The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

"And the hits just keep on coming," Pete murmured quickly to Chloe, backing away from the new man at the cave entrance. "Looks like Bruce Wayne has himself a Fairly Oddparent."

"Yeah," Chloe muttered, her own head spinning at the rapid-fire cast changes despite her ability to roll with the expository punches, "but is he a leonine Messiah, or a Dark Lord of The Sith?"

'Ra's al Ghul,' she thought to herself. I have heard that before. Pronounced differently.

It's Arabic. For. Something. Astronomy? Dammit, Sullivan, think!

She bit her lip, and she glanced back and forth between Smith and Ducard.

Whomever this new fellow was, he seemed to have some seriously solid intel on Bruce and on Smallville High's student body.

The next time her eyes wafted onto Smith, she moved a step closer to him, and she murmured: "So. Are you guys having a convention? A convention for enigmatic, morally ambiguous patriarchs with monochromatic attire? Was Metropolis booked, and you guys had to move your convention here to Smallville?"

She shook her head at him, and she glowered.

"Don't think you're off the hook," Chloe stated definitively, "just because M'sieu Ducard just breezed in the door. I still want to know where you get off dissing me for believing that the meteors are something special, and then sitting down in front of me and claiming that these cave paintings are the work of extrasolar intelligences. Believe me, I intend to ask you about that very shortly."

Chloe strolled right up to Ducard, then, with her arms crossed over her stomach.

Pete sidled up closer to Smith, grinning from ear to ear and shaking his head.

"You are not as smart as you think you are," he chided Smith. "You dissed The E.T. Connection? Not cool. I ain't seen Chloe this pissed at anyone since we went over Joe McCarthy in Social Studies."

He paused, reconsidered. "Nawh, on second thought," he muttered. "She was this torqued at me, once. She asked me to cross-reference incidents where Oreo cookies were found at the sites of U.F.O. sightings, an' I told her she was Mixed Nuts. The woman was irate. Never dis The E.T. Connection."

Chloe stood, smouldering, more than a little frightened, her eyes narrowed at Henri Ducard.

(She shot Bruce an encouraging smile, lightning-quick, because he seemed just as out of his depth as she felt, and she didn't want him to think he was alone in this. It wouldn't be right for him to feel alone.

She wanted to stand up for him, try and find the same answers Bruce had demanded.

Her eyes locked back on Ducard, and her hands locked themselves around the shoulder strap of her laptop bag.)

"I'd like to know the contestants, please," she declared, the only visible sign of her trepidation her white-knuckled grip on the strap. "I'd also like to know what we're competing for. But I'll settle for just knowing the contestants. Starting with you."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen looked straight at Bruce Wayne, looking past Chloe and Pete.

Bruce Wayne was a smart young man, but there was something else about him. He had noticed it around Wayne's persona when he first met the boy in the history lecture. There was something dark about him.

And when Henri Ducard walked into the cavern to join the trio, things got a lot darker.

Var-Sen looked at Ducard with no recognition on his face. Henri Ducard was much, much younger the last time they had seen one another. The thing was, Ducard knew about Var-Sen. Or rather, he suspected with a lot of personal belief.

"The demon's head," Var-Sen whispered, then looked at Chloe. Yes, Chloe, I heard you.

As for Henri Ducard...

And then Pete said something about Oreo cookies. Weren't they made of chocolate? There was someone, a friend of Zor-El's, or more like a freelance contractor. He wasn't Kryptonian, but he was from one of the twenty-eight known galaxies. He had powers. He rounded up many criminals and put them in the Phantom Zone for the Council. Jonzz was his name. And he loved those damn cookies, because he had brought some to Argo City one time...

He stepped behind Chloe and placed a firm hand on her shoulder and actually pulled her against him. He then turned to Pete and motioned for him to head towards the exit.

"Now is not the time, Miss Sullivan," he said to her. "There are some things better left alone."

He gave Ducard a nod, "Or should I say there are some things better left dead?" He was sure Ducard knew he was referring to Ra's.

He was physically moving Chloe along with him now, heading towards the exit. Although he was powerless, he was still physically stronger than most humans. Yet he tried to remain firm and unyielding with his grip on Chloe's shoulder. After all, he only wanted her to leave, not crush her bones.

Over his shoulder, he spoke to Bruce. "Be careful of the path you take, Mr. Wayne. This one is most dangerous, indeed."

- - -

Var-Sen escorted Chloe to the cavern opening, even though she protested the entire way. Outside, he prepared himself for the onslaught of questions and accusations that were bound to come.

"I suppose," he said to her, folding his hands behind his back as the wind blew an unruly lock of black hair into his eyes, "I owe you some sort of explanation."

And he waited for her coming response.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: Apologies for not getting any posts out sooner. If I don't manage to get one out soonish then I'll get a few out in the morning.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

Behind them, Pete lingered. He hesitated in the cavern entrance.

Obviously, he didn't want to have to leave Bruce in the lurch, to leave him with this mysterious stranger. And he was visibly torn, because the guy seemed decent enough. He definitely couldn't fault the guy being decent. And he had stones, too.

There's not many guys who would have had the stones to approach the girl who'd just totally taken him down in Gym class, and ask her out to coffee. Bruce Wayne had stones made of unadulterated brass, that was for damn sure, and Pete was not entirely cool with ditching a respectable guy like that.

But Chloe was getting dragged off by The Absent-Hearted Professor, and Pete Ross was even less cool with that. Especially since it seemed like Doctor Thomas Hugo Strange there was stronger than he looked.

Pete paused in the cavern entrance, and pointed his finger at Henri Ducard, camcorder still gripped firmly in the other hand. Pete's finger pointed at Ducard, but his eyes at first rested on Wayne.

"Uh, yeah," he declared, "what the man said. Careful 'bout the path you take, Bruce."

Then his eyes flitted over to Ducard, his gaze now matching the pointing of his finger.

"And you!" he seethed, getting into the rhythm of the moment, finding his own brass stones. "Darkman! You be damn careful what path you take him on, aight? Because m'boy Bruce may not know The Five D's of Dodgeball, but he's a Smallville High Freshman now, and we watch out for each other. 'You mess with one of us? You mess with all of us!'"

He hesitated, not sure how to follow that up. He decided that pretty much covered it, and he nodded firmly.

"Yeah," he said. "So there."

And then he wheeled about, holding the camera back up again so he could find his way. No crazy 60-foot darkvision for this staff reporter, no sir.

He followed the sound of Chloe cussin' as she struggled with Smith. She had a mouth on her, that girl did, when she wanted to break it out. Pete wasn't entirely sure all of those cusswords were in English.

He grinned broadly, and listened, and hurried.

By the time Pete caught up, by the time his sneakers skidded to a halt just outside the mouth of the cave, she was staring at Smith with watery eyes and rubbing her shoulder where Smith had gripped her.

I've read articles, she thought to herself, about old women or slender young girls who lifted cars in moments of extreme stress. But you're not overly stressed, are you Professor Smith? You're just very, very physically capable. Like your muscle tone and bone structure are more like that of an ape than a human. Like you're adapted for higher gravity, or have a greater molecular density. Maybe both.

She remembered what she'd thought before, about Men in Black sometimes being ascribed extraterrestrial origin themselves, and she looked at John Smith with renewed dread and renewed awe.

"'The Demon's Head,'" she repeated. "You weren't just translating from the Arabic, there, were you? Because if you had been"-- a memory clicked firmly into place, a memory she'd been struggling to access --"you would have translated it as 'The Ghoul's Head.' You know who he is, don't you? Who Ducard is?"

She glanced at Pete, smiled at him with a mixture of relief and pure, unfettered friendship. She drew strength from Pete's presence.

But then it was back to business, and her eyes drilled back into John Smith.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" she demanded.

She paused, then, and a look of incredulous concern flashed across her face.

"I don't have to take you to our leader now, do I?" she wondered. "Because quite frankly, Mayor Tate is even sketchier than you are."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: And thus I present to you all a rather short IC post and my attempt at not getting lost ^_^;
---

Kara smiled at Rose as they remained up on the roof of her house. The sky had finally turned to dark and the sun had finally set far below the horizon.

So ended a rather interesting day for the young Kryptonian.

"School was nice. I had a tiny accident in gym class today. We were playing dodgeball, and I knocked one up into the rafters. I think I broke something." she said, still a little embarrassed about the incident. She could still picture it happening: one of the dodgeballs heading her way, and she knocked it up into the air with her own ball.

"Classes were amazing, though. There are so many kids, all in one place." she added. As Kara had never stepped foot inside a high school, the experience was one she would not easily forget.

"Kara!" Martha called out from below, searching for any signs of her daughter.

"Looks like it's time to go." Kara said, standing up and looking at Rose. It was fun having someone to hang out with. To have someone to relax with and just talk or daydream.

"Do you want to come over tomorrow and hang out again? If it's ok with your parents, I mean." Kara inquired, making her way to the window.

---

Downstairs Jonathan and Martha said their farewells to Ceri and Jamie, before making their way to the porch to call for the girls. Martha swore she saw Kara and Rose head upstairs but they hadn't made any sounds. So she settled on heading outside to see if they were playing around the farm.

 

[AmenRa]

"I don't have to take you to our leader now, do I?" she wondered. "Because quite frankly, Mayor Tate is even sketchier than you are."

Smith smiled at Chloe. "No," he said, shaking his head. He had released his grip on her and now just simply stood before her, a bit of smile forming on his face. "What do you want me to say, Chloe? That I'm an alien from another planet? That I have special powers, one of which includes telepathy? Or maybe you think I'm one of those meteor freaks from your Wall of Weird?"

He motioned for Pete to come closer, away from the cave. He then turned his attention back to the blonde-haired young woman standing with her eyes riveted to him. He seriously thought about telling her the truth. Something to the effect of: well the truth is, Chloe, I'm from Krypton, a planet that no longer exists in a galaxy a thousand light years away. I used to have special powers. I used to be able to fly.

But, it came out as, "I'm neither," he lied. "I have a simple case of limited telepathy. I can sometimes hear thoughts when they are direct and focused. It doesn't happen very often at all."

He stared at her for a long moments, his thoughts closely to himself.

"And yes, I know who Ducard is. Or was. I have traveled extensively all over the world, Miss Sullivan. You want to find out more about Ducard, then go do a Google on the words Ra's al Ghul, League of Shadows, or Lazarus Pit and see what you get," he told her. "Just be prepared for what you find."

He turned and walked towards his SUV. "Oh, Miss Sullivan," he said, turning around, "perhaps you will bother to view some of the footage Mr. Ross shot of the writings on the cave wall. And, if you do, you will notice there is a repeating pattern of symbols in different places. Perhaps this pattern is a code, and perhaps it is one you can decipher."

And what he didn't tell her was that he knew the Kryptonian symbols were numbers, but the other glyphs, the Kawatche glyphs, were as alien to him as the Kryptonian was to Chloe. He knew the code, if broken, would point the way to the possible location of a key, or a piece of The Artifact, or perhaps even a usuable portal.

Of course, he would eventually tell Chloe about all of this. But he wasn't going to say a word to her until he could prove what he told. And this meant either he was going to have to wait until he could use the cave to return his power, or until the Chosen One had began the journey of their destiny and located The Artifact.

He got into his SUV and drove away.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Ceri, and Jamie

"Do you want to come over tomorrow and hang out again? If it's ok with your parents, I mean." Kara inquired, making her way to the window.

"I think that would be spectacular," Rose breathed with a smile, as she scurried a short way back from the edge before once more climbing to her feet.

No sense tempting Fate, after all.

"I think that would be 'bendigedig,'" she decided, grinning a bit wider as she dusted her rear end off with one hand, "as my parents always say. And don't worry about them letting me come over. Mum's always on me to spend less time in my room, and she already thinks you're the best thing since Cadbury Creme Eggs."

She waited, patiently, one hand tenuously out to her side, keeping herself balanced. She waited for her turn with the window.

"Did you seriously get a ball up into the rafters of the gym?" she blinked, shifting her weight slightly. "On a deflection? I'm no athlete, but that's... that's... have you considered trying out for the girls' soccer team? You would probably make a good goalkeep, with skills like that. And The Lady Crows haven't had a good goalkeep in forever!"

Downstairs, Ceri and Jamie followed Jonathan and Martha out to the driveway.

"...absolutely," Jamie grinned, "drew a mustache on me face and everything. The girls were in hysterics!"

"Lord," Ceri snorted. "I can't imagine you with a mustache. A beard would look pretty funny, though. Skinny as you are, you'd probably look like a skull with facial hair."

Jamie rolled his eyes. "I have it on good authourity, from S.T.A.R. Labs Keystone's very best radiologist, that my skull is quite handsome indeed."

He strode out, hands in his pockets, and squinted up at the upstairs of The Kents' farmhouse. "Where is that girl?"

Ceri cupped her hands around her mouth: "Rosy!" she bellowed. "Tell your friend 'goodnight!'"

Rose had just managed to scramble in the window when her parents had started yelling, and she had a hand over her heart.

If they had caught her out there on the roof, she would have received no end of it from her folks. She didn't know whether they would be appalled at her taking risks like that, or applaud her for making such strides in regards to bravery, or just make silly jokes for an imaginary studio audience, but either way she was relieved. She didn't want a big deal to be made of this, not even of any kind.

She breathed hard for a moment, that hand over her heart, and she shot Kara a devil's grin.

She straightened a bit, and bellowed out through the window in reply: "Be right down!"

Rose made for the stairs, hesitating just long enough to beam a grateful wink in Kara's direction. "I'll see you tomorrow," she predicted. "At school if nowhere else. And hopefully after."

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce stood in the cave, left alone with Ducard. He admired Pete for his chivalry. Even if Bruce was a sophomore, not a freshman.

I want answers Ducard. I want to know what's going on here. Bruce demanded. And how do you know Mr. Smith?

Ducard stood there, looking around at the walls, as if he knew something about them. Then he set his sights on the young billionare before him.

I do not believe that "Mr. Smith" is actually who he says he is. But that will come later. Ducard said. As for now, I think that we should get you to school. And he walked outside.

Chloe and Pete we're still standing there, and a black SUV, probably with Mr. Smith inside, was driving away. I'll see you two at school then. Bruce said as he walked to the car. He shot Chloe a smile.

There was something about her he liked. He couldn't place it, but there was something there.

On the way to school, Bruce glanced in the back of the car. He saw a black duffle bag with a logo on it. The logo looked familiar. It was a black circle with gold inside, and a large red "R" inside it.

It was from the basement of his house. The equipment he had found. It was the duffle bag that he had packed.

Why was it in Ducard's car, and how did he know about it? Bruce thought to himself. But then again, there seems to be a lot of things that Henri Ducard knew that Bruce thought was strange.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara tossed Rose a bright smile when she agreed to come over tomorrow, even if it wasn't right away. Both girls entered the house again through the open window, calling down to their respective parents that they were around and coming back downstairs.

"So your mom thinks that highly of me, huh?" Kara couldn't help but ask as they were walking downstairs.

"Fancy that." she said with a playful smile. Kara also thought about playing a sport for the school... but she was sure that both her parents would say no to that. Although they wanted Kara to have a somewhat 'normal' life, they had always stressed that someone could get hurt around her if she wasn't careful. She had to admit, though, that during gym she did feel a bit of a rush while playing dodgeball.

Causing a ruckus, however, was not what she had intended to happen.

She shuddered at the thought of it happening again. Perhaps playing soccer (with a ball far harder than a dodgeball) would be a bad idea...

Kara smiled at her parents and then again at Jamie and Ceri before glancing at Rose. Although the hour was late Kara felt that she could stay up for at least another twenty-four hours if she wanted to. After saying goodbye to Rose and her folks, Kara and her own parents retreated to the kitchen for some dinner.

---

The sun slowly crept up over the horizon and its light began to pour out over the planet. Inside the Kent farmhouse, Kara Zor-El slept soundly upstairs, her adoptive parents having just woken up to start the new day. Jonathan had been the first to rise, making his way downstairs to fix himself some coffee while Martha slowly got up to get ready. She came downstairs shortly after, fixing her own coffee before cooking up some breakfast.

"When are we going to tell her?" Martha asked, her voice practically lower than a whisper as she spoke to her husband.

"I don't know, Martha. Tonight, I suppose. You think she's ready?"

"She's older now. I think she'll understand. Martha added.

"Since when did growing older become associated with making wise decisions." Jonathan argued, lifting up the milk bottle to his lips instead of drinking out of the glass. Martha quickly grabbed the container and set it back down on the counter, shooting her husband an annoyed look.

"I've always wondered where Kara gets her habits from." Martha quipped. Jonathan simply laughed as he moved away from the counter and towards the kitchen table.

"OK. We'll just sit her down after dinner and... tell her." Jonathan added, sounding as if he was facing his last day

"Tell me what?" Kara asked, a puzzled yet curious look on her face. She rubbed her eyes before stepping into the kitchen.

"It's nothing, sweetheart." Martha said, tossing Kara a quick smile. "Breakfast's almost ready. Do you want to come sit down?" she asked, hoping to buy a little time. Telling your adopted daughter that she's an alien isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. The matter had to be approached delicately. Otherwise Kara might... well there was no telling what she might do.

"Right. If it's nothing why were you guys whispering?" Kara asked as she went to pull up a chair. Jonathan glanced over at his wife before he too went to grab a chair.

"Kara... your mother and I... have something that you need to know."

Kara raised an eyebrow as her father sat down next to her. Neither his nor Martha's face showed any signs of humor in the least bit. And the last time Kara heard words like 'you need to know' was when she found out that she was adopted. There couldn't be anything worse than hearing that, right?

"I'm not quite sure how to put this... but," Jonathan started to say, his mind desperately trying to find the right way to phrase the secret he and Martha had kept for so long, "well you know that you weren't born in Smallville." Jonathan said, drawing a nod from Kara.

"The thing is... you weren't born anywhere near Smallville. We're not really sure where you were born." Jonathan added as Kara raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

"Sweetheart," Martha started to interject, hoping that she might be able to fill in some of the blanks, but Jonathan wasn't finished talking.

"We think that your parents weren't exactly from around... here." he said, once again being rather vague and yet hinting at something more than that.

"What do you mean?" Kara asked, sounding a bit worried. She didn't really like where this conversation was heading. Jonathan glanced at Martha before returning his attention towards his adopted daughter... one that he had raised as if she had been his very own.

"About ten years ago Smallville was hit by a meteor shower. Your mother and I had been in town picking up some flowers when it all started. Driving back towards the farm one of the meteors crashed not too far from where we were driving on the road. We stopped to see what was going on... and that's when we... well that's when we found you."

Kara felt both her eyes open up and she had this look on her face that read 'huh?' Jonathan shook his head, thinking this a rather bad time bring it up. If it weren't for Martha, he'd have ended the conversation right then and there. Kara, however, would not him go without explanations. You don't just start something like this and then leave it unfinished.

"We were following one of the paths that the meteors had left in the ground. But when we got to the end... well we sort of found you." Martha said, hoping that her 14 year old daughter might be able to put the pieces together. Kara looked at her parents with a look that seemed to blend 'are you serious?', 'is this a joke?', and 'are you both feeling ok?'... all at the same time. None of what they were saying seemed to make any sense. She couldn't really be... but if she was then how...

"It's in the storm cellar." Jonathan stated, as if he had been reading her thoughts and emotions. Kara was even more confused than before, her eyes slightly misting up. If this was really a joke it was definitely done in poor taste. Kara had finally accepted that she was different and that she had been adopted... but to be told something of this nature... was unsettling, to say the least. She wasn't even sure she wanted to hear the rest.

Jonathan decided that the only way to make her understand was to show her it. Martha left the kitchen to go unlock the storm cellar while her husband led Kara outside. The cellar itself seemed to be dark and desolate, save for a few cans of rusted paint and some old farm tools. Jonathan flicked on a light switch, and off to the side near the back end of the cellar was a rather large... something, completely covered by a tarp. Jonathan removed the covering, and Kara finally looked upon the very object that had brought her shuttling towards Earth nearly 10 years ago. Its size couldn't hold her body now, but it was definitely made to carry an infant.

"This is a joke... right?" Kara mumbled, her eyes remaining glued to the foreign object that lay in front of her.

"This is what we found you in. We took it home and hid it, hoping that it wouldn't be discovered by anyone." Jonathan stated. Strange runes seemed to cover parts of the ship, and indented into its surface was what seemed to be a hole, shaped like an octagon and only about two centimeters in depth.

"And what about me? When did you plan on telling me? You should have... this can't be happening." Kara muttered, sounding more frantic by the second. Jonathan had been afraid that Kara might over-react... but then again who could blame her?

"You should have told me!" Kara said angrily, her voice loud and emotional. But before Jonathan or Martha could explain the situation further Kara ran as fast as she could out of the cellar, using her super-speed to bolt outside and to get as far away as possible. She had to think... she had to escape.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

(Morning paper, second day of school)
Metropolis Observer: Section B:City News

Wraithlike Creature fights crime in Downtown Metropolis
By Daniel Weaver



As reported earlier this month, The Wraith, as this Reported calls him, has struck a blow against crime again, this time quite possibly saving the lives of many innocent civilians, and two of the city’s finest police officers. At one A.M. Medical Technology Inc. reported a break-in via silent alarm in the secure vault in the Research and Development department. Now while spokesmen for the company would not say what was being worked on, this reporter can only guess at what a company that gets 75% of it’s capital through government research grants, most likely whatever was in there would be worth quite a bundle on the black market. Police responded to the break-in call, and were met with automatic gun fire and what can only be called a “laser ray gun”. When this reporter arrived on scene there were thirty plus police on scene, SWAT was enrooted, and three cars and one building were burning. Two casualties were on their way to the hospital and three suspects were pinned down in the building. Many more casualties would have most likely occurred, except that once again the dark creative of the night struck.
Police were holding the suspects at bay when the entire area went black, then when everyone could see, sounds of a struggle came from the building. Seconds later a man in full body armor came crashing through the windows, skidding to a stop just a few feet away from the officers. What follows is what was told to this reporter from a “unidentified Police Source”.
“We went in after the firing had stopped and we had taken the unconscious suspect into custody. When we gained entry into the building, we found another suspect in body armor unconscious on the floor, and a third stuck to a wall in some kind of organic black webbing. Three weapons were found, with the advanced technology gun cut to pieces with what looked to be a sharp object. The conscious suspect was babbling about “The Shadows came alive and attacked us!”. He is being held for psychiatric evaluation before being charged”.

Once again the mysterious creature this Reporter has called “The Wraith” has struck a blow agains crime in our city. Further details will be forthcoming as access to the robbery suspects is allowed after the suspects get released from the hospital.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Ceri, and Jamie

"Character is who you are in the dark."
-D.L. Moody.
(from Quotations on Courage, compiled by James Hamilton)

"Lay it down
I've always been with you
Hear me now
With all that's within you
Be my savior
And I'll be your downfall"
-"Downfall," by Matchbox Twenty
(scribbled by Rose McCrimmon in the margins of Quotations on Courage)​

Rose put her pen back in her pocket, and gently cradled the Moleskine her father had given her in her lap as she watched cornfields give way to patchy woods, lit by the headlights of her mother's much-loved black Saab.

The atmosphere inside the car was one of thoughtful quiet. In the front, her mum drove and her dad sat with his eyes closed with his head back against the headrest.

"Kara's very warm," Rose murmured suddenly, apropos of nothing.

Jamie opened one eye. Ceri glanced very briefly back over her shoulder at the girl.

"You what, dear?" Ceri arched an eyebrow.

"Kara's very warm," Rose repeated, a very pensive look on her face.

Jamie opened both eyes and sat up a bit. "Okay, erm, maybe they weren't talking about Zac Efron after all," he muttered. "'Not that there's anything wrong with that.' Who, then, that nice Rachel McAdams?"

"Shut up, James," Ceri commanded bluntly, and another quick glance directed itself to the back. "What do you mean, love?"

Rose shook her head. "Nothing," she murmured. "Nothing. I dunno. You know how Dad has a lower body temperature than most people?"

"Mm," Jamie nodded, squinting. "Used to have loads of fun with that in boarding school, making new matrons doubt their thermometres."

"Right, so," Rose continued, sitting up a bit and coming more into the present. "I can feel that. With my... abilities. I don't think Kara has a higher body temperature, really, than most people. She's just got more warmth to her. Like a person who's spent a lot of time in the sunlight and has just come indoors, except... all the time. Like she's storing sunlight. (I don't know if that describes it. I don't know if I can describe it.)"

Ceri nodded slowly. "She does do a lot of work outside, sweets," she mused. "Helps around the farm. Maybe this is an aftereffect?"

Jamie nodded in agreement with his ex-wife. "You've got senses that have never been charted before in people, at least that I know of," he turned in his seat, smiling helpfully back at her. "It stands to reason that certain sensations you have with these new extrasensory perceptions would be hard to place. Remember what I told you about synaesthesia, eh?"

Rose chewed this over, and her pale blue eyes slid back over to gaze out into the Kansas night.

"I guess so," she murmured. "Like I said, probably nothing. Just... making an observation. It's just... it felt nice, is all. Comforting."

Jamie turned back around in his seat to gaze forwards through the windshield, but as he turned he glanced over at Ceri and mouthed, impishly, 'Rachel McAdams.'

Ceri ignored him.

Moments later, they pulled into the driveway of the old McCrimmon house, and lurched to a sudden stop.

Rose's hands shot out in front of her to brace herself against the back of the front seats. "What? The Hell? What is it?"

"The garage door's open," Jamie murmured, a little mystified. "The garage front door. And... it's empty. The garage is empty. Your uncle's equipment is gone. It's all gone."

Rose removed her seatbelt and leaned forward in her seat, and with an arched crimson eyebrow she realised it was true.

"No more eerie green lights," Ceri shook her head slowly, disbelieving, pointing. "And look at that, would you? The front lawn's a fright."

Ceri pulled the car back out of the driveway, parked in the road, and they slowly walked as a family back towards the house.

"Don't see how you can tell that the lawn is anymore frightful than usual," Jamie murmured, shaking his head. "Hasn't been touched by a mower since I've been here."

Ceri grunted, crouching down in the grass and running her hand over a swath in the blades, mud and earth torn up. "The boy that usually mows for me got sent off to Claremont Military Academy this summer. His mum got tired of his... behaviour."

Jamie frowned, hands in his pockets, staring into nowherespace. "Greg, was it? Met him once. I liked him. Keen grasp of entomology."

Rose stood by the open garage, gazing back down the driveway in the direction from whence she'd come. "He also liked to collect 'samples' of Nell Potter's niece Lana and mount them on his wall like moths. Gave me the creeps."

Jamie arched an eyebrow, and tugged on his ear, somewhat embarrassed. "Yes, erm, well. That's to be discouraged, ennit?"

"Bloody Hell," Ceri muttered. "Can't see a thing in this dark."

She glanced up at Jamie. "Be a dear, James, fetch me a torch? There's one in the glove-box."

Jamie nodded briskly, and moved to do as he was told, but Rose held up a hand.

"No," she called out, voice sounding a little out there. A little ethereal. "Hang on, Dad. I can... I can do it."

Her eyes glittered in the dark.

"I can see...," she murmured, striding slowly back down the driveway.

And so she could, the world swirling in reds and oranges and purples, impressions left by infrared light, by heat. Thermographic vision.

Rose gestured expansively. "There's a big warm patch right here," she murmured. "Really big. It's cooling, but whatever it was sat there for a long time. And there's another impression a little further down, much smaller.

"I think the big one's a truck," Rose muttered. "And the smaller one's a car. Not Mum's. I can see the impression of Mum's car at the end of the driveway, and it looks different from the one here. Looks like they were parked for some time. Idling. Wasting gas.

"There's footprints, too," Rose murmured, sinking into a crouch and having a closer look, as Ceri had done with the tyre-track. "Lots of them, residual body-heat. But they're all smeary, like they were in a hurry."

Ceri and Jamie exchanged a look.

Ceri whispered, pointedly: "She's a scientist."

Jamie nodded, and whispered in reply: "She's more than that. She's investigating."

Ceri nodded in understanding, and glanced back over at their daughter.

"Can you light the area up for us, Rosy?" she called out. "We can't see as you can, and we might be able to spot something you've missed."

Rose seemed to think this over for a minute.

"Like on 'Heroes,'" Jamie suggested. "You told me about this: Noah told Parkman to tell Ted... 'Burn bright, not hot.'"

Rose closed her eyes, closed her hands into fists.

Concentrated. Bit her lower lip. Scrunched her eyes tightly...

Molten golden light began to crawl over her skin, highlighting every pore and freckle and dimple.

Her fists clenched tighter, growing as white-knuckled as they'd been on the edge of The Kents' roof.

She couldn't let any heat escape. Didn't want to scuff up the heat traces.

She just wanted to... glow.

And glow she did, as the golden light washed off of her, washed out from her, spilling across the driveway and the garage and the house, surrounding their surroundings in a hemispherical Midas-touched halo.

Instantly, Ceri began picking her way across the grass, muttering to herself as she went.

Jamie stood still for a moment, marveling at the miracle his daughter had wrought, and then took advantage of the lighting to investigate the depths of the garage.

"You were right, dear," Ceri suggested to Rose. "There's been a lorry here. I'd say about a mid-sized U-Haul. It turned around on the grass so it could back up to the garage without bumping the trees. And here... here's where a car was parked-- not mine, true enough. Saabs are Swedish. I think this one's more German in design. Maybe Italian? Anyway, it was parked near the garage, and it had to move to permit the truck closer access."

Rose's mouth hung open as she stood there and glowed.

"You're," she shook her head, "you're funning me, Mum. You're 'winding me up.' You can tell all that from the tyre-tracks?"

"Call it a hobby," Ceri shrugged dismissively. "Greg Arkin had his creepy-crawly things, I'm something of a car-spotter."

Rose shook her head once more, unconvinced.

Ceri pointed to the tracks, ran her fingers once more along the tear in the lawn. "Sometimes," she suggested conversationally, "when a policeman needs to identify a print or a track, he'll put down plaster of Paris, make a cast of the impression. D'you think you could do that, Rosy? With your ice?"

Rose pondered, as this was moving more into territory with which she was familiar. "Like with Bigfoot," she noted. "I saw this on TV. But won't me doing that ruin the heat-traces?"

Ceri winced. "They'll be gone by morning anyway. Least we can do is work with what we have."

"Can't really argue with that," Rose mused, and closed her eyes again.

She switched frequencies like turning a dimmer switch, and the light of molden gold that had filled that place faded to be replaced by crackling, flickering light of blue and of white... little eddies of lightning etching their way over Rose's skin, between her fingers, darting 'twixt her teeth, and every bolt of "lightning" gleamed with holographic crystalline icicles...

Ice crawled down from the sky, first in flakes and then in clumps and then in sheets. Free-floating droplets of water from miles around stopped what they were doing and ran to Rose's aid.

The ice spread out across the ground, consolidating in the rifts and the ruts carved by car and truck tyres.

Rose concentrated, her hands again fists, again white-knuckled. She smoothed it all out... worked ice into every nook and cranny of the tyre-tracks but in such a meticulous way that no ice gathered anywhere else, and nowhere was the ice gathered so thickly that they distorted the shapes and the forms left by the tyres.

God. It was... it was like learning to walk. It was like learning to talk, or even to think.

It was so hard. It was... exhausting... she trembled a little.

A drop of sweat rolled down her cheek, and it froze solid a third of the way down.

Ceri popped her little pre-paid mobile out of her pocket, squinted one eye shut as she aimed the phone's camera. Click-flicker-flash. Click-flicker-flash. Click-flicker-flash.

She took shots from a variety of angles, and then stood, nodding to herself, snapping the phone shut again.

"Good, dear," she nodded firmly, this time to Rose. "Good. Very well done. Bendigedig."

Rose nodded with a shaky little smile. She gave her mum a thumbs-up, and sank to one knee as the glow started to dim.

"Happy to be," Rose wheezed softly, as her blue-white glow retracted, "of service."

Jamie came hurrying up, squinting in the renewed darkness. He carried a small white envelope. He was wearing his glasses-- he hardly ever wore his glasses. Thought they made him look nerdy. "You all right, Rosy?"

He slipped a bit in a patch of ice, but righted himself. "Oh, right," he muttered observationally. "'Course. Ice-prints. Very good."

Rose nodded as Ceri helped her to her feet. "M'fine, Dad. Just a little worn out. Did you find something?"

Jamie nodded, holding up the envelope. "Nothing at first," he explained, "but then I checked under the table where he was always tapping his metal fingers, and I found this taped to the bottom. It's got a note inside, addressed to the lot of us, but primarily to you, Rose."

Rose raised her hand and caused it to glow, again warm and gold instead of blue and cold, as Jamie unfolded the note from within the envelope and read it aloud.

"'I must be brief. I have a moment alone while the workers are gathering my few things. I would hardly be worth my salt as a scientist,'" Jamie recited, "'if I did not plan for every eventuality. I am continuing my research at another location, and you will not only benefit from my withdrawal from this property, but I will attempt to send you a portion of my funding as payment for your hospitality. Hopefully this will be useful as a college fund for Rose, or day-to-day living, your choice. But the fact remains that my new location is one of dubious ethical standing and deeply-entrenched corporate mentality, and thus the purity of my mission might be compromised.

"'Should this become the case,'" Jamie spoke clearly and firmly in the night, "'I will need you, Rose, and my brother and your mother, to either find me where I've been sequestered or find The Future in my stead. I shall keep you updated, and if I cannot keep you updated, I will send you examples of my work that might come in useful.

"'The Sullivan girl has the right idea,'" Jamie read, though this reference obviously confused him a bit. "'Please bring her the enclosed data device, that she might benefit from my work. Many thank yous, and many apologies. The Future is coming. Emil Hamilton, Ph.D.'"

Jamie harrumphed softly, cleared his throat. "'Sullivan girl?'" he wondered.

"Chloe," Rose murmured. "From the school paper. He saw an issue earlier. 'Enclosed data device?'"

Jamie extricated a jump drive from the envelope, and passed it to Rose.

Rose examined it with surprise. "Four terabytes?" she breathed, more than a little awed.

"Who the bloody Hell has a four-terabyte jump drive?" Ceri remarked, more than a little astonished.

Jamie produced another one from his pocket, virtually identical, an expression of grim knowingness on his face. "S.T.A.R. Labs gave them out, Christmas before last, to all the department heads in our region of the country. Something of a 'working bonus,' I suppose. That one's definitely Emil's, I recognise the serial number. Handwriting's his, too. Spelling and sentence structure... wherever he's gone, it seems he's gone willingly."

"Do we call the sheriff's department, then?" Ceri wondered, though she felt she already knew the answer.

Jamie pondered this, pursed his lips. "No," he decided. "No, no, we call it a night. If we don't hear from Emil again in a week's time, we burn down all of Creation to find him, but no-one loves his secrets better than my brother. Shan't go messing up his game unless it's evident he's in over his head."

Rose smiled again, shakily. "I like that idea," she agreed. "Calling it a night? Don't get me wrong... I'm worried about Uncle Em, but... but I'm passing out standing up here. I can stand to wait until Nature's big round light-source takes over for little glowy me in the morning."

"Quite right, too," Jamie nodded. "Let's go."

They walked off into the house.

Rose pretty much made a beeline for the stairs, collapsing onto her bed and falling asleep before she'd even gotten under the covers, her ruby-red locks spilling all out across her pillow-top. The little frozen sweat-drop on her cheek melted quietly.

Ceri tsked softly at the invoice she found on the fridge. "He had time to miss the UPS guy before he left, your brother did," she called to Jamie, as she walked through from the kitchen to the living room. "Now I'll have to go halfway to Edge City to pick up those hair extensions."

She quieted, though.

Jamie was standing there, half a little smile on his face, the sofa-bed half-unfolded. He had his hands in his pockets and his glasses were still on his face and he was staring into nowhere...

He was smiling a tiny little smile, and he laughed softly as he smiled, a silent little laugh.

Ceri leaned against the side of the archway that led from the front hall into the living room. "You okay, James?"

Jamie awakened a bit, and turned that wistful smile onto Ceri.

"I was just thinking," he confessed. "We didn't do too bad, with our girl, did we? Smart as a whip, intuitive, preoccupied with the well-being of her family... she's not going to need any kind of college fund, is she? Brightest bulb in the chandelier, she is.

"I was just thinking," he murmured, as his smile deepened and his eyes softened, "that if we did that okay with her, messed up and all embittered as we were, then we must not have been so bad after all? Soppy romanticism, I know, but still. If she's the end result of what we were, then we must not have been so bad after all."

Ceri mulled this over for a moment. She seemed... reluctant to consider it. But she couldn't really harangue him either for his logic or his "soppy romanticism."

She sighed deeply. "All right, come on, then," she beckoned. "But don't expect this to be a habit."

Jamie blinked, his face quickly becoming a mask of confusion. "Wait, what? You what?"

The corner of Ceri's lip quirked, and she turned away. "Keep your socks on, though. I'll not have your freezing cold feet waking me up in the middle of the night."

Jamie blinked, his confusion deepening.

But then Ceri pulled her shirt off over her head as she walked away, and he saw the bare pale skin of her back against the black of her hair and the black of her bra.

He saw the mysterious little tattoo between her shoulder-blades, the one he'd asked her about the very first time they'd been together.

(A black circle, inlaid with gold, emblazoned with a rose-red stylised letter "R.")

He swallowed hard.

Ceri paused on the stairs, and she smirked at him. "Are you coming, then?"

Jamie glanced down at the half-deployed sofa-bed, his mind racing, his blood-flow going haywire. He glanced after Ceri.

Ceri continued up the stairs, chuckling.

Jamie pursed his lips. "Erm," he declared. "Right, then. Nothing for it."

And he darted after Ceri, untying his tie as he went.

Allons-y.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

Chloe stood.

She stood alone, even though Pete was right beside her. She stood alone and she thought as hard as she could.

Limited telepathy, she chewed the inside of her cheek. I'm supposed to accept that? Just... accept it? I can't perform standardised tests where he reads a card from my mind as I stand there with the back of the card facing him?

He heard Ducard. He heard Ducard say aloud, 'Ra's al Ghul,' just like I did.

'Ra's al Ghul, League of Shadows, or Lazarus Pit.'

She clutched at her laptop. She could Google those terms. Google those terms right now. She had that WiFi card from her (literal) Uncle Sam, and it got her wireless pretty much anywhere...

He knows of glyphs in other places. I surprised him with the one in France.

But he's seen them: there's glyphs in other places.

She turned quickly to look at Pete, but Pete was saluting Bruce as he and Ducard walked past.

"See ya in Gym class, Bruce," Pete nodded.

Chloe had her mouth half-open, but she shut it again and smiled and blushed as Bruce smiled at her. She felt the blush crawling up the back of her neck.

She didn't want to get played. She always got played by the boys with the showmanship, the cute smiles. And Bruce Wayne had a smile like the perfect stage magician, the perfect master of showmanship.

She didn't want to get played. But Bruce Wayne... he didn't really seem like a player, did he?

Chloe turned pink. And she waved, with a little flourish to her fingers.

And then he was gone, off in a Dodge Viper of all things.

And Chloe was back to business. She turned quickly to look at Pete.

"We have to get back to the school," she declared.

"Yeah, Nancy Drew," Pete chuckled, heading for the road. "No kidding. Metal Shop's done in about five minutes, and I got a review quiz in Español I need to flunk."

Chloe groaned apologetically, winced, and began clambering back up the hillside towards Earl's truck. "Yeah," she cringed. "Nothing like me getting all caught up in The Big Picture to ruin your G.P.A., right?"

"Tch," Pete chuckled as he went around to the driver's side of the truck. "Same as it ever was. Ain't no thang. I tell you me an' Mister Gotham Real Estate are tight now?"

Chloe arched both eyebrows as she strapped in. "Is that right?"

Pete grinned as he turned on the engine. "Damn straight," he grinned. "I got all up in Hank Ducard's grill, and I was like, 'Smallville High Freshmen are like family, jerkwad.' Shoulda seen me. I was Legend."

Chloe scrunched her eyes shut. "Oh, Pete."

Pete blinked. "What?"

"Pete," Chloe winced, cracking one eye open to look at him. "Bruce Wayne is a sophomore this year."

Pete took a moment to drink that in, and sighed miserably with his head thunking back against the driver's seat headrest. "Awh. Man."

Chloe grinned at him, patted him comfortingly on the shoulder as she opened both eyes. "Slightly less Legend than advertised, huh?"

Pete grunted, shook his head resignedly, sitting up straight as he pulled them away from the kerb. "Son of a bitch."

Chloe gazed out the window as they drove, and thought air-freshenery thoughts to keep the fertiliser smell at bay.

"TV-MA," she muttered with a smile.

 

[Superman1496]

Ducard pulled the Viper up to the school. 'Great' Bruce thought, 'like the Benz wasn't enough already.'

Bruce, I want you to know that there are people around here you can not trust. People might tell you something that isn't true, to try and manipulate you into something. Ducard said, staring through the windshield.

Right, like people are that interested in me. Bruce said, grabbing his bag.

You have a great future before you, Bruce. Like "Mr. Smith" said earlier, be carefull which path you chose. Just remember what I'm telling you, and I'll see you later tonight. Ducard said as Bruce go out of the car. He shut the door, and the Viper pulled away.

Bruce stood there. As he started walking inside, Chloe and Pete pulled up. Bruce decided he would wait, and walk with them inside.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen had once had access to millions of terabytes of data regarding Earth. He wished he had it now.

As he drove along a dusty, all-too-typical Smallville road, he wondered why his latent telepathic power chose the cave to work. When he lost his powers, he retained this one, although exceedingly subdued compared to what it once was.

The cave held a power source. A focal point.

Why Smallville? Why here?

The meteor shower had hit approximately ten years ago. It was fragments of the planet Krypton, his homeworld, that hurtled themselves to Earth.

Were they drawn to this place? Drawn to Smallvile because of the fcave?

No, the scientist in Var-Sen knew that rocks aren't drawn to anything. However, if they were being pulled along a flight path of a ship...

As he drove, Var-Sen re-affirmed his belief that somewhere on this Earth was another Kryptonian who's being here is for a great purpose.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara ran as fast as she could, the world passing her by faster than it had ever done before. Anything light enough found itself flying up into the wind as she sped by, and before she knew it Kara found herself outside the Kansas border and quickly approaching the city of Denver in Colorado. She finally stopped running once she had gotten far enough away from it all, pausing at a small bridge of a tiny stream in the woods. She wiped away a few tears from her eyes as she leaned over the wooden railing and stared down at the water below.

She was scared... but of what she did not know. Was it the truth?

She didn't want to be different. Kara wanted to be a normal human being. But this new revelation made sure that she would never be normal. How could she be? She wouldn't be able to look at anyone and feel at home with them.

Earth itself wouldn't be home to her. Kara had oft spent so many nights peering at the stars above through her telescope, and in some ways she felt more at home up in the heavens than down on Earth below. But no matter how she looked at it... Kara felt so alone.

Crossing to the other side of the bridge, Kara rest her back up against a wooden tree and wrapped her arms around her legs. The silence of the woods provided her with some repose, and in a short while she had fallen asleep.

---

Back in Smallville, Kansas, Jonathan and Martha sat in the living room of the house, trying to figure out what to do. Calling the police wouldn't really be the best bet, as Kara had probably fled the country by now. What would they tell them, anyways?

"Yes officer, we told our daughter she was an alien and now she ran away. She's probably somewhere in Canada because she has super-speed"

That would go over well.

"She'll come back." Martha said, resting her head against her husbands shoulder. Jonathan rubbed her arm and kissed her on the top of her head. There wasn't much they could do but wait for her to return... whenever that was. In the meantime they'd have to call the school and say that Kara was staying home sick.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

Earl stood waiting at the kerb, looking more than a little bemused as his dinged-up blue truck rolled on up.

Pete grinned at the janitor as he hopped out, tossing the man his keys.

"Rides like a dream, Mr. Jenkins," he affirmed, hands spread wide.

"It would ride like a dream, Mr. Ross," Earl chuckled wryly, moving to take back his truck and drive it around to the supply shed, "if dreams commonly involved a sense of smell."

Pete grinned even more widely. "The man speaks wisdom."

Chloe beamed at Earl like the sun was rising behind her. "You got to do your chivalrous thing after all, Mr. Jenkins. And I thank you for it."

"Quit your bubbling and get to class," Earl remarked gravely, but a light danced in his eyes as he shut the truck door and rumbled away.

Pete handed Chloe the camcorder, kissed her impulsively on the cheek, arched an eyebrow at the loitering Mr. Wayne, and dashed off to flunk the aforementioned Spanish quiz.

Chloe waved to him, startled at the speed and suddenness of his departure, and called out after him: "Pete! Thank you! Thank--"

She slumped a bit, and felt terrible. "Oh," she muttered. "He's gone. Fastest Teen Alive."

I wonder what the Spanish is, Pete wondered as he ran, for 'F minus?'

Which left Chloe standing next to Bruce Wayne.

She smiled at him softly, her eyes searching his face as she adjusted her laptop bag on her shoulder yet again.

"It seems that I have a lot of questions for you, Bruce," she chuckled gamely.

Aaaaaand that came out wrong, the thought stabbed her in the centre of the forehead.

She closed her eyes, that cringewinceflinch that was very nearly her signature facial expression. "Oh, geeze," she muttered, before opening those eyes again. "I meant that in a purely... professional sense. Strictly. I mean, I'm the resident newshound, of course I'm going to have questions for a City Mouse in a town that's ordinarily Country Mice Only."

A roguish light danced in her eyes, then, as she rediscovered her courage, found her footing.

"So, to take this through more appropriate channels, should I make an appointment with Mr. Pennyworth," she wondered, with a delightful dash of irony, "or with Mr. Ducard?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose slept like a rock, and awoke with a start.

Her eyes flickered to the clock. And they widened considerably. If she didn't move her butt pronto, she'd be late for school. And that would be awful, considering all she'd gone through to psyche herself up for going...

She flew through the motions of her morning routine like a young woman possessed. Amazingly, she didn't sacrifice any efficiency for her speed, and as messed up as her hair had been for sleeping on it wrong and dripping frozen sweat into it as she slept, she managed to tame it pretty well, braid her scarlet locks back with a single, fetching forelock dancing before her eyes. She actually got ready better in this rush than she usually did with a whole morning to prepare.

Can't make a habit of this, Rosy, she reminded herself. It won't always go this well when you're running late, and more'n likely it'll go lots worse.

She grabbed her backpack from her room, grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl in the kitchen, and grabbed a five-dollar bill from under a magnet on the fridge for a hot lunch at school.

She grabbed Uncle Em's 4TB jump drive from the counter.

She ran for the front door... she could practically hear the bus 'rounding the corner and thrumbling up to the end of her driveway...

She stopped. She stopped dead in her tracks. She stared, goggle-eyed, at the couch in the living-room, which she'd not noticed before in her hurry. She stared at the bed not only unslept-in, but not even folded out properly.

Rose McCrimmon stared at the sofa bed. And then, slowly, her eyes slid up to stare horrified at the ceiling, her mother's bedroom directly overhead.

Her right eye twitched. "Well," she remarked to the ceiling. "That's kind of gross. I wish you two would make up your damn minds."

She shuddered, from head to toe, and shook her head violently, trying to expel the image...

Rose sprinted for the bus. And it wasn't until three stops later that she cleared her head enough to realise Kara Kent wasn't on board. She blinked and looked around and double-checked...

She slumped a bit in her seat, disappointed and worried.

"Hope she didn't come down with the same thing I did yesterday," she muttered. "God, I hope she's okay."

The first couple of classes were pretty interesting, though her homeroom teacher gave her no end of crap for not bringing in a note from her parents. Rose had to swear Scout's Honour that she'd bring the thing on the morrow, but she wasn't sure that that counted because she'd never been a Scout.

She didn't get a Study Hall until a few periods later, and she took the opportunity to swing by The Torch office, jump drive in hand.

The door was ajar, and she stuck her head in.

"'Ello?" she called out, glancing around. "I heard a rumour you guys'd lost your science reporter and--"

The room was bereft of life. In fact, it looked like whomever had left had done so in a hurry.

She sighed, and slumped her shoulders. "Everyone's vanishing on me," she lamented. "Uncle Em, Double-K... now even the newsgeeks are at an unprecedented state of location."

Rose lingered, though. She had a little bit of time, yet. And who knew, someone might come back?

She eyed what looked like a fresh copy of The Metropolis Observer, contemplated her father's partial description of a shadowy bloke who had departed in a bubble of blackness compared to the actions of the mythic figure in the article partway down the front page of the City section.

Gears turned in her head.

There be much strangeness afoot, Rosy, she decided.

Truer words never spoken, Rosy, she agreed.

She stopped, though, as the collage that adorned nearly a whole wall of the classroom drew her gaze.

Men with six fingers on one hand, four on the other. Three-eyed fish and two-headed calves. Lights in the sky and Oreo cookies.

And there... and there...

Her heart bobbled up into her throat and she shook her head in fright. Her fingers tightened around the jump drive, though she was just careful enough not to damage it.

And there was an article from The Granville Sentinel dating from late June of that same year: "Local Girl Thrown From Wreckage of Car Struck By Train, Virtually Unscathed."

There was a picture of Rose herself in the hospital, still comatose, her mother and her father both standing over her. They both looked like they had been crying.

Gingerly, Rose reached up to touch the picture, and she found to her fascination and her distress that she was discovering a whole new way to be afraid.

Why was this picture up there, in context with all the other kinds of bizarre whackjob insanity that dotted that collage? Why was Rose on this wall of weird? How could Chloe possibly have known?

"'The Sullivan girl,'" Rose breathed, her lower lip quivering, "'has the right idea.'"

"Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life."
-E.M. Forster.
(from Quotations on Courage, compiled by James Hamilton)

"This world will never be
What I expected
And if I don't belong
Who would have guessed it"
-"Never Too Late," by Three Days Grace
(scribbled by Rose McCrimmon in the margins of Quotations on Courage)​

 

[Superman1496]

Pete took off. Chloe stayed behind. Then she asked for an appointment. Bruce didn't know if there was ever a more akward moment.

Well, you don't need to talk to any of them to set up an "appointment". If you want to talk, we can talk. Bruce said, smiling.

Here's my cell phone number. You can call me if you want. Bruce said. He gave her his number.

Or we can start as I walk you to class. I think I have history next. What class do you have again? Bruce said, holding out his arm in a gentleman way.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"Should we wake her, Marge?"

"I think it might be a good idea. Not good to be sleeping out here in the woods. Poor thing might catch a cold."

Kara felt her body being nudged to the side, and she slowly opened up her eyes to see what was the matter. At first everything was all a blur; her eyes trying to adjust to her surroundings. Kara heard water flowing, and wind was blowing through the trees at a fairly gentle pace. All in all it was very scenic... something you'd see out of a Bob Ross painting. It took Kara a second to remember where she was, having fallen asleep with her back against a tree several hours earlier. She glanced up and saw an old man and woman standing next to her.

"Ah, she's awake." the elderly woman said, noting the liveliness that Kara finally exhibited.

"Well of course she is." the old man remarked, his attention on the young girl before him.

"Oh be quiet, Marshall." Marge scolded, turning her attention back towards Kara.

"Nnn... what time is it?" Kara asked, still a bit groggy from her nap.

"It's almost dark. What are you doing out here all alone?" Marge asked. Kara stood up on her feet and looked around.

"I was... running." Kara stated, trying not sound too helpless or conspicuous. But falling asleep in the woods wasn't probably the best way to accomplish that.

"Oh. You must have been very tired, then, after running for so long." the elderly woman said. Kara looked at her curiously. How did she know how far she had ran?

"You were sound asleep. My husband and I were out for a walk. Our house isn't too far from here."

Kara breathed a sigh of relief. After what she had just gone through, Kara had begun to suspect that everyone was in on her secret. But the truth was she was simply scared... paranoid, even. She brushed aside some of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. Now that she was more relaxed, Kara wondered what she should do next.

"Where is here, anyways?" Kara asked, drawing an odd look from the elderly couple.

"You don't know?" Marge asked, drawing a simple shake of her head from the young Kryptonian.

"Well this would be..." Marge started, though her voice trailed off as she tried to think of the name of the park they were in.

"Cherry Creek State Park, just outside of Denver."

"Denver?" Kara repeated, though her tone was more of exclamation than confusion. She had... to Denver? Boy, her parents would be very upset if they found out where she was. Then again... Jonathan and Martha Kent weren't her real parents, so why should she care what they thought?

Deep down, however, she did care.

"You should probably start heading home. It's almost nighttime. Your parents must be very worried about you." Marge said. Kara simply rubbed her arms and shuffled her feet.

"Don't you have a home to go to?" Marge inquired, and Kara averted her eyes.

"Not really." she responded. Somehow Marge knew that this girl was lying, and she was going to try and get to the bottom of it. No one should ever feel alone... not when they have people who care about them.

"Now don't say that. Come now, what's the matter?" the old woman asked, gesturing her body in a way that invited Kara to walk with her. For a short while Kara walked with her in silence, trying to find the right words to say that might explain her situation. She figured that 'I'm an alien from another planet' probably wouldn't do.

"It's a lot of things. My parents... kept things from me. The truth, I mean." she said. "And when they finally told me... it scared me. So I ran away." Kara explained. Marge nodded sympathetically.

"Do you think that the reason they didn't tell you was because they were afraid of how you might react?" Marge asked.

Kara hadn't really thought of it that way.

"Maybe." she responded.

"I just... they should have told me sooner." Kara reasoned.

"I'm sure they had their reasons." Marshall said, piping up as he walked behind them.

 

[AmenRa]

John Smith drove on the seemingly endless road through Smallville. He had taken a circumventing route back to the interstate to Metropolis because he needed time to think. He needed time to plan.

The rows upon rows of corn stalks seemed to give him a bit of framework for his busy Kryptonian mind as he passed them. Off in the distance, in some of the fields, stood irrigation systems and farther still, silhouted here and there by the sky, were silos.

Ra's al Ghul. After all these years. And why such an interest in Bruce Wayne? Could it have something to do with Wayne's parents? Their death? Or does he see something in Wayne?

But that was the least of it. Var-Sen couldn't put it all together right now, but he knew it was all linked somehow.

There was a logical explanation. Many years ago there was a fellowship of sorts, a league of men interested in science. What they were called was irrelevant, but they existed for one purpose: to evaluate and monitor alien visitors to Earth.

On more than one ocassion these men were faked out by clever governments or people wanting attention. But there was one instance where they encountered that which they had prepared to encounter. And this one instance was where they met Var-Sen and two other Kryptonian scientists.

There had been a human female among them, the only woman in the lot, and she had been the reason Var-Sen had willingly stayed behind. It had come at a price, for both of them.

The group's membership list. with the exception of a few, had read like a Who's Who of the World's Wealthiest Men.

Virgil Swann
Lionel Luthor
Charles Xavier
Thomas Wayne

and Henri Ducard.

Var-Sen stopped his SUV in the middle of the road. This made no sense, and he was too much of a Kryptonian to not be paranoid. What if Ducard, or someone else unseen, was secretly searching for The Artifact? With it he would have access to a wealth of Kryptonian technology and knowledge.

Var-Sen had to find it before anyone else did. But, he was an Earthbound Kryptonian who had no vast resources or protection. At least not right now.

He opened his cell phone and dialed a number. Someone on the other end answered, and then transferred his call again. This time, the receptionist's voice was bright and cheerful.

"Lionel Luthor's office," she said through the phone. "Who may I say is calling?"

"Smith," he told her, "John Smith."

As he waited for the call to be put through, he noticed he had stopped at the driveway to one of Smallville's many farms. The mailbox beside the road read "KENT".

 

[Superman1496]

Alfred

Alfred stood there, doing the laundry. He was in the middle of ironing Master Bruce's shirts, when a phone call came. He walked out of the laundry room into the hallway to answer it.

Wayne Manor. Alfred stated on the phone.

Yes, this is Mr. Ducard Alfred. I was wondering if I could come over for a while, and prepare a suprise for Mr. Wayne. The voice replied.

Well Mr. Ducard, I suppose that would be just fine. I do have one question for you though, and I hope that as a butler I am not intruding, but does any of this happen to do with the League of Shadows? Alfred inquired.

Alfred, my good friend. All I can say is that Thomas' work must be finished, and I think that Bruce is the perfect person for the job. Ducard said.

No one said much for a moment.

Alfred, Ducard started. I just want to let you know that when I asked you to watch over the Wayne family years ago, I didn't expect you to do such a great job. I'm proud of the work you have done, and the commitment to Bruce you have. He finished.

Well Mr. Ducar, I am the only one that Master Bruce feels he has. And he's really the only one I have left too.

Yes, terrible news about your sister. What happened with your niece? Is she okay?

She'll be fine. I was going to invite her to stay with Master Bruce and I for a while. I know that she fancies Bruce pretty well, and would do great away from the city. Just like Bruce.

Well Alfred, you are a real gentleman. Keep up the good work old man. And I'll see you soon. Ducard said as he got off the phone.

Alfred went back to the laundry. But his mind was somewhere else. He started thinking about his niece. Her mother was a lovely soul. Now she was alone like Bruce.

And Bruce. The League of Shadows had found him after all these years. One of the reasons that Alfred took Bruce away from Gotham City.

Now they found him, and they had him. And their work was to be finished. No matter what became of Bruce.

Alfred didn't like it. Not at all.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe grinned brightly. Evidently, she didn't feel awkward in the slightest.

I don't need an appointment? Miss Sullivan's eyes glittered delightedly. That, Mister Wayne, is the right answer.

She punched his cell number into her contacts list on her own phone, deftly snapping it shut before slithering her arm into Bruce's.

She smiled at him like she owned the world, and stood atop it. Because in this moment, arm in arm with a handsome mystery, that was pretty much how she felt.

"Latin's next on my agenda," she grinned. "But Mr. Gladstone always gives you a bye on tardies if you can bounce a choice literary Latin phrase off of him. I've been saving up a good one: 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.'"

"I just need to swing by The Torch first, drop off the 'corder," she gazed up at him. "If you don't mind the detour, that is?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Emil

Emil didn't sleep a wink that night.

Meyer and Boyajian stole naps leaning against walls. Eventually, they went looking for chairs and dragged them into the lab, and dozed sitting down.

But Emil did not permit himself the luxury of rest. Beakers bubbled o'er, and centrifuges whined.

He squinted into microscopes until he could barely see straight.

Until there was a victory, if only a small one. A very tiny victory, but a victory nevertheless.

Wild-eyed from lack of sleep, looking very nearly just as rumpled as he'd been when Meyer and Boyajian had first found him in Ceri's garage, Emil stumbled into the smaller lab in which he had last seen Randal Graves.

"Randal," Emil wheezed, holding his side as he had been running. "Randal, can you hear me? Are you in here?"

Meyer and Boyajian skidded up behind him, shaking their heads.

Meyer had beaten up his share of nerds in school, and he'd never seen a man of science run as fast as Emil Hamilton. The man had the strength of his convictions, he had to give him that. Crazy son of a bitch.

Emil held up the phial Randal had given him the day before, held it up high in the air between a metal thumb and a metal index finger...

It no longer contained a patch of meteor-rock mist. It no longer contained a tiny tendril of emerald smoke. It contained a tiny tiny bead of red red fluid.

Human blood.

Emil had changed it back, from mist into blood.

He wheezed, and he held his side, but he held the phial aloft like it was The Holy Grail.

"Randal," Emil called, searching the air desperately for a sign of the man. "Randal, I need more samples!"

 

[Superman1496]

If you want to stop by the Torch, that's fine. Don't worry, I have history next, and I'll be late. That's fine. Bruce said. They walked up to the doors, arm in arm.

So, Ms. Sullivan, what questions do you have for the boy billionare, stuck in Smallville? Bruce asked as they walked down the empty hallway, lined with the red and yellow colored lockers.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe arched a golden eyebrow at him, and, squeezing the camcorder into her laptop bag, she produced the digital voice recorder from where it had continued to sit tucked in the waistband of her skirt. Pressing the "REC" button, Chloe ran her tongue over the front of her teeth and contemplated Bruce Wayne.

"Well, that's as good a place to start as any," she decided. "Isn't the whole big wide world your oyster? There's a good number of folks here in small-town America that would give their eye teeth to get away. It's hard to imagine that a young man with opportunities like yours would come here willingly. What brings you to Smallville, Bruce?"