for Chloe to walk toward the edge, making sure to keep the bridge wide and steady.

Emil

Emil Hamilton slept for the better part of a day.

Well-earned rest, in his humble opinion.

And when he awoke, his mind was awash with notions and opinions and calculations...

There was no sign, at first, of his ever-present guard dogs. No Meyer, no Boyajian. But he knew they were neither far gone nor long gone.

(It occurred to him that, at some point, he should ask them their first names.)

He showered and dressed, and found, to his delight, that the guest cottage's wardrobe had been stocked with shirts and with ties in his size and his preferred cut. Hamilton boys rarely went without shirt and tie, even about-the-house casual, a habit practically programmed into them by their father, Sir Stephen Hamilton. Even before they'd gone to boarding school, shirts and ties had been the boys' default colouration.

Shirts and ties and caffeine and Science had been the order of the day in The House of Hamilton.

He'd attended to the first two, and a trip downstairs to the cottage's kitchen and the preparation of some finely-ground French Roast took care of the third.

Emil walked out onto the lawn, carrying with him a mugful of coffee and a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses he'd found in the cottage's small library. His sleeves were rolled up and his glasses were perched on his nose and he sipped his coffee as he gazed at the looming, half-elegant monstrosity that was The Luthor Mansion.

How intriguing it was, that humans should always seek to preserve the past. The story went that this was The Luthor's ancestral home, brought over from Europe brick by brick and reassembled. Whether this was actually true remained to be seen, but the intent was all too clear: Lionel Luthor put heavy stock in the great kings of the past.

He'd known another man once who'd worshiped the past, whose desire to know the past in intricate intimate detail had caused him no end of difficulty in his life.

His name had been Walker. Walker and Emil had had many long, intense conversations about the nature of history through the force-projected bars of an electromagnetic prison cell, in a sub-basement bunker many yards beneath Downing Street. Walker had been something of an inspiration to Emil, because as wholeheartedly as Walker had embraced the ways of the past, so wholeheartedly did Emil embrace the possibilities of the future.

Emil drank his coffee and walked across to the main house.

Security personnel glanced at him briefly in acknowledgment and then went about their business. Evidently, they'd been informed of his arrival and his likeness and he had a certain amount of free rein on the grounds.

He strolled about for a time, but paused when he came across a massive miniature mock-up filling almost an entire room and covering an entire expansive tabletop.

Longboats and horsemen and spears and swords and a giant walled city.

It suddenly felt ironic that he should be carrying around a copy of Ulysses, because while Joyce's book was based on The Odyssey, Emil was gazing upon the events of The Illiad.

This was The Battle of Troy.

He finished his coffee, and set the mug and the book down, and he began running his bespectacled blue gaze over each and every one of the intricately detailed soldiers until he found the one he was looking for.

With gentle, reverent fingers, he picked up the figure that represented Achilles.

Nigh-invulnerable Achilles, done in by such an ignominious weak point. But such a time had he given The Trojan Army before he fell!

He smiled softy at Achilles, turning him this way and that and smiling that soft smile.

How quickly would have that war been over had The Achaens all been like you? he wondered, idly.

Indeed, he continued to himself, setting down Achilles and instead picking up Odysseus, the trickster of cunning wit, how quickly would that war have been over if you had had Achilles' godlike defences?

He turned Odysseus this way. The Greeks idolised your resourcefulness.

He turned Odysseus the other way. The Romans despised your deceptiveness.

Even in your naming, you were dichotomous, he reflected. At first, they were to call you 'Polyaretos,' and this, like two sides of the same coin, could have meant either that you were an answer to prayer, or that you were accursed.

Emil shook his head, and set Odysseus back down, standing atop his shield at the shore by one of the longboats.

Such is the curse of the world-changing genius, he lamented with a note of solidarity. History will either remember you as a conniving bastard, or as a plucky hero.

Fortunately for you and me, he mused, we don't much care how history remembers us.

We just want to get to where we belong.

Whatever it takes.

Others

Fire Marshal Newman Edwards squinted up at the busted sprinkler head, now only trickling a tiny dribble of water into the crater just below it and beside it.

He shook his head in wonderment.

He turned and glanced first at Sheriff Ethan Miller, and then at Interim Principal Kwan, and then at Physics teacher George Caro.

"I can't quite wrap my head around this one," he shook his head. "There's no burning, no smoke. The damage to the sprinkler head is all blunt force. And this business with the buckled lockers, the damage to the floor? I can't imagine what could have caused such a burst of force that wasn't an explosive of some kind, wasn't combustible. And no smoke. No fire."

He shook his head once more.

"We're going to have to evacuate after all," he insisted. "If I hadn't already been here to discuss the events of yesterday, I'd've shut down this part of the school first and asked questions later."

Kwan's jaw worked, and he gestured briskly, tightly. "You cannot be serious, Edwards. Only the first week of school, and already my students have been through so much! We dare not disrupt them any further. Softball tryouts are this afternoon, and there is a football game... ordinarily I am dubious of the academic value of such sports, but I understand that they are good for morale, and the students require all the morale they can get right now."

Edwards snorted. "Oh, you better believe I'm serious, Jimmy," he pointed a finger at Kwan's chest. "After all that nonsense with the new wing this summer, this building is on borrowed time. It ain't safe for folk, here. And I got grandkids what wanna start here next September. Between the false alarm yesterday and the weird little bomb-burst right here in front of us, I'm sorely tempted to give the kids a week off and investigate this incident extremely thoroughly."

Kwan bristled, and opened his mouth to cut loose with a diatribe, but Sheriff Miller raised a soothing hand before the principal, and regarded the Fire Marshal.

"Be reasonable, Newman," Ethan suggested calmly. "It's James' first day on the job, so to speak, and we're all eager for his term in office to run nice and smoothly. We've all had a look around, and there's no immediate danger. I'm sure between the teachers and co-operative students, a little in-house asking-'round will help us find the vandals that did this. In the meantime?"

Ethan tucked his thumbs into his belt and smiled faintly.

"In the meantime," he offered, "we should let everyone just go about their business. No point gettin' all in a hissy about smoke if there ain't no fire, am I right?"

Edwards seemed unconvinced. "If something happens to these kids--"

Ethan put a hand on his own chest, over his heart, as if swearing an oath: "I'll take full responsibility."

Edwards shook his head. "All right, Ethan," he sighed. "On your own head be it. But if this happens again, there won't be no silver-tongued sheriff in the whole of Kansas that'll keep me from locking the doors on this place until such time as the problem is locked down."

He turned, and he stalked off, looking ever-so-unhappy.

Kwan watched him go for a moment, and then nodded respectfully to Sheriff Ethan. James Kwan was not an emotionally demonstrative person, but there was gratitude in his eyes.

Ethan nodded back, brisk and cool. And between Kansas men, that was sometimes all that needed to be said.

Kwan glanced over at Mr. Caro, who had been staring silently at the crater all this while without saying a word.

"What have you to make of this, Caro?" he wondered, not unreasonably.

Caro shook his head. "Tunguska," he muttered, and there was despair in his voice.

Ethan arched an eyebrow. "Gesundheit?"

Caro's face became a scowl, and he sputtered for a moment before speaking, and he pointed viciously at the door to The Torch. "You're too hard on her," he snarled. "The Sullivan girl? Or maybe not hard enough. She's onto something. How am I supposed to teach Physics in a school, in a town, where physics are seemingly being rewritten on a daily basis? This is why Harding lost his marbles, I will bet you a thousand dollars. How are we supposed to teach concrete, incontrovertible declarations of physical law in a town where random explosions come out of nowhere and shatter the calm of the schoolday?"

Ethan tried again to be soothing: "Now, steady on there, George," he began--

"I quit," Caro put his foot down, and followed in the general direction of Marshal Edwards.

Kwan blinked, astonished. "What?"

"George," Ethan called after the departing man, "George! C'mon back here!"

Caro swung his gaze over his shoulder as he walked, and scowled back at the two men. "Forget it! I'm moving out West. California. I've got a cousin who lives there. I'm going to move to Coast City, where it's safe."

Kwan followed him for a few more steps, and then halted, looking bewildered, shell-shocked, as Caro vanished into the distance.

"He couldn't've waited 'till the weekend?" Ethan grunted. "How're you gonna find a new Physics instructor by tomorrow?"

Kwan sighed. "I will be able to find a substitute. But my Science department is dropping like flies. I still need to replace Harding full-time in Chemistry, and now this?"

Ethan patted Kwan comfortingly on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

"Actually?" a voice piped up behind them, hesitant but trying to be helpful. "I have a suggestion."

Ethan and Kwan turned to see Mikey from The A/V Club, looking as nervous as could be.

"Michael?" Kwan seemed dubious. The child was efficient with a camcorder, but his real-world effectiveness left much to be desired.

"My dad has this stylist," Mikey explained, going a little paler still under the scrutiny of these two particular gentlemen. "And, well. She has this ex-husband?"

Ceri and Jamie

The two of them were out by The Loeb Bridge.

They were playing "Poohsticks" in The Elbow River.

As per the rules of the game, following the example of Piglet and Winnie-The-Pooh, they dropped twigs into the rushing current off one side of the bridge and then hurried to the other side of the bridge to see which twig had made it underneath first.

So far, Jamie was winning, and he was being a right prat about it.

He leaned over the railing, tie still loosened, hair still a mess, a bit of river-grass clutched between his teeth like a classic image of Huck Finn, and his dark eyes searched the water's surface.

A twig with a little leaf wandered out, spinning on a little whirlpool before nipping off down the river at a more rapid clip, and Jamie punched the sky elatedly with one fist while he continued to clutch the railing with another.

"We Own the Other Team!" he declared triumphantly, as Ceri scowled beside him at her slower twig. "Bendigedig!"

"'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go," Jamie chanted, doing a victory dance as his eyes glinted with rampant self-amusement.

Ceri wagged a finger at him, mock-furious: "This isn't over yet," she reminded him, "'Boy Wonder.'"

Jamie grinned, that blade of grass sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he leaned on the railing, his back to the water now and both elbows propped up on the top of the rail. "You can't win against pure physics, dearie-duck. It's physics, for Gordon Bennett's sake! Physics and luck go into a room, physics boxes luck around the ears, physics comes out grinning and luck barely gets out with its life."

"Luck, isn't it?" Ceri gazed at Jamie with eyes half-lidded, and held up another pair of twigs. "We'll see who's lucky. Double or nothing?"

Jamie arched an eyebrow. "You're on."

Waiting somewhat impatiently for a truck laden with heavy logs to drive by, they jogged back over to the other side of the bridge.

They held out their twigs, and Ceri counted: "One, two, three... GO!"

Simultaneously, their hands released, and the twigs tumbled into the water.

A berk whistled by in his Porsche, but the two of them paid him little mind as they waited, then ran across...

There came a moment, utterly still, as if The Universe were holding its breath.

...and then Ceri's twig floated into view. Jamie's twig never surfaced.

"Bendigedig!" Ceri roared, both her fists in the air as she grinned like a Cheshire cat. "Who Owns whose Team now, eh?"

Jamie shook his head, lamenting. "Swizz," he sighed, the grass-blade drooping. "I've been burgled."

"Pure physics roundly defeated by pure skill!" Ceri grinned, reciting this as if reading off a Metropolis Observer headline.

"Luck!" Jamie begged to differ, but not bitterly.

Ceri stuck her tongue out at him.

And then her pocket began to buzz.

Surprised, she retrieved her phone, and she looked at the ID and all the colour went out of her face. "It's the school."

Jamie sobered up in a hurry.

"Hulloh?" Ceri replied, looking fearful. Maybe this was the school calling to expel Rose for apparently blasting the principal arse over teakettle, or maybe something else had gone wrong...

She listened in silence for a moment, and if this were even possible, her face became even more bewildered. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes. No. He's right here."

She handed the phone to Jamie, just in time for that fierce bewilderment to cross over to his face as well.

"It's for you," she murmured. "It's about a job."

Jamie stared at the phone in startlement.

"Bendigedig," he breathed. And lifted the phone to his ear.

Kyle

Know what, I liked being hugged by this girl!!

"I don't know what half of what our glowing lady said means, but she is right. Where there is life there is hope."

I walked over to Professor Smith & took his hand in mine.

"Your secrets are safe with me, and I'll add my hopes to everyone else's here that you are but one of many survivors."

I walked back over to Rose and stood by her, my arm comfortably around her waist. I bent over and stage whispered in her ear.
"You may not know it, but Pete there has far greater abilities than any of us. He can get Nos out here!! Heck, I have a billionaire sister, and i STILL can't score any of that!!"

Hell, I didn't even have a CAR!

Rose and Pete

Rose stared blankly at Kyle.

She couldn't help herself. Because apparently, it was her turn to not know what someone else was talking about.

"Nos is an energy drink," she whispered, bewilderedly. "My dad sometimes buys it at the Wal-Mart in Granville."

Pete didn't know if he was going to die laughing or die crying, but either way he was dying.

Chloe

Chloe's eyes nearly popped from her head as she saw where she was standing, and reflexively she threw out her hands to try and grab... something? Anything?

She found, to her astonishment, that she wasn't plummeting into the water and destroying her laptop and all that other Very Important Stuff that she'd only just now been trying to save from Casper The Unfriendly Ghost and Merick "Thunderstrike" Tennylson. She wasn't dunked under. She was standing.

For a moment, she teetered like Jim Carrey in "Bruce Almighty," but then grabbed Merick's shoulder and steadied.

She took a deep breath. She looked at Merick with renewed respect and wide eyes.

"You managed a perfect water landing," she breathed. "You really are a duck."

Very carefully, not entirely trusting the special effect to hold her weight, she made her way to shore and hurried to the door.

"That was good work," she chuckled softly, still riding the buzz of impossible events and near-drenched experiences. "I was fretting, because I'd left my positron glider in my other office, but you hit him with a good speech and got us Out of Dodge. On a scale of one to ten, one being Fertiliser and ten being Legend? I'd say that was Bonus. (And they say you never get a second chance to make a first impression!)"

She frowned back over her shoulder at him. "You know he kind of looked like you? I mean, I might need to update my age-progression software, but really, you looked like an older version of him, he looked like a younger version of you. Did you know that kid?"

Chloe blinked as something weird occurred to her. "If you're Merry, wouldn't that make him Pippin?"

She opened the door and peered out.

"Anyway," she reminded him, "students aren't supposed to be in here during school hours, so we better be careful sneaking out of--"

Mister Caro, the Physics teacher, wheeled around a corner, stopped stock-still when he saw Chloe. He looked... dangerous.

Chloe stared at him, pale as another ghost, certain as she could be that she was getting a Saturday detention.

"This is all your fault," Caro declared through clenched teeth, and then kept going, walking at a furious pace.

Chloe stared after him, blinking, utterly at a loss.

"Wait, what?"

Kyle

I held it in. I almost spontaniously changed back into Wraith, but I held it in.

"Rose, Nos is short for nitrus. When you add it into the fuel mixture of a car it burns way hotter and makes them go real fast."

I pulled her a little closer in a one-armed hug.

"I've never used the stuff. Actually, I have never bothered to learn how to drive. I usually step through Shadow from place to place, or my Gram drives me."

Merick

Merick was releaved that Chloe seemed to be taking everything well. He relaxed as they crossed the pool area. Then Merick's heart skipped a beat. Here came Mr. Caro.

"This is all your fault," Caro declared through clenched teeth, and then kept going, walking at a furious pace.

Chloe stared after him, blinking, utterly at a loss.

"Wait, what?"

Merick couldn't believe it. What a jerk. For a minute Merick lost his cool. He had had enough.

"Don't you talk to her like that! She is so far above that. You big jerk" Merick finishes as he realizes he was actually speaking out loud, thankfully Mr. Caro didn't seem to hear. Hopefully. Merick turned back to Chloe "what a bastard. You didn't deserve that.

Merick was tired. His head hurt, but somehow, looking into Chloe's eyes made it all seem worth it. "If my dear, I am a Duck, then I must say, I prefer Howard. But either way. Quack! Merick took a moment to appraise the situation. Chloes had made some good points. So he decided he would tell her everything he knew.

"I have no clue what that was. Honestly. It was maybe a month or two ago I guess, when I started to have what I thought were dreams, about playing with this little boy. Then today I got a really bad headache after the first time I made one of those forcefieldy thingies. So I went to the nurse, fell asleep, and for the first time we talked. Then, I left school. Went to visit my father. He usually makes me feel better ya know, and when I got there he was locked in his office. So I left. Then this dog thing attacked me, so I blasted it with force somehow, like I did in the hall. Merick took a breath. "Then, it got odd. I knew I had to get away from the scene cause Gar, my dad's assistant, heard the commotion and came running. And somehow, I ended up in El Paso. Then I came back, and that my dear is where we pick up. The little bastard showed up in the hall and got mad at me. He did something to my head, and I tried to blast him with everything I had to make it stop. Merick looked down at his feet, wiped his brow and grinned back up at Chloe.

"You look nice in that hat. Which segways to my other revelation. I think my grandfather is a terrible person. At least from what I over heard in El Paso. Anyway... I really need a Yoohoo. Join me? Least I can do after pulling a Hiroshima outside your office. Merick blushed a deep red, stuffing his hands in his hip pockets.

Rose and Pete

Pete managed to recover. He felt bad. He really did.

It wasn't nice to laugh at people-- he'd been picked on by enough bullies in his day to know that --but at the same time, to go from talking about equations and E.T.'s in one breath, only to get blindsided by racer slang in the next? That was funny crap.

"I only got my learner's permit?" he eventually nodded to Kyle, wiping away a tear as he did so. "But my dad needs me to do enough drivin' around the place for his work at the feed store that I get my practise in. Chloe sometimes taps my skills for her Nancy Drew routine. An' every so often, late at night, there's the drive to Metropolis out in front of me..."

He grinned.

"...and booyah." he punched his palm for emphasis, then got a more serious look on his face. "Two things. First of all, McCrimmon receives a quick education in the matters of the quarter-mile. It ain't perfect, but we'll use the F&F movies as a startin' point. Second of all, I get Captain Shadowrun here his first drivin' lessons, because super powers or not, Gran'ma or not, there's nothin' like the rubber meetin' the road."

Bewilderedly, hanging onto Kyle for dear life, Rose turned her gaze to Var-Sen.

"It seems like I have to learn another alien language now," she murmured, blue eyes wide. "And here I am, still struggling with Kryptonian."

Chloe

"It's fine," Chloe murmured, regarding Mr. Caro. "I don't know what he's talking about. I don't think even he knows, not really."

And then she regarded Merick.

"It sounds like you've had quite a day," she admitted, looking tired again around the eyes. "I mean. I complain about having so much to do? But it's been ages since I've been attacked by a large dog, and even longer since I've been accidentally teleported to Texas. (That's actually a funny story; remind me to tell you sometime.)"

Her phone vibrated in her holster, and she blinked.

"Oh, holy God," she laughed helplessly, voice a little strained, "Bruce!"

She snapped the phone open. "Quick sec, here, Howard," she requested of Merick. "Multitasking."

'Come over around six,' Bruce wrote, 'I'll have everyone else come over at about seven thirty or so. Give us time to talk things out.'

She suddenly felt guilty for standing there wearing another man's hat. For thinking he looked good in green. About being asked out for Yoohoo.

And then, with bewilderment upon her face, she wondered why she felt guilty.

What is this, Interscholastic Chloe Sullivan is Irrational Day? she silently demanded to know.

Ruefully, she shook her head at herself.

Chloe liked Bruce a Hell of a lot. And he seemed to care about her. But until he gave her some concrete sign that it went any deeper than that, she had nothing to feel guilty about. So there.

(Somehow, she wasn't entirely convinced by that.)

She texted back: 'I'll be there with bells on. And if you don't mind? I'm going to ask along someone else whose situation may or may not be germane to our little xeno-archeology project. (Also? That tank shell? Turns out it was just gas.)'

The phone returned to her holster, and she glanced sheepishly up at That Hat.

"Yeah," she murmured, "look at me. I'm a regular Shia LaBeouf. But really, no, I was saving this for you, and my hands were full."

She removed the hat and, for the second time that day, planted it back on Merick's head.

"A man shouldn't give up his trademarks lightly," she instructed him. "Look at what happened to Drew Carey's career that one time he stopped wearing glasses."

Chloe adjusted her shoulder bags carefully, and contemplated their next move.

"Yoohoo it is," she declared. "Or, at least, you can have Yoohoo. Given the urgency of the situation, I'm going to need at least three times my Recommended Daily Allowance of almond mocha with extra whip, because that's my 'comfort food,' and hello do I need comfort."

"We can go to The Talon," she explained, "and we can discuss some things, and you can buy my coffee because you blew up my office, and I think that's only fair. (Quod erat faciendum.)"

She began to head for the front of the school.

"First of all," she ticked off on her fingers, "you can tell me what you mean by your grandfather being a terrible person. (Like, Hitler terrible, or just Dashboard Confessional terrible?) Second, you can tell me more about that dog-monster thing. Third, you can tell me what you know about the subconscious mind. Fourth, and maybe most importantly? You can tell me what you were doing ten years ago this October 16th."

How would the beginning of the end be?

Would it be fast, like the fiery path of a shooting star? Or would it be slow, like the wayward inching of a shell-backed snail?

Who would know, except the one that put it all in motion, the one who left the sinister plan that would be followed, the master of the death and re-birth of Earth. Even though he existed within another plane, another dimension, he was the architect of destruction, and when he was released from his prison and arrived fleshly to trod upon Earth every knee would bow and every mouth would speak his name.

Zod.

And it all would begin now.

It was the joint US/Canadian Air/Space Defense Command that saw them first. They began tracking inbound objects on a collision course with Earth. And within minutes they had classified these objects as meteors, soon to become meteorites. Scientific speculation had rationalized that a large object had probably collided with asteroids of the Solar asteroid belt and had knocked them astray. They were right, of course. Only they did not know that they object that had caused this phenomena was a black, delta shaped ship of Kryptonian design that now cleverly concealed itself within the impending meteor shower.

Nor did they know the black ship held two Kryptonians who's mission it was to prepare Earth for the coming of their leader.

Zod.

They did not know these things, and it was good that they didn't, so they simply instituted the early-warning system for the location where the meteor shower was to impact.

Smallville, Kansas.

So it now begins.

It was the Manhunter from Mars, J'onn Jonzz that felt them first. With his galaxy penetrating eyes, he saw them next, the fragments of burst rock that hurtled their way to Earth.

And with his psychic powers, he sensed the presence of Nam-Ek and Athyr within the black ship that also bound itself for the third planet.

The world that J'onn Jonzz now claimed as home.

He knew within an instant Var-Sen must be warned, as must the daughter of Zor-El. She must be prepared, in secret, in silence, for the coming battle.

And J'onn knew the battle would come.

The minions of Zod?

Heh. Mere insects that could be swatted.

The computerized construct that had been perverted into a mechanism of war?

Ha. Difficult, yes, but defeatable.

Zod, himself?

No laughing matter at all.

Merick

Merick was glad Chloe accepted his offer. He grinned ear to ear, like a child in a candy shop.

Merick was also glad when they sat down at a table off by itself at the Talon. He decided to forsake his Yoohoo and try one of Chloe's Almond Moha with Extra Whip. As they settled in Merick took a deep breath. "Ok... so, where to begin. Let's start with Texas. See, My father is a vet. And I went by to see him, thought maybe I would talk to him about my day ya know? But when I got there I found out that he had been fighting with some one that works for my grandfather. The two of them don't really get along. And when I was younger my Dad said that it was because my grandfather was not the man I thought he was. Kinda cryptic huh? Merick paused to taste this new concoction. Unfortunately, he completely underestimated the heat and nearly lost his tongue to massive burns. "How do you drink this!!! Seriously!! He gasped eyes watering a bit, completely unaware of the series of faces he was making trying to work his way through the new experience.

"Okay, so anyway. I ended up outside the big double doors to Grandpa Edmunds den. I was never allowed to go inside so I used to lay on that floor outside the door and play. Anyway, I heard him give what sounded like orders for some type of human experimentation, and then a vague threat about the doctor and trial subjects being "expendable". Maybe," Merick started then stopped for a moment to consider, "maybe I misheard him. Or it was out of context. There was more than a little longing in Merick's voice as he voiced these last thoughts.

"So anyway, the dog. It was big, and I think it may have been rabid. It had foam coming out around it's mouth, but I thought there was a greenish tint to the foam. Anyway, it lunged and I threw a shield up, and it still knocked me back. I didn't know I could do the blasty thing, but I threw my hand forward, hoping to catch it before it was on me, but instead I blasted it dead center. Knocked it out I think. Excuse me. Merick jumped up and headed to the counter, desperate to get the tingling sensation in his mouth to go away, and completely decided that while Chloe may be incredible he didn't care for her taste in beverages. He quickly sat back down with a bottle of Yoohoo in hand, taking a deep gulp and savoring it.

""Thats what I needed. So... I am totally rambling. I dont really know anything about the mind or where I was during the shower. My family doesn't really talk about things that happened back then. I really have no memory of anything until a few months after the showers happened. And then only very vague. I remember the hospital. And that I loved the orange sherbert, and would only let my parents bring me home when my Dad brought me in a tub of the stuff, with the promise we would share the whole thing after dinner. I also don't know much about these. Merick took off his hat and pulled his hair away from his brow, were a few scars could be seen starting just before the hairline. He then took his jacket off and showed her a series of scars on his arms and shoulders. "When I ask about them, Dad just glares at my Mom, and Mom says it was an accident from a long time ago, and then changes the topic. Why? Do you think this is all some how related? I mean, what does a Dog, a Meteor Shower, and my "gifts" all have in common? Merick sat, for the first time all day, he felt totally happy. He smiled he decided, if he could end every day looking into Chloe's soft, caring, and yet somehow alluringly attentive eyes he would gladly fight monster dogs, ghosts, and any other baddie that deemed to get in the way.

Bruce went through the library, and on his laptop. Scouring for information. Totalling twelve books, eight newspaper articles, and two web sites, he had his hands full.

And, then his phone went off. Chloe had texted him back. Putting everything down, he pulled his phone out from underneath a stack of books. She would be there. But, he got the impression she was bringing someone else.

You're bringing someone else? I'm a little confused? He sent to her. That would ruin his plans if she did.

If she wanted to, she could. Bruce could understand if she was hurt, and went looking for comfort in someone else. But, that would really suck for him.

Deep down, he knew, he would never find another girl like Chloe, and didn't want to ruin something. But, he didn't even know IF he had something.

He put his phone back down, and turned to his newspapers.

Wayne Family Gunned Down In Street Leaving Billionare Orphaned The old article read.

Somewhere inside, there had to be some clue as to who was responsible.

Chloe

Just outside the door to The Talon, Chloe paused to check her messages once more, and found a fresh text from Bruce: 'You're bringing someone else? I'm a little confused?'

She winced helplessly. Curse the nebulous brevity of this medium. Sometimes I think we were better off with Morse Code, clarity-wise.

Hurriedly, as Merick chivalrously placed their order, Chloe's lightning thumbs hammered out a reply: 'Nono. Nonono. Nononono. Also? *No.* I meant to say-- what I didn't say --was that I'm inviting someone else to the 7:30. The 6 is all you+me. No question, no debate.'

And then: 'I'm looking forward to this. No lies, and no worries.'

But then Merick came back lugging not one but two almonds mocha with extra whip, and the phone had to return to its holster for the time being.

Young Mr. Tennylson's dialogue was a little fast-paced sometimes almost even for her, and given the fact that Yoohoo didn't have any caffeine in it? It kind of made Chloe wonder a little-- jokingly, of course --if Merick weren't popping Ritalin on the sly.

He recoiled at his first taste of her beverage of choice, and she smiled lopsidedly with sympathy at the look on his face. She tried not to take it too personally? After all, the fewer people in the world who drank almond mocha, the more was left for her to drink.

Quietly, unwaveringly, she absorbed his exposition as best as she could, digesting it and letting it gestate as her mind spun like a centrifuge.

Canines. Exhibiting rabid symptoms, but with a green tint around the edges.

(Was this a meteor-infected dog that had caught rabies? Or had the strain of rabies itself been altered by the rocks' energies?

That's like the Poisoned Dragon's Liver from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Was the liver poisoned after it had been taken out of the dragon? Or had the dragon died from poisoning, and this had facilitated the extrication of the liver?

Chickens and eggs, Sullivan. Chickens and eggs.)

His grandfather was named Edmund.

Wait. Wait. Edmund... Tennylson? Texas.

TennTech Tennylson Texas.

Good Lord. Now I have to invite Merick tonight. Because between Bruce and Kyle and Merick, we have enough über-corp Wunderkinder to maybe combined put Lex Luthor himself to shame. What's next, Oliver J. Queen? Warren Worthington III?

If a timelost college-age version of Tony Stark walks in here, I am just going to die on the spot. Boom. No medically plausible explanation, just spontaneous cessation of vital function.

(As for the "terribleness," Chloe lamented, what über-corp doesn't have skeletons in its closet?)

Quietly, Chloe scrutinised that scar tissue.

Honestly? It looked like Merick might have had a house dropped on him.

Which? Chloe had a certain idea of how that felt, and it send tremors down her spine to think of it. How had she gotten out of that mess without being similarly scarred?

...almost makes a person believe in angels. Or at least in miracles.

And then came the crux of the matter.

The lynch-pin. The capstone. The Big Question.

"Do you think this is all some how related?" Merick wondered, not unreasonably. "I mean, what does a Dog, a Meteor Shower, and my "gifts" all have in common?"

Chloe smiled faintly.

That was a question that would take some answering.

So she decided to answer a smaller question first, and then ramp up.

"Almonds mocha with extra whip," she explained, "are to be sipped at first, and not gulped. Volume of each mouthful is carefully adjusted to match with the cooling of the beverage, until, when it's at the proper temperature, the remainder is simply chugged. It also helps that the tongue is one of the most resilient parts of the human body, right up there with the liver, so if you burn it too bad you'll be back up on your tastebud game in no time. The tongue is one of the coolest aspects of animal-kingdom evolution."

Chloe took a deep breath of her own.

"Another cool aspect?" she declared, "is the metagene."

She cupped her hands around her mocha in front of herself, and gazed hard at Merick.

"You ask me what your gifts and that dog have in common?" she pointed out. "The answer is The Meteor Shower. According to the published papers of one Doctor Emil Hamilton-- a once-distinguished researcher at S.T.A.R.Labs in Metropolis --humanity possesses all the potential it needs to survive and adapt, far beyond the notions of simple climate shifts and food chains and Al Gore and Happy Feet. In fact, according to Hamilton, a tiny fraction of humanity-- maybe literally one in a million, maybe fewer --possess a vestigial genetic trigger that allows them to exhibit supernormal capabilities, sometimes from birth, and sometimes as a result of surviving supernormal stresses, stresses that might have killed a non-metagenetic human.

"The reason Hamilton is no longer distinguished," Chloe further explained, "is because he went coocoo for Coco Puffs and dropped off the grid after discovering-- and I've known this for years, but whatever, Columbus 'discovered' America long after The Vikings and maybe The Phoenicians and definitely The Native Americans --that the rocks that fell to Earth in Smallville's now-infamous Meteor Shower could actually create supernormal effects in humans without a metagene. With a meteor rock? Anyone can have super-powers."

Chloe sighed dismally.

"He seemed to latch onto this idea like a drowning man latches onto driftwood," she opined. "They have a meteor rock sample at Metropolis University? My friend Snapper there told me Hamilton once tried to break into Met U and steal it when Met U's administration wouldn't guarantee him sole access to the stuff. It was all downhill from there. Downhill into The Weird."

She sipped her own coffee-- by way of demonstration --and pondered for a second.

"Unfortunately," Chloe mused, gesturing with the coffee in one hand, "not a lot of his stuff got published after that. And I honestly don't know yet what happened to him. But based on certain S.T.A.R.Labs memoranda that I, uh, garnered? His data seemed to indicate that non-metagenetic meteor-infection was an unnatural mutation, and might very often destabilise a person's well-being. This ostensibly correlates with the tendency of meteor-infected people and animals to become complete psychotic jerks."

Chloe examined her coffee, awkwardly, as if re-evaluating her thoughts on the fly and regretting the way that sentence came out.

"What I mean to say is," she attempted to clarify, "meteor rock mutation may or may not have a psychological effect as well as physiological. In your case-- and granted, this is just a first-blush theory, could be way wrong, like Eoanthropus dawsoni wrong --it might not effect your personality so much as it's giving life to a splinter of your personality. Or giving life to a childhood memory. I don't know what sort of dimensional effects produce your ability to teleport, or your ability to channel force, but it might be that you're inadvertently manipulating particles to project a 'hologram' of your little imaginary friend.

"You saw that wall, right?" she winced, "the one you ran into? That's my Wall of Weird, and it documents most everything strange and supernormal I trace back to The Meteor Shower. Don't take this the wrong way, Merick? But your picture's on that wall, now."

Bruce's mind was flooded with information. The only problem was that it wasn't information he wanted.

He had found information on his parent's death alright, but nothing but rumors on who had done it. Rumors like, "rival" companies, internal sabotage, foriegn hitmen, ect.

Nothing that directly pointed at Ducard. And with all searching he did so far, the fact that nothing pointed directly to Ducard drove him on.

Ducard and his "Shadow" or whatever, where people who could pull something off like this, without getting caught.

There had been an arrest. Some poor crook, nothing big. But, there hadn't been much of a case. It seemed to Bruce that the courts and law system in Gotham wanted to shut the case up more then solve it.

But Bruce still was not completly convinced that Ducard was not involved. But, he would probably have to get closer to him to find out for sure.

His phone vibrated on his desk, underneath some books. It seemed that he had been so busy, he didn't notice it went off. He opened it up. Well, Chloe was coming at six by herself. But was bringing another person later to stay.

'Great, she's heartbroken, and wants to bring someone to make me jealous. Great.' He thought to himself.

Ok, I'll see you later then. Bruce replied.

Even though it bothered him, he didn't want her to know, because he wasn't sure that was the case. It didn't seem like Chloe to do something like that.

But, Bruce found himself realizing he didn't really know alot about everyone.

Kara took a deep breath as she stared down towards home plate. Her catcher took a moment to figure out which pitch Kara should throw next, and the blond Kryptonian patiently waited for her signal. Practice had gone on for quite a while now, and she had finally gotten the hang of things. Her pitches were quick and relatively weak, putting her on par with the rest of her classmates.

Finally the catcher threw down some signs, and Kara wound her arm for the pitch.

And she let it fly.

And she saw it sail straight into the catchers glove.

Kara smiled as she struck out the last batter. Their coach blew the whistle and all the players gathered around the field. Practice was finally over, and after a few words from their coach, Kara and the rest of the girls retreated to the locker rooms to change.

"Nice arm," a girl Kara's own age said as she walked next to Kara.

"Thanks."

"I don't think we've met. My name's Michelle,"

"Kara Kent."

"Oh! We have a class together, don't we?"

"Several, I think" Kara said with a smile.

"Probably. Well, I need to run, but I'll catch up with you later," Michelle said when she caught her parents waiting by their car out of the corner of her eye. Michelle seemed a bit nervous at first, and Kara was a little more than curious as to what was the matter.

"Cya," Kara said with a wave. Michelle didn't look back, walking slowly towards her parents.

"Don't worry about her. She's always like that," another girl said when she noticed Kara's hesitation. Kara nodded her head and only when Michelle got into the car did she continue on her way. Once in the locker room she put on some fresh clothes and decided she would shower at home.

She now had the unfortunate pleasure of going home and facing her father. She could still hear him scolding her for making a rash decision. But it had been her choice and not his, even if she was sort of 'cornered' into joining by their coach. But for the first time in a long while Kara had started feeling normal. The smiles and cheers from her teammates had been a rewarding experience, and Kara just didn't want it to end.

She would have given up all her powers to be like them.

Merick

Merick was absorb on the conversation. It was a little crazy. But then so were the things he had managed today. He listened intently as Chloe described the meteor rocks ability to stimulate life in a way as to bend and shape it. Was that really what had happened to him? And was Tommy all in his head? Was he a fragment of his own personality that had somehow been dislodge and born anew? That was deep.

Merick couldn't help but smile again. Chloe was really in her element here. Going all Woodward and Bernstien. The joy she took was incredible. Merick consciously recognized that it wasn't that she was taking joy in the mayhem, the death, the loss. She was taking joy in the uncovering of miracles. She was taking joy in liberation of truth. Both things that Merick felt bettered this battered and abused world.

"Ok, so... your telling me that I am now another aspect of this wall of Weird huh? Sweet. I always thought I would make a great poster boy, with my nerdish charm and mediocre sex appeal. Merick chuckled, then broke into a full out laugh. "Chloe, I don't know how or why. But I believe I was meant to meet you today. That somehow I know that I can trust you. And that with all the strange things that go on, somehow you are a beacon of Truth, a shining pillar of strength. Honestly kiddo, I may be able to do some funky things. But you dear, are the one who is truly Super. It doesn't take courage to face a rabid dog. That is stupidity. It takes courage to throw yourself into a belief and follow it. To take up the mantle of Truth and look for it around every corner. That, Chloe, is much cooler than anything I can do. So, I take it as an honor to be on that wall. And I wear it as a badge of friendship. Merick decided to take another sip of the Almond Mocha Whip, to see if maybe Chloe had uncovered the undeniable truth of that as well. This time Merick didn't get scalded. "You know? This ain't half bad when it isn't in the form of lava casacading down your throat. Think I am going to stick to my Yoohoo for now though. So how does one go about finding the secrets life has hidden from him? I want to know who I am. Or what. If that thing came out of my head, I need to make it go away. I won't risk people's safety like that again. So where do I start digging? Help me Obi-Wan, you are my only hope."

In the Kawatche Cave, Var-Sen stopped his conversation with the group of high-schoolers gathered with him. He held his hand up in a gesture of silence. With ears thousands of times more sensitive than the most powerful device he heard the sounds of the chunks of rock as they broke apart upon entering the atmosphere.

He dropped his hand and looked at the students.

"Something's coming," he stated.

- - -

Lionel Luthor's helicopter had just landed on the pad nestled behind the Luthor estate in Smallville. Lionel entered through a rear door, unescorted. As he walked through the spacious halls, he called out, "Lex? Are you here?"

- - -

The Martian Manhunter had taken flight and turned West across the Atlantic Ocean towards Smallville. Var-Sen must be warned.