The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[AmenRa]

Lionel cleared his throat.

"Scientifically, they are of extreme importance," he told his son. "And I know science is something you've got a keen interest in," he added. He then gave Lex a carefully rehearsed, and very fact-filled, reason.

"There are competitors in the areas of crop genetics, fertilizers, high-yield hydroponics, and other markets of our endeavors that have taken an interest in Smallville," Lionel told him. "I'm sure you've noticed, son. Wayne Technologies, Stark Enterprises, and if you will pick up a copy of today's Daily Planet, you will see a front page liner about Queen Industries building in Granville.

"Smallville has to want the Luthors there," he finished. "By taking an interest in the community, especially artifactual sites such as the Kawatche cave shows we care about the area. And it puts us ahead of the game."

And it keeps Lionel abreast of what's going on. He wasn't sure what Thomas Wayne's son was doing in Smallville. Or, if the rumor about another billionaire heir was true. He knew, though, pointing Lex in their direction would bring lots of things to light.

"If this were Japan, son," Lionel explained, "then those other companies would be koretsu. 'Business is war'. I need you to be my shogun and keep the ronin in check."

 

[AmenRa]

A Planet Dies

In the early hours of the morning, a scientist places the last of the programming crystals into the small space craft that rests upon a pedestal in his lab. As tremors from deep within Krypton reverberate throughout the chamber, he looks at the ship, its interior soft and covered with blankets of blue, red, and gold. It will be a warm place, a place of nurturing, a place of solitude. It will be a place of safety.

He is standing and looking as his wife brings in their infant daughter. Her eyes are so full of wonder and she smiles at them both as he takes her from her mother's arms. He holds her to him and kisses her gently on the forehead. He then lowers her into the soothing glow of the space craft's interior.

Through tears, Allura In-Zee asks her husband, "Why Earth, Zor-El? She will be different."

Blinking away tears of his own, he answers, "She will be a god among men. Earth's yellow sun will give her powers beyond imagination. This will ensure her survival. And because she survives, Krypton will live forever."

Zor-El looks at his daughter and see her eyes wide and full of glee. He smiles at her as tears began to fall down his face. With a trembling hand he reaches forward and inserts the key that closes the ship.

"Goodbye my little Kara," he says to her as the hatch closes, "we will always be with you."

Deep within the planet's core, the power crystals have begun to fuse with Krypton's molten center. The resulting energy is given off as a series of explosions which rock their way to the surface.

It won't be long now. It won't be long at all.

The ship carrying the infant Kara Zor-El rises through the roof the laboratory while two heart stricken parents look on. In an instant, the ship accelerates, leaving the atmosphere of the planet that created it and entering space.

The power crystals complete the fusion process. Krypton's core cools, rapidly. The heat and fusion has now transformed the crystals. They no longer glow red. Now, they are green. Their matrix has been re-aligned, and they have harnessed and contained the natural radiation of the planet. And now, they give off energy exponentially, just as instructed by the Brain InterActive Construct. The energy can not be contained. It rips through the planet, beginning from the core and expanding outward within a microsecond. The shock wave reaches all parts of Krypton's surface simultaneously.

Krypton explodes.

The resulting shock wave rips into corona of Rao, the red sun. The thermonuclear reactions that sustained the star are destabilized. Rao goes nova in a blinding, brilliant flash of violence as the red giant dies.

At this instant, the tiny ship opens a hyperspace vortex that connects its home galaxy with one of the other twenty-eight known galaxies called the Milky Way. The ship enters the vortex, pelted by fragments of an exploded world that travel the journey as well.

Inside the ship, Kara Zor-El rests comfortably. The ship's recording of her mother's voice has lulled her to sleep. She is safely tucked away inside the space craft that is now traveling the three-year journey to the third planet of the Sol system.

The ship knows nothing. It has no conscience, only its programming. However, if it was sentient, if it was self-aware, then it would know that it had been very much responsible for saving the life of the one it carried.

And it would know that it did this so she could, in turn, become the savior of Earth.

 

[Ithica]

Selena moved through the crowd trying not to push her way out. She had no desire of starting anything while still in the unsupervised mob of teenagers. The actions of the streaker had pulled more kids from the classrooms and into the hallway, but what had kept them there, was the jock doing a good imitation of roid rage.

It felt like the chaos outside had made its way into the school and the disturbing lack of teachers drove Selena to get out as soon as possible. The noise levels started to increase as did the pushing.

The crowd around her began to thin and she looked back at the larger group. Selena began to wonder how much longer it would be before someone took advantage of the situation. At that thought, she looked up at the sprinklers on the ceiling with some interest…

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce looked around. He didn't see any. He wondered if they were busy somewhere else, maybe with another victim.

But it wouldn't take the entire staff to help one student, would it?

Chloe, where is the teacher's lounge. If there aren't adults around, then it is our job to take their place. Bruce said, looking Chloe into her eyes.

'As much fun as she must be having, she looks a little shaken.' Bruce thought to himself. But, he could just be seeing things.

Staring into her eyes as he waited for her to focus, he thought that he had seen something in her eyes that had never been seen by his eyes...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe held her hand to her head. She was tired. But she was strong.

She wasn't the strongest person in the world. But she wasn't weak.

Carrying Thomas had taken a lot out of her. Even if Rose didn't have a good head on her shoulders (jury? still out on that), she did, apparently, have a strong set of shoulders.

She shook her head ruefully. "I'm sorry, Bruce," she chuckled faintly. "I kind of got lost there for a minute. This is... this is the biggest thing to happen to the school itself for... well, for ten years. With the possible exception of last year's senior prank. Herd of goats. Funny story."

She shook her head, and she laughed, ever so ruefully.

"I wasn't there for that," she grunted, and her lip quirked. "But I did help volunteers shovel up goat droppings. For fertiliser."

She got a move on, leading the way to the teacher's lounge, more to the northern side of the school.

"The point is?" she grumbled as she ran. "This is your standard quintessential journalistic ethical dilemma. You can't report on the story if you're part of it. That's like... I dunno... insider trading or something. Cardinal no-no. But at the same time? We can't just sit here and do nothing for the sake of a story, if people are suffering. The question becomes, when do we stop being human beings, and start just being journalists? Tough call, right?"

She shuddered as a fresh batch of students came running to see what was up, and she nearly got bowled over. She and Bruce were like salmon swimming upstream.

"Good Lord," she wheezed, "I've died and gone to 'Cloverfield.'"

But on they pressed, on they pressed. And shortly thereafter, there it was, just ahead down the hall: the teacher's lounge.

"I was thinking we'd get two of those four-cup styrofoam carrying trays, load them up with cocoa," she said, as she approached the doorway. "Probably shouldn't get coffee, because Pete said the drinks just needed to be warm and sweet and I don't know what the diuretic in the caffeine would do to those guys."

The door was open just a crack, and Chloe leaned in to peer in through that crack, squinting even as she listened.

She heard them talking, worried hushed tones, wondering where Principal Jamison could be and why The Hell he would summon them here for a faculty meeting at this time of day...

From the sound of things, more than a couple of them were over by the windows debating the purpose of the news vans. One of them worried, loudly, that legal scandal would soon descend upon them.

"Well, that's brilliant," she grunted over her shoulder at Bruce. "Nero fiddling while Rome burns, multiplied by several. Maybe it's not such a tough call to get involved after all."

 

[Superman1496]

Chloe stood against the door, listening inside. Bruce could hear voices as well.

Well, I'm more of a Spartan myself. Never retreat. Overcome or parish. Bruce said. He walked right inside the teachers lounge, right passed Chloe.

The teachers stopped talking immediatly, and watched silently as Bruce walked to the stack of cups by the sink. He grabbed a coffee pot, and filled it up with water, and set it on the coffee pot.

Under the sink, he found packets of cocoa. Several, actually. He grabbed a large handfull, and placed them on the counter.

The eyes of the teachers behind him seemed to stab Bruce in the spine.

But if they weren't going to do something, he had too. Chloe was a reporter, not a hero. Not that Bruce was a hero, but he wasn't a reporter, nor was he going to hide out in the teachers lounge while people suffered in the very hallways out side.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: Sorry if it's seemed like I've disappeared, just been really tired lately. I'll get a post out as soon as I can =)

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Principal Jamison sat in his office, tapping a pencil against the wooden surface. He had a good view of the outside world from his position of power, and he had used that power more than once to dictate where the school would focus its resources.

Time was a precious thing. And since money equaled time then it couldn't be wasted.

Folding his hands together, Jamison looked over at his schedule, noting that there was actually a block of time where he could simply relax in his office.

All that changed when Lucy came in. She had bypassed the chemistry lab when she noticed the main school offices, including the principals.

'This ought to be good' she said to herself, walking through the door just as Principal Jamison stood up. He looked out the window, hands folded behind his back. Lucy stared at him for a moment, the air inside the room dropping a little. Taking over the mind of an adult was a far more daunting task, so she needed every single advantage to make him feel weak. She finally struck, pushing herself into his body and forcing his spirit to take a hike. It had been quite a rumble, but she managed to wrest control after a while.

'Would all teachers please report to the faculty lounge.' Lucy had him order through the PA system. That would keep them from dealing with the chaos that had begun taking over the school. Lucy grinned as she reclined in the leather-bound chair. She kicked her feet up on the desk and simply watched time go by for a bit.

"Alright. Let's go." she said to herself, having the principal stand up and exit his office. She'd make him take a slight detour, first, however, stopping down at the cafeteria for a 'surprise inspection'. What Lucy had Jamison do, however, was quite simply trash the place.

She could see it now... the Torch headline reading: 'Principal Jamison goes on a rampage, fires entire kitchen crew'

Lucy felt weak all of a sudden. Perhaps it was the heat downstairs in the kitchen... she felt her control over the principals body slipping.

'Damn' if she didn't take it easy she'd be forced out... forced to retreat back to her own body.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe blinked. This was a changed Bruce, she hadn't been just seeing things. He'd laughed off vigilantism and costumed heroics like these were obsolete relics of last year's haute couture and he was Tim Gunn, but now he was getting "all up in there" and making a difference, people's perceptions of him be damned. He was making it work.

"'Spartan,'" she quoted softly, with feeling, "'return with your shield, or on it.'"

Chloe fumbled, and she found her cellphone, and she managed to snap two quick pictures. One of the dumbfounded, goggle-eyed reaction of the collective teaching staff, and one of Bruce, boldly going where few students had gone before. She even managed to sneak in a five-second video, a pan back and forth, either for The Torch website or for YouTube.

She saw Coach Walt, standing there and fuming. Even when he was happy, Coach Walt was fuming, but right now smoke seemed to be coming from his ears.

She saw the Home Ec teacher licking her matronly lips. She was unforgiving at the best of times, and right now she seemed about ready to shed her skin and reveal the bizarre anthropomorphic reptile that students had long suspected hid within. (No-one that mean could be warm-blooded, could they?)

She saw Assistant Principal Kwan. She saw Pete's Spanish teacher, and the typing teacher, and the regularly scheduled history teacher...

Ah! Mr. Gladstone, Latin teacher extraordinaire. (A friendly face, at least!)

Coach Walt was opening his mouth, looked like he was ready to light Bruce on fire, but then Chloe was in the room and holding her hand up, her face twisted in concern...

She wasn't going to let Bruce take the heat from this alone. Reporter or not, she liked him bunches and Pete had decided that Bruce was "his boy," and that practically made Bruce family.

"Hello, everyone," she blinked, as she suddenly realised all eyes in the room (except Bruce's, natch) were on her. "Everyone. Hello."

"Students ain't permitted in th' faculty area," Coach Walt growled. "Least of all dirt-grubbin' tattletale nosy parkers an' self-important pantywaist rich kids."

"Students 'ain't permitted' to run naked through the halls, either," Chloe retorted, "or to break their own faces on things, but two of your vaunted crew have already engaged in such activity. All Hell's breaking loose out here, are you guys completely oblivious?"

Kwan's eyes widened and he went to the door, peering out first one way down the hall, and the other.

The remaining teachers shifted uncomfortably.

Miz Lizard from Home Ec sneered disapprovingly. "We have instructions from Principal Jamison to remain here. Evidently he has something he wants to tell us."

"It can wait, though, right?" Chloe suggested. "I don't mean to interfere. I'm just... reporting."

The remaining teachers exchanged furtive looks and muttered.

Chloe shook her head in agonised disbelief, but then darted her gaze over to Mr. Gladstone.

"Sir, Professor, please," she pleaded. "'Libera nos a malo.'"

Mr. Gladstone was slight of build, and balding. His voice often reminded students of Piglet from "Winnie The Pooh." But he was a good man, and he could stand up to the worst of student hecklers in his own class.

He took a moment to gather himself, but then he rose from his chair with a fist in the air.

"By God," he declared, "she's right. Students' safety is at stake, and Jamison's got us all tangled up in bureaucratic nonsense?"

Coach Walt grunted, refusing to be out-done by a skinny nerd. "I don't believe f'r a Gotham second that my players'd let 'emselves be caught up in anythin' unt'ward, but at th' same time? Havin' reporters roamin' th' halls and findin' th' teachers ineffective, that'd be bad f'r business."

"Right!" Chloe snapped her fingers, pointed at Coach, she didn't care why they helped so long as they got off their butts and helped. (The dig on reporters did not go unnoticed; she just had more important concerns.) "Bad for business. That too! We'll go with that."

As one, the teachers regarded Assistant Principal Kwan, who still stood debating with himself in the doorway. He turned and looked back over his shoulder at all of them, his face grim.

He didn't say a word. He simply nodded.

As one, the teachers readied themselves, and began moving out into the hallway. Chloe pressed herself off to the side, surreptitiously putting herself out of the way... but her cameraphone was down by her hip and filming as best as it could.

She grinned softly. She couldn't report on any of this, at least not ethically. But maybe she could pick up a new staff reporter from kids who'd missed out on the action, and the least she could do for this theoretical new reporter would be to give them plenty to work with.

"'Libera nos a malo,'" she repeated softly. "'Deliver us from evil.'"

 

[Ithica]

Selena decided that what she needed was a good distraction. She looked back up at the sprinklers and then over at the switch that would sound the alarm. She wasn’t sure if flipping that switch would turn on the sprinklers or not.

It wouldn't be good enough if just the alarm came on because everyone might go outside minus the mayhem. However, to turn on the sprinklers may require getting up close to a sensor with something burning. Unfortunately, someone standing on a chair in the middle of the hallway is a little attention grabbing. She could not risk going down another quieter hallway because it may not set off the sprinklers she wanted.

She was just about the settle on just the alarm when she heard yelling and a body slam against a locker. Selena looked over at the large crowd that was forming a circle around the combatants. Selena quickly ran into the nearest empty classroom and could not help but laugh at how convenient this all was.

She pulled a chair into the hallway and ripped a piece of paper from her binder. Selena stood on the chair and quickly made sure no one was watching her. She could barely hear the noise of the fight over the noise of the crowd. She lit the paper and held it up. “Come on start.”

To Selena it felt like everything else was slowed down except for the paper, which seemed to be burning faster than it should. She kept her face turned away from the sprinkler unsure of how fast the water would come out.

Finally, she felt it hit the side of her head and the alarm when off. Maybe it took a few seconds to register what was going on but the screams did come from the mob. Selena jumped off the chair, grabbed her books, and shoved the chair back into the classroom. She heard it run into something and fall over but at that point, she didn’t really care. She turned off from the hallway and ran further into the school away from the crowd of students…

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Pete, and Earl (and Mikey)

Rose felt Thomas grow warmer, felt his body temperature elevate to a more appropriate 98.6 Fahrenheit, and even as he grew warmer she felt him dozing off.

He smiled appreciatively in his sleep, as if some distant part of him realised someone had helped him. More likely, he liked the fact that a girl had cuddled him while he was near-starkers. (Not just one girl, either! ...though not at the same time.)

But he was okay now. He was okay. Rose double-checked him with her infrared vision... he was the right colour for a person.

She sighed, relieved, and grinned. Kyle wasn't the only one who could help people.

Then she clicked back to normal vision, and she saw one of the A/V geeks, Michael, lugging a pile of clothes and looking a little shell-shocked. A pile of clothes that included, of all things, a Smallville High letterman jacket with the name "Thomas" embroidered onto a patch on the right arm.

"Pssst," she hissed, "Mikey!"

Michael jumped, blinked, looked at her sharply.

Rose grinned and waved. "I think those are his. Help me into the music room with him? We can get him dressed and shove together the piano benches, give him a place to lay down."

Michael seemed dubious that the kid who ran the slide projectors and a soft-spoken female dabbler in science should have anything to do with helping a soldier of the testosterone elite. But then again... maybe if Michael did this Thomas guy a favour, Thomas'd tell his buddies to stop wedgieying Michael...

Worth a shot. Worth a shot.

Plus? The soft-spoken female dabbler in science was not entirely unpretty.

Grunting and blowing, they staggered Thomas into the music room and helped him into his raiment anew.

Then, as Rose had suggested, they pushed the three or four piano benches together... Thomas' feet kind of dangled, and his arms, but at least the benches had cushions on them, and he didn't look entirely uncomfortable.

He was warm now, and clothed, and if he was lucky he'd sleep through the worst of what was going on out in the halls.

Rose gave Michael's hand a grateful squeeze, if only a quick one. "You're a good person, Mikey. Thanks."

Michael nodded, awwshucks-ed, scuffed his toes abashedly.

Rose beamed at him, but then hurried back out into the hall. There was, it seemed, more work to be done. And she wanted to figure out what that weird temperature drop had been.

Michael eyed Thomas momentarily. Considered giving the sumbitch a wedgie while he was sleeping. Or at least a wet willy.

But he looked at the hand that Rose had squeezed and he sighed. Didn't want to cancel out being a good person by doing a petty thing. He shook his head and rejoined the throng.

By the time he got out there, Rose had vanished into the crowd. He decided to head for the relative safety of the A/V room. Even during the craziest of times, a vast percentage of the student body forgot Smallville High even had an A/V room.

===

Pete Ross jogged down the hall, medical light stuck into his belt, First Aid Kit under his arm. He hadn't found any more freezing victims, which was a relief.

How The Hell were they so cold durin' early September, anyway? The stupid-ass jock proving ground of swimming in near-frozen, off-limits Crater Lake don't usually start 'till after the first snows. What, is this like the reverse of... of spontaneous human combustion or something? Spontaneous human... gettin' real cold?

Pete shook his head dismally.

I blame CFCs.

And then the sprinklers went off and Pete swore dramatically, attempting to use the case of the First Aid Kit as a makeshift shield, like a businessman might use his briefcase or Vin Diesel might use a serving tray.

Did somebody start a fire? Damn, this place is seriously goin' to the dogs.

He saw the cafeteria ahead, and it occurred to him that maybe they were having a grease fire or something, that maybe he should check this out.

Water spattered around him, and his sneakers sloshed a bit as he ran. He tried not to slip.

But as he skidded into the caf', his jaw dropped and he made a thoroughly incredulous face.

The sprinklers were on in here, too, and the kitchen staff were screaming and crying and there were condiments everywhere. Mystery meat and creamed corn covered the floor by the serving counter.

A big older lady in a hairnet brandished a spatula and bellowed at Principal Jamison... she was not happy with him, apparently she was suing him for wrongful termination, suing The School Board.

But Jamison barely acknowledged her existence, except to place a palm on her face and shove her to the ground. She hit, sharply, landing on her butt, and the shock of the landing took the wind out of her sails. She sat there in the gathering puddles of the sprinkler system, and she began to whimper quietly.

Jamison kept right on going. He flipped a table onto its face, started tearing Booster Club posters off of the wall, grabbed a cauldron of split-pea soup and started ladling it left right and centre...

All the while his face was cold. Methodical. Determined. Like it hadn't occurred to him that he was being a complete psycho-nut.

Pete discarded the First Aid Kit and ran for the man, waving at him. "Principal Jamison! Snap out of it, man! They're gonna fire your butt for sure!"

Jamison looked Pete in the eye. He looked thoughtful for a moment.

Pete grinned, and sighed relievedly. "Dude, cool. Cool. I was worried you'd totally lost--"

Jamison tossed the ladle away and dumped the remainder of the soup over Pete's head. Fortunately, it wasn't scalding hot... this was lunchroom soup, after all, best temperature one could expect would be lukewarm.

Still, though. It was pretty unpleasant. Pete didn't even like peas.

He staggered back, wiping soup out of his eyes with his sleeves, with his fingertips, coughing and spluttering. "That ain't right. That ain't right. That tears it... from now on? I am brown-baggin' my lunch."

He turned, though, and made for the door. He needed an adult. He needed someone of authority. He needed...

Mr. Earl Jenkins was standing out in the hall gazing mournfully up at the sprinklers, holding a mop before him like a quarterstaff. The mop was already soaked through, and there was too much water... too much water, and more coming down. It was Earl's worst nightmare. Even worse than that herd of goats.

"Mr. Jenkins!" Pete was rinsing the soup off of himself just by standing there, but he still looked like a wreck. "Mr. Jenkins! Principal's gone Travis Bickle, man. You gotta help me!"

Mr. Jenkins, meanwhile, was the antithesis of Mr. Gladstone. Tall black guy, solid as a rock, looked like he'd maybe been USMC in a previous life. He could be scary as Death when he wanted to be, but only when he wanted to be.

Right now? He looked scary. Brandishing his mop, he followed Pete into the cafeteria with a grim expression on his face.

It turned out Principal Jamison was stronger than he looked, or had the strength of madness, and Earl and Pete's first attempt to tackle the man ended with disaster. He grabbed Earl's mop and he snapped it in twain, he elbowed Pete in the centre of the chest...

Earl managed to get a good grip around Jamison's shoulders but Jamison tried to shove a thumb into Earl's eye and Earl had to retreat with a scowl.

Serenely, coolly, Jamison declared that Earl was fired. He declared that Pete was expelled.

The expulsion hit Pete like a slap to the face.

The termination glanced off of Earl like a laser light bouncing off of a mirror. He shrugged. Janitors could always find work... he could always throw in with Luthorcorp, or SMC. If that failed, he could just as easily go back to being a farmhand. Maybe Jonathan Kent would still have a place for him.

So he swarmed back in, grabbed Jamison by the belt, and bodily lifted the man, picked him up, and tossed him over a table for him to land in a heap on the other side. Earl wasn't concerned for his own safety, not in the least. He just wanted to shut this nutbag down before he ruined anyone else's lives...

Jamison had apparently landed fairly well, because he shot to his feet, overturned another table, and used this one as a battering ram, shoving Earl back into a wall...

Earl was strong, but his feet betrayed him as he slipped on the watery floor and he cracked his head against the white-painted brickwork and slumped over, out cold.

Pete, still reeling from the idea that he had been expelled-- now I'll never live up to my brothers, big ol' football stars, I'll never be a medico like I wanted, never be a lawyer like Mom wanted --instantly recovered when he saw Mr. Jenkins taken out, and he roared and threw himself at the stupid stupid crazy man like one of those oft-mentioned Spartans, throwing himself to "a beautiful death."

He forgot all he knew about "grace under pressure" and he pitched himself headlong at Jamison... "RRRAAAAAAAHH!"

...Jamison whirled, and grabbed Pete by the back of the neck, and cracked Pete face-first into the top of another table.

Pete was down. He wasn't quite out, but his head was spinning and he was having trouble keeping his feet under him.

And that was when Rose walked in.

Unlike Pete or Mr. Jenkins, or the principal, or any of the kitchen staff, Rose didn't have water in her eyes. She had discovered, with a mild, cheerful jolt, that just as she could summon water droplets to form them into ice, she could push whole spattery globs of water away from her eyes, with naught but a soft exertion of will.

All over the rest of her, she was soaked to her skin, her t-shirt and her jeans and her thickly-bound red hair...

But she could see fine. She could see Jamison standing there like some kind of android gone wrong, like some robot in violation of Asimov's Three Laws. She could see lunch ladies pulling their friend off of the floor and dragging her back into the kitchen, sobbing tearfully all the while. She could see Mr. Jenkins slumped like a puppet with severed strings, though he jittered slightly. She could see Pete Ross, Chloe's friend and confidant and co-conspirator, struggling to right himself on the floor.

And she was scared.

But she wasn't just scared.

She was angry. Lord and Master of all he surveyed, big kahuna behind his big mahogany desk declaring Law and Order and here he was inflicting mayhem?

'What are you afraid of?'

She couldn't use her powers in front of people they'd think she was wrong they'd think her a freak they'd cart her off and dissect her, scientists far less human and moral than her father...

'What are you more afraid of?'

I'm afraid of letting this berk get away with inflicting mayhem.

Kyle wasn't the only one who could help people.

She took a long, sweeping step forward, and Jamison noticed the movement and started to turn, started to lift his head to look at her instead of contemplating the fallen Pete..

Blue-white energy crackled over her fingers, lashed the puddle at Jamison's feet, turned it to ice. He slipped, stumbled, struggled to right himself, but he was still turning in her direction...

Her palm came up and her lips curled back and her eyes were ringed with red: "Expelliarmus!"

Her hand flashed reddish gold and a globe of fiery fury launched therefrom...

...it wouldn't light him on fire, surely not, it was more explosive concussion than anything else, she wouldn't dare scar the man...

It exploded against his chest and some of the water on his body hissed to steam and he slipped anew on the ice, landing on his back on the table against which he'd just thumped Pete.

He sat up, and for a moment, he seemed as if he were aware of himself and his actions. Like that Asimov robot had just discovered that it was sentient after all, that its free will was not just an abstract human concept. He blinked rapidly...

...but he wasn't all there.

He was more there, more there than he had been. But he wasn't all there.

Rose's hands curled into fists, and she glowered at him.

"What's come over you, Mr. Principal?" she demanded.

"Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."
-G.K. Chesterton.
(from Quotations on Courage, compiled by James Hamilton)

"I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said"
-"32 Flavors," by Ani DiFranco
(scribbled by Rose McCrimmon in the margins of Quotations on Courage)​

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Lucy was a bit surprised when the sprinklers came on all of a sudden, but she smiled when the thought that she had caused it all somehow entered her mind.

Smallville High had treated her like garbage... so she was glad that it was starting to go to the dogs.

"Principal Jamison! Snap out of it, man! They're gonna fire your butt for sure!"

Lucy looked at him for a few brief moments, her brain trying to figure out whether she knew him or not. In the end... well it didn't really matter. He was probably a jerk too... just like the rest of them. The scuffles that proceeded shortly after we not quite what Lucy had in mind, and though the principal had a great deal of strength in him... it wouldn't last much longer. This wasn't Lucy's body, so she wasn't able to tap into all his strength.

Luckily she was able to handle them both with what strength she had left. Earl was out cold, and the younger kid was well on his way.

This was highly amusing.

Well... it used to be.

A young woman showed up at the scene, and Lucy was starting to wonder if they had caught on to her little charade. No... they didn't know it was her. They were probably just looking for their principal.

She'd have to take her out.

What transpired, however, was something Lucy wasn't quite expecting. She felt a surge of heat blast against the principals body, and for a brief moment she had lost nearly all control over the man. It was if she had been hit by an 18-wheeler.

Lucy just couldn't hold on for much longer. She was tired... and the Principal was growing stronger.

"No! He's mine! You'll all pay!" she scowled, the principal acting as a vessel to express her outright anger towards Rose. In a moment, however, Lucy was once again outside, her spiritual body having been rejected.

This girl... this red-haired woman...

'Darn you...' Lucy scowled as she retreated from the room. Her time at Smallville High seemed to be at an end, and Lucy found her way back to her unconscious body, lying upstairs in her own bedroom.

 

[Superman1496]

The typing teacher took the cocoa from Bruce. I'll take it from here. Don't worry. She told him. Her and another teacher took off with the cups of cocoa.

Then the water hit. Chloe stood there, getting wet, looking a little supriced. Someone is behind this. It's not just natural. Bruce said. Bruce could not imagine kids getting hypothermia, becoming chaotic, the teachers all alone from the mess, and now, the fire system going off.

Bruce, the newly found Spartan, walked out of the room, brushing past Chloe. His shirt stuck to his body, and his shoes were soaked as the water began to collect on the floor.

Just to the right of the teachers lounge was the cafeteria. Rose stood there, looking quite differently then he had seen her before. Bruce walked into the cafeteria.

Princepal Jamison laid there on the floor, next to Pete, who seemed to be really red in the face, possibly bleeding. Bruce ran over to the two. Pete was conscious, possibly a little bit aware of what was going around, but Princepal Jamison seemed to be out on the floor.

Bruce helped Pete up onto a chair, and set Jamison up against the wall, out of the water. He was hot in the chest.

'First, people are hypothermic, now there heating up more then usual. What the hell kind of place is this?' Bruce asked.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe did freeze, just for a moment, as the rains came down, but then she realised what she was carrying... she didn't realise Bruce was even talking to her, she was too busy realising what she was carrying...

With a yelp, she hurried across the room, trying to shield her laptop bag with her body even as she shoved her cell into the bag's relatively protective confines. She slipped a little when she reached the window, but she was able to swing the thing open, pop the screen out with a shove, dangle the bag out, and drop it safely the short remaining distance into a flowerbed just outside.

She shoved her moisture-darkened blonde hair back out of her face, and a shiver chased its way throughout her body.

Oh, crap, no, her brain sputtered. The Torch. The Wall!

There were flashing lights on the wall, indicators in place for teachers to use in case of emergency, and she bit her lip as she carefully examined them. They were in the shape of a map of the school, and there were rooms outlined in red to indicate that there were sprinklers going off therein. It seemed that the smoke sensor that had gone off was in a stretch of hallway, but fortunately the sprinklers were keyed to general areas of the school...

...she sighed with relief, and she sagged against the nearest chair, laughing softly.

The Torch offices were outside of the red-lit areas. She had worked very hard with Van McNulty and Gabriel Duncan to make The Torch's computers water-resistant, but water-resistant was not waterproof.

Besides which, there were articles on The Wall of Weird and in The World of Weird that could not be replaced if they were ruined.

"Thank you, God," she breathed. Then she blinked, and smiled sheepishly Heavenwards, and she shook her head.

"Okay," she continued, heavy on the sardonic wit, "so now You're going to get all scowly and wrathful with me because it seems like I'm one of those people who only comes to You when they want something. And my priorities are all screwed up because I worried about my silly quest for Truth before I worried that people might burn in a fire."

She shrugged helplessly. She heard sirens outside through the open window, fire departments and ambulances responding to the alarm...

Horns blared loudly, as emergency personnel jostled with the news vans for space in the driveways and on the lawns.

"I just wanna go on record," she grinned faintly, wiping water off of her face, "(because I know Your stenographers are always working) as saying that I think I've done my bit in the chaos today, and that my quest for Truth isn't so much a quest for knowledge as a quest for wisdom, and I'm fairly certain wisdom is something You generally get behind."

She chuckled softly. "Anyway. Thank You. Thank You."

She stood, then, and climbed carefully out through the window, and shouldered her bag. Instead of walking through the school and destroying her laptop and Rose's notebook and her cellphone in the process, she opted to circle 'round the building, maybe try to get in one of the windows at The Torch.

Better safe than sorry. After all, age-old saying: 'Trust God, but lock up after yourself.'

 

[AmenRa]

In space, where it is cold and dark, something that moved would not be seen if it were also cold and dark.

If one were to look, they would not see blackness move against blackness, save for the twinkling out of stars as such a thing moved across them.

And if one were to look closer, they would see the distinctive wedge shape of blackness move against the star field. And they would see this wedge shaped thing turn seemingly of its own accord. If they were observant, and held the correct astronomical instruments, one would notice the object orient itself on a trajectory towards a distant galaxy called the Milky Way.

But even the most powerful telescope or radio telemetry could not see this thing, nor could such technology pick up any signs of this object being a space craft at all. No sensor or microwave or scan of any kind can pierce its density. The craft's metal skin over its triangular body is an alloy that is uniquely crystalline in composition, and it is as black as space itself.

It will be quite some time before any Earthbound technology would even be able to percieve the thing at all. There is a long journey ahead of the craft, through hyperspace conduits, wormholes, and things not yet even realized.

But the craft itself is not so important. Because, like the small ship that brought the Last Daughter of Krypton to Earth, this ship is not as important as what it carries.

The ship is the harbinger, bringing pain and plague in the form of a technological construct, a self-aware artificial intelligence that can replicate and infiltrate and derstroy.

And there is yet more. For with this most dangerous sentience are two of the most dangerous criminals one world had ever known. Be mindful they were not the most dangerous, but this only because they served the Most Dangerous.

They are the Disciples of Zod.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Pete, and Earl

"No! He's mine! You'll all pay!" the principal scowled, and the force of his rage was sufficient to drive even furious Rose back a step in surprise.

Who's yours? she wondered. He's yours? Who's he? Did someone steal the principal's boyfriend? Does... does the principal have boyfriends?

She was about to ask, but then Principal Jamison bucked like someone had plugged him into live, heavy-duty current, and then slumped, sliding off of the table and onto the floor.

Rose hesitated. It was hard to... process. The temperature of the room was a mess, everything scattered by the myriad droplets of water, infrared vision would be nearly useless, but it felt like...

It felt like something had left. Like that something that had been coming had come and had gone.

She breathed out, breathed a tentative sigh of relief. The firelight that rimmed her irises shimmered away, leaving only the blue.

Rose tucked that dripping forelock back behind her ear, and shook her head in absolute disbelief.

Did I... did I just perform an exorcism? I'm not... but I don't... I'm not sure I'm qualified to exorcise things. I didn't think it was an amateur event. Professionals only.

And then Bruce strolled by, taking charge, and Rose definitely got the impression that this, maybe, was the real him. There was more to him than met the eye, after all. But was this just another layer?

Who could say? Who could say?

Bruce tended to Pete and to Jamison, and Rose hurried over to the fallen Mr. Jenkins. She shoved the table out of the way that had been slammed into the janitor and she grinned, relieved, when he sat up and blinked at her.

Blearily, but consciously. "Did we get him?" he rasped, grabbing her upper arm. "Did we win?"

"Honestly?" Rose admitted. "I have no idea. I have no idea what just happened here. But... but... since we don't have an official ruling, I'll just decide 'yeah.' Yeah, we won."

Earl laughed throatily, rumblingly, and rubbed the back of his head with one hand.

"Good to hear," he decided. "Now I think I'll take the rest of the day off."

Pete shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The cold water was actually helping a little.

He smiled ruefully at Bruce, but gratefully. Gingerly, he touched his face, checked himself for bleeding...

There was a tiny bit of bleeding. But he didn't think he'd broken anything. He checked the little medical light, but he'd landed on it and the thing was cracked kind of in half.

"Well," he half-chuckled, half-lamented, "so much for checking me for concussion. huh? I think I'm okay. I think this entire damned school needs a freaking CAT scan and a psych-eval, but I think I'm okay."

He blinked, and he shook his head again, and he saw Bruce staring worriedly at Jamison's chest.

"What?" Pete frowned. "He okay? You, uh... you need me to talk you through givin' him CPR?"

 

[Superman1496]

Pete asked if Bruce needed help with CPR.

No Pete, I don't need help. Bruce said sternly. He knew how to perform CPR. No offence to Pete, but he really didn't need the help.

The water was still streaming from the ceiling. 'Someone had to have started that.' Bruce thought to himself.

Pete, Rose, do you two want to help me look for whoever started the sprinklers. I think that it might have been intentional. And seeings as how Mr. Jamison had the teachers confined to the lounge, and everyone is down here, I think someone might have needed a distraction somewhere else. Bruce asked, turning to look at the two freshmen.

Then he headed towards the hallway again.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie (Day 3: Foreshadowing)

The previous day had been... interesting. They had woken up together with no small amount of awkwardness. They hadn't been quite sure what to do with themselves.

After some short, panicked conversations, they had been able to determine that things were... okay. Not perfect, but okay.

They had been quick in agreeing that Ceri had been quite right: this was not to become a habit.

But then... but then... one thing had led to another, and another, and another. Habit-forming things.

This, in turn, had led to more awkwardness.

Eventually, Ceri had had to go to work at her salon near Nell's Bouquet, and while she'd done that, Jamie had voluntarily driven to the UPS place and picked up the hair extensions. After all, it had been his brother what had dropped the ball with intercepting the delivery, and it had been Jamie's own fault that Ceri hadn't been there to meet the delivery guy in the first place.

After that?

They hadn't wanted to go home straight away. Leaving a message for Rose on the machine at the house, they'd gone over to Granville for dinner and a movie.

Eventually, though, they'd gotten home. And, to their dismay, they'd the old machine had eaten the tape, such that any messages they'd gotten during the day had been devoured.

(This had included messages from the school faculty regarding certain events of the school day. This had included Rose's message regarding her intended whereabouts.)

But that morning, they had woken, and everything had been fine.

Except when Jamie had mentioned to Ceri what Rose had done the previous day, confessed in a moment of Ceri's absence.

Which had, ultimately, sparked the single biggest argument of their entire relationship. And that? Was saying something.

They had fought most of the day. They had fought while Ceri had dressed, and while Jamie had dressed, and Ceri had dragged Jamie to work with her so they could continue to fight when customers were not present.

It hadn't been until they had gone to the school that things had cooled down a bit.

And then only for a little while.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Pete, and Earl

Rose extended Earl a hand, and helped the much bigger man to his feet with a grunt.

Earl put his hand on Rose's shoulder, steadying himself, but he nodded firmly.

"You go on," he said to her, "you go earn your merit badges. I hear sirens out there... I'm gonna keep an eye on Mister Principal here 'till the police arrive."

"Scout's Honour," Rose nodded, but she didn't look away from Earl, didn't take her eyes off of him 'till she was sure he was seated, comfortably, next to Jamison.

Then she turned, and found Pete waiting for her, and she hurried with him to follow Bruce.

Pete looked decidedly pained.

"You okay?" she whispered to him. "You look like you took a pretty nasty header."

"M'fine," Pete dismissed, waving it off. "I was in and out for a second there. Thought I saw fireworks when Jamison fell over. But I'm good. I'm good."

He made a face at Bruce's back, and continued to Rose in a hush: "Guy's got brass stones, and he's m'boy, but someone's gotta tell him that just 'cause somebody crapped in his cereal, that's no reason for him to go crapping in everyone else's."

Rose pondered that as they went. "I'm not sure I know what any of that means. (So much for my superior linguistic skills.)"

Pete grinned winningly, infectiously. "Tch. Ain't no thang."

They followed Bruce out into the hall, Pete grabbing the ditched First Aid Kit as he went in hopes of patching himself up on the fly.

"I'm sure Bruce is just doing what he thinks needs to be done," Rose suggested as she peered about.

She glanced from one boy to the other, and she frowned a little. She had no way of finding the fire in all this cascading water, no way at all, not with her thermal senses and their synaesthetics. But was there another way? A more conventional way?

"Do we know where the fire started?" she wondered aloud. "Is there a way we can find out?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen drew the last of the symbols into the leather-bound journal. On that last piece of paper, beneath the glyph, he wrote the word "FATE".

He closed the book, securing its strap in place, and sat it on top of the satchel that in turn sat near his front door.

Unless there was some other compelling reason to stay, he would be leaving momentarily, bound for the Middle East on a plane made available by Lionel Luthor. Regardless of how much of the Kawatche writings Chloe had managed to decipher, he must leave. He must begin his own search for the pieces of the crystal.

He had written down translations to all the glyphs in the cave for Chloe. It was more than she would ever need, at least now. He wondered if it were too much. If he gave her the language of Krypton, his language, was he giving her too much? Was the price of knowledge too much of a burden for one so young to bear?

No, he decided, it was not. If something happened to him, then Chloe, Bruce, Rose, and Kyle were the only ones who could finish the quest, re-unite the crystal, and keep it safe until the Chosen One took possession of it.

And they must keep others from it. Men like Lionel Luthor, and Henri Ducard. And women, like descendants of the Earth-witch who nearly brought humanity to its knees.

Naman and Segeeth. The Star Blade. A being that could shoot fire from its eyes and had the strength of twenty men. These were the stories Chloe and her friends would learn from the Kawatche writings. But somewhere, in amongst those tales of legend was the locations of the three stones.

Var-Sen stood and went to his SUV, starting it up and heading towards the Interstate.

Something touched him as he drove. It was something distant, far, far away. A pulse. An energy channeled across thousands of light years. For just an instant, he heard it, he felt it within his Kryptonian blood.

Something was coming.

 

[Ithica]

So far, Selena had been taking advantage of the situation but her time was running out and no other opportunities had come up. The fun was wearing out and she had no plan. She thought to herself, “What really is there to do? Take off with the band’s fundraiser money.” She snickered. That would really be beneath her.

She decided that all the amuck had already been run until she walked past the Chemistry lab. Selena stopped in the empty hallway and stepped into the abandoned lab. She turned out the lights and propped a chair against the door.

Selena skipped down the rows of tables holding abandoned experiments and personal belongings. On her way by, she grabbed a backpack, dumped out its inhabitants, and slung it over her shoulder.

She opened the cupboards and carefully chose which containers she wanted. This being only a high school Chemistry lab, the choices were slim but the rest of the ingredients could be found elsewhere. She placed them in the bag, keeping the more dangerous elements separated. Selena grabbed a couple of sweaters off the nearby chairs and used them the mask the rattle of the bottles in the bag.

Having gotten what she wanted, she quickly walked back to the door…

 

[Superman1496]

Well, if someone did this all on purpose, then theres a chance that it was mirage for us. A distraction or something. Bruce said as the other two joined him. He had heard Pete's words, but decided not to say anything about it.

Don't fire sprinklers only go off in the area that is affected by the fire? Bruce asked as he stopped by a fire chart on the wall. He studied the map, noticing that they were standing in a red zone, and noticing what area's where outside of the zone.

According to this, the chemistry labs, and the writing labs are the only sections down here that is not affected by the water, and everything else upstairs is fine. If I'm reading this right. Bruce said.

Seeings as how the writing lab is in the middle of some chaos, Bruce said, remembering that it was there that he started helping the jock, I think that we should start looking towards the chem lab, and work our way upstairs. Bruce said. He figured that if someone was going to do something upstairs, they would have to come back down to get out.

But if it was still down stairs, they could leave through a window, or hell, the front door easily. Bruce walked down the hallway, heading towards the chem lab, thinking to himself.

What could possibly be in the chem lab that someone would want so bad? Or upstairs, in the history dept, or the english hall?

'With this high school,' Bruce thought to himself, 'I don't think anything would suprise me.'

Bruce turned to see if Pete and Rose were following him as he came up to the chemistry lab doors...

 

[Ithica]

Selena cautiously opened the door and was startled by the tall dark gorgeous man standing in front of her. Without loosing a beat she screamed, “I said stay away from me!”, and slammed the door in his face. She backed away from the door and forced herself to start crying. “Please, leave me alone!” she sobbed.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

Pete regretted speaking out against Bruce.

Rose hadn't been wrong, he realised. Bruce was just doing what needed to be done. What people in authority had failed to accomplish, Bruce was stepping up and bringing on. Pete'd just felt brought up short by Bruce's take-no-prisoners, take-no-horsecrap response to what he'd thought was a reasonably helpful question.

He'd apologise, he decided, when things had settled down a bit.

Rose, meanwhile, was keeping her own counsel on certain matters. She had taken down a threat, sure, but life went on. Life was always throwing something new at you, no time to rest on one's laurels, just go-go-go...

She wondered what her dad would have to say on the subject of exorcisms. Extraplanar beings and whatnot, astral projection, Forteana...

She wondered what her parents would say when she told them she'd fireballed the principal. Parents were so hard to read... she'd no idea if they'd berate her for taking such risks or applaud her for taking such initiative. Maybe she wouldn't tell them.

She could tell Kyle. Tonight. If... if he was okay. She wondered, with a pang of dread, if allasudden he'd have to go into some sort of billionaire equivalent of the witness protection program, move to Fawcett City or Star City or one of those Cities...

She wondered if she'd ever see him again. She wondered what colour his eyes had been before they were blazing lavender. Had they been blue, like his contacts?

Maybe he'd have to get new contacts if he went back underground. She wondered how he'd look with hazel eyes.

But then Bruce went to search the chem lab and somebody slammed the door in his face and burst into a fit of tearful hysterics and Rose tumbled back into the present with a lurch.

Pete frowned, and finished putting a band-aid over the bridge of his nose.

"Well," he grimaced, "that's... kinda unwarranted. You know that girl?"

Cringing, Rose stepped forward and knocked gently on the door. If this girl was suffering some sort of post-traumatic response, this needed to be handled delicately and she would probably benefit from hearing a fellow girl's voice.

If this girl was doing something underhanded, inflicting mayhem, however, they might have to put the hammer down.

But people were innocent until proven guilty, right? This was a basic guiding principle of American civilisation.

"Hello?" she asked gently, squinting through the door with her infrared vision.

Female, definitely in our age range, she quickly determined. Can't speak as to her mindset, though. I don't have enough experience with this stuff to polygraph her. I don't... I don't know enough. Innocent until proven guilty.

"Hello?" she asked gently. "Look, we're not here to hurt you. Not here to hurt you. We had something of an incident downstairs, and we're all being evacuated. Teachers need to get a head-count. Can you come with us? We're not here to hurt you."

 

[Superman1496]

The door to the chem lab slammed in Bruce's face. A voice on the other side started screaming. 'What the Hell?' Bruce thought to himself.

Rose came up to the door, trying to calm down the girl, but it didn't seem to be working. If this was the person who did this, she was definitly not all home upstairs. Bruce didn't think that Rose's idea would work. Especially if this was the person who caused the chaos.

Bruce looked around. He had to get in there, to secure the girl, and make sure that she didn't get away. There was the teachers office next door, which had a door that led into the chem lab.

Stay here, keep talking to her Rose. Pete, stay with her and watch over her. Bruce said. He turned and headed to the teachers office. But with all the teachers gone, the door could possible be locked, and Bruce did not want to crawl through a window into a room with a crazy person inside.

Bruce grabbed the door handle, and turned. It was unlocked. A breath of relief escaped Bruce's lips. He walked inside, and saw the girl barracked in the lab. He walked over to the doorway, where he could see her beautiful face, crying.

My name is Bruce. We aren't here to hurt you, we just want to talk. Bruce said calmly. His voice was different too. Instead of the typical happy-go-lucky Bruce, or the smart-headed Bruce, this was a different persona. A sympathetic one.

'God if Frued could see me now.' Bruce thought to himself. The girl looked at him. And Bruce prepared to run after her if he needed too.