The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Chloe, and Pete

Pete eyed Bruce, and eyed Lionel. He wanted to butt in, wanted to call Lionel a thief and a charlatan, call him out for wanting to rob The Kawatche just as he'd robbed The Family Ross...

...but with effort, with considerable effort, he was able to keep his lip buttoned.

And then, wearing jeans and a t-shirt that implored folks to vote for a man who'd been missing and presumed dead since the late 1970's, Chloe strode into the main cavern. She carried a cell phone, the same cell phone with which she'd alerted Bruce to her imminent arrival, on which she'd been receiving his pictorial play-by-play.

(Pete grinned with relief. Bruce had brass stones all right, but it looked like he'd reached the end of his silver tongue. The cavalry, however, had arrived.)

Rose McCrimmon trailed behind Chloe, looking about in wonderment. (Already her ice-blue eyes darted from one symbol to another, picking out emblems she'd noted from peering over Chloe's shoulder at the journal. A journal Chloe had already hidden in her nigh-ubiquitous laptop bag.)

Chloe, meanwhile, had eyes only for Lionel Luthor. And not in the good way.

She tromped right up to the man, crossed her arms over her stomach, and glowered at him.

"There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this," she declared, nodding in the direction of the wall with the octagonal indentation. "I'm sure you're interested in reasonable explanations, Mr. Luthor, as unlike your son you're not given to rash action or leaps of illogic."

Chloe turned away from him, walked over next to Pete where he stood by the wall in question. (She nodded to Pete briefly, who kept up his grin of relief.)

She whirled to face Lionel once more.

"I'm sure you're familiar with Hebrew iconography," she resumed. "In The Ten Commandments, it's declared that none should use The Lord's Name in vain. Respectful of this, the teachers of The Hebrew Law refused to write that Name in full, contracting it to consonants and leaving out the vowels. Transliterated, this becomes 'Y'W'H,' commonly pronounced 'Yah-Weh' or 'Jehovah.' This is the source of much controversy, as because The Name could not be spoken aloud for fear of speaking it in vain, and because it had only been written in the partial form, the true pronunciation of The Name of The Lord has been lost to history and the sands of time."

Chloe smiled grimly. Here it comes. I'm not a liar. I'm not. But I am good at telling stories.

"The Kawatche have a similar concept," she told, "revolving around meddling with Life After Death. The Kawatche glyph denoting 'improper resurrection' is an octagonal symbol, red and white, segmented into triangles around a center point like... like a stylised umbrella. This description, however, will not appear in any books of Kawatche lore, nor will it ever be depicted, because the symbol itself is so forbidden that it's been banished from their lexicon, and its description survives only as part of their oral tradition, passed down from shaman to shaman. The only reason I know it is because of phone calls I've exchanged with Joseph and Kyla Willowbrook over the years.

"Traditionally," she explained, regarding Lionel with narrowed eyes, "rather than risk using this forbidden symbol, The Kawatche have taken to chiseling out the space where that symbol would have been, chiseling out the octagonal shape. And this is what we see here. Evidently, the room beyond this wall is tied in with the concept of improper resurrection, and is not to be meddled with. If there is a key, as Bruce suggests?

"It is never to be used," she stated firmly. "It's not proper for mortals to wage war against Death. Sageeth's return from the dead is said to be one of these improper resurrections. What's beyond this wall? Is inviolable. Not because it's sacred, but because it's profane."

Chloe put her hand up against the wall.

Pete stood beside her, arms over his chest, bold as brass, stalwart and unmoving.

"This far, Mister Luthor," Chloe declared. "And no further."

Rose stared at the wall for a long moment, and then looked away, refusing to give into the tempation to probe it with infrared vision. "He Who Must Not Be Named," she whispered.

 

[AmenRa]

Lionel Luthor stood with his hands in his pockets and tried not to gasp as Chloe Sullivan finished her speech.

She was impressive.

And, Lionel Luthor knew, she was right.

How could he make her understand? Why did he need to? Was he here to answer to a bunch of teenage champions of the Kawatche? Not in the least. Did it matter to them that the reasons he was probing this cave had nothing to with their 'holy ground concepts' and everything to do with the fate of humanity?

Lionel Luthor gritted his teeth, then smiled as the realization dawned on him: Chloe Sullivan, like Bruce Wayne, knew much more than either was telling.

"Miss Sullivan," he began, "your father is an asset to LuthorCorp in this area. I'm sure you're very proud of him."

And Lionel Luthor crossed his arms as he turned to walk away. Lex could deal with the clean-up here. He had learned all he needed to, and he knew the answers that might be found in this cave would be obtained through knowledge possessed by those who now occupied it.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Emil (and Meyer & Boyajian)

Emil sat at The Talon, in one of the cushy chairs of the coffee shop, and he steepled his fingers atop a table. He had put a glove on over his bionic hand so as to not draw undue attention.

Meyer was reading a brochure about The Talon itself, and he seemed disgruntled.

A group of teenagers wandered by their table, dressed in the red and the gold of the Smallville High sports teams. They were led by a tousled-haired blond fellow with his arm territorially around the waist of a luminous brunette, herself clad in the attire of the local cheerleading squad.

The group drew to a stop, and Emil couldn't help but overhear their conversation.

"That?" blustered the blond fellow, shaking his head to the brunette. "Was a complete ripoff. You told me this was going to be a Three Stooges marathon!"

The brunette shook her head in surprise and disgust, though this was equally seeded with gentle instruction. "I said nothing of the kind!" she retorted. "I told you repeatedly: Clint Howard, not Moe Howard. Clint Howard is Ron Howard's brother, and has a distinct cult following. Not everything in our life has to celebrate men hitting other men and then laughing about it."

The blond fellow grunted, and shrugged one shoulder. "I'd still rather've seen The Stooges."

She sighed lovingly, tolerantly, and patted him on the arm. "In Clint's defence," she noted, "he did win a Lifetime Achievement Award from MTV one time."

The blond fellow blinked at this and nodded, impressed. "That's? Not bad at all."

The brunette beamed up at him. "Thought you'd like that."

The blond fellow pondered this. "That trailer for the 'Ice Cream Man' was kinda cool in an ass-backward sorta way. I never did trust ice cream guys."

At some unspoken signal, the pack of them kept walking. (The Talon had a big table reserved for so-called "Future Heisman Trophy Winners," and it was towards this that they moved.)

Emil watched them go with bespectacled blue eyes.

Meyer held up the brochure. "Says here this dump was gonna get ripped down in March of 2000, to make way for other business. 'Cept the Potter lady, what owns the floral place? She and her niece made this appeal to The Maria Stark Foundation and got the place renovated into a 'working historical landmark.' That? Is... is ridiculous. Like patently."

Emil arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Because," Meyer snorted, "LuthorCorp was gonna put a parking complex here. The parking 'round Main Street is crap-tastic middle of the day. The logistics are all screwy. Most folks have to park 'round back at Fordman's and hope that Old Man Fordman don't have 'em towed. Economically, parking garage makes more sense than some schlocky nostalgia-fest."

"Sometimes," Emil remarked portentously, "new species emerge to take the place of the old. But sometimes? The old species adapt, and become something new, and they become insurmountable. Evolution, dear Meyer, doesn't always make sense. But it's hard to argue with results."

He gestured to the bustling beautiful chaos around them.

"Look at this," he chuckled softly. "Firmly entrenched. Short of another meteor shower, this place isn't going anywhere."

"Huh," Meyer grunted, given pause, though obviously not entirely convinced. "Never really looked at it like that."

Boyajian returned, carrying two trays of four coffees each. One of these trays was solely for Hamilton.

"You guys wanna catch a movie when we're done here?" Boyajian wondered, amiably. "When Mister Lex says we're free to go? Looks like they're showing some Three Stooges."

 

[AmenRa]

Near Smallville

John Smith drove. He didn't know exaclty where he was going, so he kept turning down roads. He finally stopped in a field, just off a dirt path. He could see some grain silos in the distance and the roof of a barn.

He got out of his SUV, taking the satchel with him. He opened and withdrew a broken statue of the Egyptian goddess Bastet. He examined it, and saw it was holding a gilded metal box, inlaid with lapis and gold, in its hands. The Egyptian heiroglyphs on the box gave no clue as to what was inside.

With careful, shaking fingers, he popped the latch open. He reached inside and withdrew a jagged piece of metallic-feeling crystal. It was indeed one of the fragmented pieces of the Crystal of Knowledge. He read the Kryptonian inscription upon it.

It was the Crystal of Fire. And then a piercing, wailing sound assaulted his ears. He dropped to his knees, screaming, begging for it to stop. The stone called to him. It commanded him. It spoke to the Kryptonian blood that now boiled in his veins.

And he knew what to do.

He gritted his teeth against the painful shrill sound and he held the stone aloft, and the rays of the yellow sun touched it for the first time in thousands of years.

And the Crystal of Fire released its stored energy, activated by the rays of the yellow sun, Sol, into the Kryptonian who held it.

Var-Sen felt his cells being re-energized. The power exploded through his body as a blue-white irridescence shown over him. He could feel it. He could feel everything. Strength, long since lost, was now returning. He suddenly felt whole again.

He took a deep breath as he replaced the stone into the gilded box. He had succeeded in his mission. He had recovered the first missing piece of The Artifact.

He had also returned something that had been taken from him so long ago. He was now capable of defending the Crystal of Knowledge from those that would use it against humanity. He was now, he knew, capable of anything.

Var-Sen was once again the being he was intended to be. He was strong. He was powerful. And he was in place to stand against anyone who threatened the destiny of the Chosen One to take their place among Man.

Until that time, though, the remaining pieces of the Artifact must be found. And he had given Chloe Sullivan the means by which to seek them out. But he must return to her, he must be sure she knows that she does not take this path alone.

He must tell her that she has the strength and powers of a true Kryptonian guarding her and her friends as they make the journey.

 

[AmenRa]

The green-skinned alien, his cloak flowing in the upper stratospheric currents, watched the flash of blue light from the Kansas corn field.

He turned towards space, where the residual space/time eddies of cosmic distortion reached him. He knew they had felt them as well, sooner than he, but an omen nonetheless. A dark time was coming. It was fortunate that the Stranded One would find the first stone. Perhaps soon the Sleeping Child would awaken and claim her destiny.

His eyes flashed red as he whispered, "So it begins."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Chloe, and Pete

Chloe let out a big long breath.

She sagged against the wall, and pressed her palms to her forehead.

She laughed faintly, and shook her head bewilderedly.

Pete clapped her on the shoulder, a little bit awestruck. "Never in my whole life. Never in my whole life." He threw his hands out to his sides. "You stood up to Lionel Luthor?"

Chloe put one hand on her heart, and she gave Pete a horrified look. "Don't laud me too loudly," she murmured. "I think maybe I just cost my dad his job."

Rose gave Bruce a little nervous wave hello, stood next to him.

"You okay?" she squinted at him. "You got stuck holding the fort, huh?"

Pete put his hands on his hips, still talking to Chloe. "You never told me you got on phone-a-friend with Ky and Professor Willowbrook."

Chloe tugged her phone out of the holster and snapped it open, and she called up an image saved to the microSD card.

A red and white octagon popped up on the screen, and the look that popped up on Pete's face was absolutely without price.

"I know that symbol," he blinked.

Chloe laughed brokenly, eyes half-lidded. "It's the logo for The Umbrella Corporation. They ran into some trouble, awhile back, bringing some people back from the dead improperly?"

Pete gazed at her, well beyond awed. "You bluffed Lionel Luthor with a symbol from a damn video game?"

"It was the best I could do for an octagon under short notice," Chloe lamented. "I thought for sure I'd given the game away-- so to speak --with that bit about the 'stylised umbrella.'"

Pete grinned, and stuck his hand out low, palm up. "That? Is not a bad octagon."

Chloe slapped him five, and couldn't help but let a grin sneak onto her face.

Pete put his own hands over his heart, grinning beamingly: "'I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygeia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:' if, by some strange crazy improbability, your paranoid delusions are not way off base and your dad does get canned 'cause of your bad-ass bluff, I promise you I will make my dad get your dad a job before the end of the week."

"And you'll give me a ride home in the janitor's truck?" Chloe grinned lopsidedly, puppy-dog eyes at full power.

"And I will give you a ride home," Pete promised, "in the janitor's truck."

 

[Superman1496]

Chloe never stopped amazing him. Bluffing Lionel Luthor with a video game, and risking her dad's job.

Rose stood next to him, and he smiled at her hello. Then he looked at Chloe.

Your father will have a job with Wayne Enterprieses by the end of the night Chloe. I'll make sure of it. Bruce said, smiling.

Now that the big bad wolf is gone, what are we going to do next kids? Bruce asked looking around at the symbols on the wall. He was definitly interested in the octagonal shape on the wall.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Chloe, and Pete

Pete grinned even wider, and gestured to Bruce. "Or. See? You can even do that. Best my dad could do for him would be a full-time stocker at the feed store. Wayne's deal has much more street cred."

Rose wandered about the cave room, running her fingers over the emblems she'd recognised. She might have been checking, subconsciously, if she could detect any thermal anomalies, but really she was just lost in thought.

"The phrase 'Bad Wolf' may be indicative of the presence of an ontological paradox," she muttered to herself, in her own little world. "Perhaps interestingly, the term 'ontology' was entered into philosophical discourse by a man named Christian Wolf."

Chloe gave Rose a very strange look, but then after double-checking that none of the lab-techs were still in the main chamber, that none of the gear present would record them either audibly or visually, she extricated the journal from the laptop bag.

Then she pulled out the laptop, and she set it up on one of the tables. She powered it up, and then combed through the pages of the journal.

"What we're going to do next, Bruce," she suggested, "is confirm or deny whether or not the Kryptonian iconography here present correlates with the Kawatche glyphics here present. Call it a long-time curiosity of mine."

She paused, and she eyed the octagonal indentation.

"You really think there's a key, Bruce?" she wondered.

Pete raised his hand, a mix of eight kinds of bewilderment on his face. "Oh, hey, wait, what?" he inquired. "What the Hell's a 'Kryptonian?'"

 

[AmenRa]

There was a sudden bit of breeze rushing into the mouth of the Kawatche cave, and then suddenly Var-Sen was standing amongst them.

"What the Hell's a 'Kryptonian?'" Pete Ross had asked.

"That would be me," Var-Sen replied in a matter of fact tone. He approached Chloe and took her by the hand. He held the Crystal of Fire up for her to see. "Search the Kawatche for this symbol hidden within their language."

He then turned towards the wall where the octagon lay. Using x-ray vision, he peered beyond the rock. There was another room, and a pedestal, a control panel where the Crystal of Knowledge would rest once all of its pieces were restored.

Var-Sen turned to Bruce, his eyes full of light and strength. "Of course there is a key, Mr. Wayne. But it is yet to be found."

They were all staring at him.

It wasn't as if they didn't already know.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Chloe, and Pete

Well.

See.

That's the trick, ennit? There's a difference between knowing something. And knowing something.

And while Chloe and Rose (and possibly Bruce) had suspected that more was going on with Professor Smith than was immediately evident to the five senses of everyday mankind?

They lacked evidence. They didn't know. They hadn't known.

Chloe's lower lip wobbled. He'd come out of nowhere.

Pete looked like he had been punched in the stomach by one of Lex's goons. He hadn't been there for the hinting earlier and he had no idea what was going on.

Rose looked white as a sheet. She swallowed audibly.

"Yeah, so," she whispered, "that's what a Kryptonian looks like."

She steadied herself against the wall. She was standing here gazing upon an extraterrestrial and all the strength had gone out of her knees.

"Josef Allen Hynek," she wheezed ever-so-faintly. "Close Encounter of The Third Kind."

Chloe shook herself out of her momentary stupour, and began frenziedly clicking on the trackpad and flipping through the journal...

"Fire," she whispered, "also corresponds to the letter 'p' in the alphanumerics. Quasi-synonymous with 'power.'"

She takked an arrow key furiously, scrolled through, scrolled through...

She stopped. She scrolled back.

"Here it is," she whispered. "Here. Embedded into the image of Naman as he starts fire with his eyes. I never would've seen it if I wasn't looking right at it. 'Fire,' in both Kawatche and Kryptonian."

Pete looked, almost, as if he was going to cry. His hands were like claws atop his head.

"Dude," he whispered. "I just walked in on a Metropolis Meteors game, an' it's already the seventh-inning stretch. Will somebody give me the goddamned short version?"

Chloe's lip curled, and her eyes took on whole new dimensions of depth. "He's an extrasolar intelligence, Pete."

"Oh," Pete murmured, lowering his hands. "Well. Why didn't you say so?"

Rose whispered, but her eyes had a strange light to them and she didn't look like she was all there. She looked like part of her was Somewhere Else.

"I know a thing or two about Fire," she whispered. "Just a thing. Or two. About Fire."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen looked at Pete Ross with absolute matter-of-factness.

"I'm an alien," he told him, "from a galaxy far, far away."

Chloe had cross-referenced the Crystal of Fire with Kawatche and found its corresponding description with Naman. Var-Sen looked over her shoulder.

"Well done," he said to her. "Now, search for other Kawatche references to air and to water. These elements make up the remaining shards of the Crystal of Knowledge."

He then turned around to the other wall, where a large mass-spectrometer x-ray machine sat. He tried to peer into the wall there, to read the writings through the machine with his x-ray, but he found the machine itself was lined with lead.

Var-Sen walked over to the machine, reached out with both hands and gripped it along the top. He then lifted it several feet off the floor and tossed it against the anterior chamber of the cave as if it were mere paper.

The pictogram of Naman blazing fire from his or her eyes was now plainly visible on the wall.

And Rose's whispered comment did not go un-noticed by Kryptonian ears.

"And what do you know about fire, young one?" he asked.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose, Chloe, and Pete

"Don't let Bill O'Reilly know you're here," Pete replied, as off-the-cuff as he could manage, given the circumstances. ('Grace under pressure.' He did okay.) "He has enough trouble with aliens from Mexico, let alone ones from other galaxies."

Chloe struggled with Smith's request. Her brain was going so many directions at once...

Flipflipflipflip... she paged through the journal hurriedly, keeping half an eye on the laptop's JPEG browser at the same time.

"Naman is to fall from the sky," she muttered. "Maybe I can find the symbol for Air referenced with 'sky?' I don't know where I'm going to find Water, though."

But she was thrown from her train of thought as John Smith tore a mechanical sensing device to shreds. She stood aghast, taken aback by both the cavalier manner with which he'd taken the thing apart, and by the fact that he somehow suddenly had exhibited the ability to perform the act in the first place.

("Holy shit," Pete breathed, and he was quite right to do so.)

Rose seemed semi-catatonic, and she was unperturbed by this display of strength... she walked closer to Smith, Rose did, and Chloe worried that maybe Rose hadn't gone a little crazy when faced with the events of the day. (Chloe worried that maybe Chloe herself hadn't gone a little crazy.)

Rose seemed far, far too calm as she stood there, gazing at the man from beyond the stars as he, in turn, gazed at Naman's image on the wall.

"I know that Fire can warm," Rose declared, her voice a little sing-songy as she did so. "I know that Fire can light the darkness. But I also know that Fire rages if left unchecked, and that it can burn and burn and burn until all the fuel is gone or all the air is spent."

Rose seemed to ponder this for a moment.

"What I don't know is," Rose addressed Smith directly, "is which kind of Fire are you? Are you the kind that lights and warms? Or are you the kind which rages unchecked?"

 

[AmenRa]

He sensed power within her. Controlled power, but power nonetheless.

She was human. But she was not ordinary. Of that Var-Sen was certain.

He cocked his head to the side and looked at her with a curious expression. He then straightened and gave her a slight bow.

"I am Var-Sen of Krypton," he said, "my house served the Council in matters of science. I am an explorer, a scientist, a finder of things. I was stranded here on this planet many years before even most of your parents were born. I have kept hidden, living among you, waiting for the time when test would make known if these prophecies were false or they would be fulfilled."

He moved away from Rose, making a circle so he could see everyone in the cavern. "I stand before you now revealed here, so that you know my true self, and that you know why before I could not tell you these things.

"There are forces set in motion now that will challenge the very existence of your race upon this planet. Of that I have no doubt. Only by standing together can we defeat the evil that will come, and only by believing in one another can we survive these darkest of times."

He turned to Rose and held out his hand for her to take. "I am the gaurdian of all things here that are of my world," he told her. "I will hold the fire that lights the way for the one who was meant to have these things. However, should someone stand in the way of that destiny, I will be the fire that burns unchecked in their personal hell."

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce walked around the cave room while the newly introduced Var-Sen talked. He was listening sub-consciously, but he stopped when a thought hit him.

Chloe, if we're talking about fire water and air, those would go hand in hand with one another wouldn't they? Bruce asked as he stopped in front of the octagonal shape.

What if there is a pattern? Fire, Wind, and Water? Like here, three different symbols. A keyhole of some sorts. Something to do with the three elements? Bruce asked.

He felt like a moron, because he didn't know what he was talking about. But it made sense to him. Important elements, an important key.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose didn't take his hand.

Not immediately, anyway.

She stood and gazed at him, from the weird broken place to which she had fallen. Because this was something she ever had wanted, ever had believed in, ever had longed for...

She'd always known there were aliens. She'd always hoped that, someday, she'd get to make Contact. And here one was, and he was power and fervor and knowledge incarnate...

...and she was afraid.

She was always afraid.

Rose McCrimmon was afraid of everything. The only times she ever acted brave were the times when there was something that scared her even more.

So she was afraid of this alien, she was so afraid of him, afraid of the power and the fervor and the knowledge he embodied. But she was even more afraid... of losing Contact.

She was afraid of this alien and his might running roughshod over the ideals of Man. She was afraid of befriending him only to be betrayed. But she was even more afraid... of turning away a prophet of something that could save the world.

So she didn't take his hand, not immediately.

She stood and gazed at him from that weird broken place to which she had fallen. A place of conflicting forces, of Fear and Unfear, and she found a strange platform of clarity there upon which to stand.

"That's the thing about Fire," she commented, her blue eyes very nearly as intense as Var-Sen's. "No matter how benevolent one's reasons for starting a flame... warming hypothermia victims, for instance, or lighting a dark yard, the Fire can always become an unchecked hellstorm if fed enough fuel, if given enough room to breathe, if left unguarded. Even if a Fire starts out of love, it can burn on into Destruction."

She gazed at his hand, and she didn't take it. Not immediately.

Left unspoken were her thoughts:

I cannot be the one to usher in the twilight of mankind. I cannot be the one to embrace a potential tyrant.

Everyone tends to run into the arms of the guy who promises glory and victory when Armageddon comes. But there are many more False Prophets than True, and to tell the difference is a nigh-impossible thing.

I'll be there. To guard the Fire. Even if I'm the only one. I won't let you rage unchecked.

For all the good it'll do. I'll be there.

(Because I would want someone to guard me.)

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen looked upon Rose with compassion.

"I understand your trepidation," he told her. "But you must understand that within my people, duplicity and lies is not our way.

"That is the way of Man," he finished. He dropped his hand. "The choice is yours. "

He looked briefly to Chloe, to Bruce, then to Pete Ross.

And then he was simply gone.

A burst of superspeed propelled him from the cavern entrance and into the sky.

For the first time in fifty years, Var-Sen flew.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

Pete and Chloe gravitated to Bruce as Rose spoke with the man who now called himself Var-Sen. Chloe handed Pete the journal, while she herself lugged the laptop.

"Look how they're paired up," Pete noted, pointing to the circular inscription that surrounded the ostensible keyhole. "What, is that like coordinates or something?"

Chloe squinted at them. "Maybe," she muttered. "I'm not familiar enough with the numerical system. Here's my question. Are these coordinates analogous to our longitude and latitude system? And another thing... are these elements components of the key Bruce mentioned? Or is The Key a separate device entirely?"

She turned to ask Var-Sen... but the breeze from Var-Sen's passing almost knocked her over.

Pete turned to see if Rose was all right...

...but then Rose sprinted past him. Not as fast as Var-Sen...

But Pete was a damn good driver, a natural behind the wheel if ever there had been one, and he was a good judge of speed.

Rose McCrimmon sprinted after Var-Sen at seventy miles an hour.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose saw him vanish.

It was maybe a little slower for her than for the others. Her eyes were sharp, and they were fast, and she could maybe watch a bullet fly to its target if she didn't blink.

But it still looked like he'd vanished.

Unless he'd "beamed up," though, there was only one direction in which he could have gone.

And she ran after him as hard as she could. She pushed and pushed and pushed, the wind tearing through her crimson tresses and snatching at her eyes as her sneaker-clad feet pounded the stony floor.

'Some say the world will end in Fire,
Some say in Ice.'

Not that easily. You are not getting away that easily!

Her teeth were gritted, and her legs were pistons...

'From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor Fire.'

The cave's entrance snapped past her like the finish line of a hundred-yard dash, and as she sprinted out into the open she saw the dust-cloud still blossoming in the golden-brown sand by the cave mouth.

She saw the shrubs and the bushes teetering and kicking off leaves and she realised... she realised in an instant which way he had gone.

She might not have realised this if she hadn't had experience with the very same mode of travel. She might not have realised this if she hadn't done this for herself.

He can fly.

Of course he can fly.

I bet? In the future? Everyone will be able to fly.

They'll all wear patches. Or. No. Rings. They'll have Flight Rings for everyone, and people who can fly will practically be legion.

Thoughts were there, thoughts were gone again.

She skidded to a halt in the centre of the bloom of sand and her knees flexed and she dove skyward. She willed herself to circumvent gravity, to exude the theoretical energy that existed in gravity's absence, anti-gravity, counter-gravity...

She too, flew.

She hurtled up into The Heavens and she urged herself higher harder faster....

She could fly a little faster than she could run. But not much faster.

He's getting away!

He's gotten away!

No. Nonono. He doesn't get away that easily!

Her eyes were not ringed with firelight; they were aflame.

And Fire shaped itself around her feet and ignited the air and poured forth and downwards like rocket-boosters, like afterburners, and she shot off up into the air even faster still.

She struggled to shield her eyes with her arms, to protect them from the lashing winds of such extreme velocities.

Goggles. I'm gonna need goggles.

Harder harder harder she pushed, and her body trembled and bucked beneath the stresses and the g-forces and the punishment of it all.

Her fire-trail left a streak across the blue blue sky a mile long, like a meteor falling the wrong way.

Rose was twelve kilometres up when she conceded that she'd lost him. That there was no way to find him.

She hovered there, breathing shallow air, relying on her body's more efficient ability to process oxygen to keep her from asphyxiating.

It was cold up there, and she could feel the cold, but it could not hurt her. This cold, natural cold, was not an enemy to her. Not like the scary cold of Kyle's shadows. Not like the cold that had run down her spine in the halls at school.

Tears ran down her face and they froze on her cheeks. Her braid was again ruined and she didn't attempt to fix it.

She hovered there, buffeted by the winds, and she gazed back down at Kansas spread out like a map below.

She could see Metropolis from here. Hub City, Edge City... All laid out like a geography lesson.

She watched a plane cross past below her, maybe on the way to Denver? It was two kilometres below her, and she watched it fly.

Rose McCrimmon wept quietly in the cold of the air, feeling the warmth of the world rise up and whisper past her out into the night.

She hovered there, and she lamented.

She had frightened off her first extraterrestrial because she'd been too afraid to trust.

She didn't know enough, and she was so afraid.

"Fear imprisons; faith liberates; fear paralyzes; faith empowers; fear disheartens; faith encourages; fear sickens; faith heals; fear makes useless; faith makes serviceable."
-Harry Emerson Fosdick.
(from Quotations on Courage, compiled by James Hamilton)

"Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then— oh, why can't I?"
-"Somewhere Over The Rainbow," by Yip Harburg
(scribbled by Rose McCrimmon in the margins of Quotations on Courage)

"Some say the world will end in Fire,
Some say in Ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor Fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction Ice
Is also great
And would suffice."
-"Fire and Ice," by Robert Frost.
​

 

[AmenRa]

He had watched her blaze Heavenward like a meteor that had been rejected by Earth. She had demonstrated powers unlike any creature he had seen, Kryptonian, human, Martian, anything at all. And yet, she was only a girl.

He floated in the currents of air and watched her from the other side of the world, across a distant horizon, even the terminator of night and day. His vision surpassed anything, distance, molecules, even time.

He saw her cry.

He willed himself towards her, gradually increasing his speed this time and not all at once as he had done when he left the cave. He felt the pull of the wind on his black coat and thought he must look like some great specter trailing through the clouds.

A nimbus of condensation formed quickly as he accelerated past the Mach barrier. And he accelerated faster still.

When he stopped, Var-Sen was but a few feet away from Rose. He hovered there with her, his eyes sparkling in wonderment and his mouth hiding a smile.

Once again, he reached out his hand.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

This time, Rose didn't stand there gawping.

She took his hand.

With an exhausted smile, she blinked away tears that had become shards of ice.

His hand felt nice. It felt very very warm. It felt familiar, but she didn't pause to contemplate where from.

"What's a nice extee like you," she murmured, brokenly and happily, "doing in a stratosphere like this?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen smiled broadly now and pulled Rose towards him. He didn't know what else she could do, what other powers she held, but she appeared to be a bit cold. And he, charged by Earth's yellow sun, was warm.

"Quid pro quo," he said to her, "I'll tell you my story if you will tell me yours?"

He began to drop their altitude a bit, maneuvering slightly so they were on the tops of clouds that just covered the central United States.

Var-Sen gazed upwards into a sky full of stars. He guessed maybe he was expecting to see a shining red-tinted star up there amongst them, but he knew he would not.

He suddenly felt very sad, and even though he was holding the young, super-powered girl named Rose in his arms, he felt very alone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Her hair tangled in the high-altitude winds, but she managed to gather enough of it into one hand that it didn't block her view, and she could follow his gaze up to the stars.

It was warm there in his arms, and while the cold couldn't hurt her, the warm felt much nicer than the cold. (Even an omnitherm had to have her standards.)

Besides which, it wasn't like she could have gotten away from him, if he'd wanted to trap her and snap her in twain. She decided to enjoy his benevolence while he was feeling benevolent, and not incur his wrath. Even if the hug was a little forward, and a little... unexpected.

He was warm. And this was familiar. And this was okay.

There was trouble on his face, lonely lonely trouble, solitude etched upon those intense, intense eyes.

She wondered if Var-Sen knew the names of all the stars. But then, of course, they might not even be names she'd ever heard of.

"It started in a city called Keystone," she murmured, "and a city called Central, with a man called Snart and a man called Rory. They had weapons that could make Ice and Fire, respectively, and they were criminals and ruffians both. Together they were formidable, but the combined police forces of Keystone and Central were able to stop them and take away their guns.

"My father was a solver of mysteries of Science, at a lab where they solve mysteries of Science," she mentioned, "maybe kind of not unlike your Council? And he studied these guns, and he brought them home with him one day. There was an accident. With two guns and a car and a train and a glowing green rock from... from yonder."

(She jutted her chin towards the sky, to suggest that the rock was from space.)

"I was in that accident," she admitted. "And though I survived I was changed inside. (And outside, a little, too. My eyes turned blue instead of green).

"I'm Fire and I'm Ice," she described to him. "E Pluribus Unum."

She turned to face him better, eying his face more fully.

"What about you?" she murmured. "Do you come from a planet whose skies are orange, and whose tree-leaves are shining silver?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen listened to her story. He found great interest in the glowing green rock. The meteor rock. The fragmented portions of Power Crystal-infused Krypton that had been scattered throughout the galaxy.

If it could bestow powers to humans, what would it do to him?

What poison would Kryptonite be to one of Krypton?

But while Rose's was a tale of a triumph of good over evil, a tale of creation and beginning, his was a tale of sadness and betrayal.

He shifted a bit, turning so they faced the carpet of stars above them.

"My world was called Krypton," he began. "A shining jewel in a sea of stars. It orbited a red star called Rao, in a galaxy many light years away from this one. Our environment was not dissimilar from your arctic regions, except the concept of cold was not so extreme. Our trees, our animals, were all much different, but yet the same. Even in the deepest sea, the water was clear and smooth. Our nights were black and our days bright. And every House was united in the common bond and purpose of the advancement of ourselves as a people.

"On Krypton I was a scientist. I studied under another, a teacher, my mentor, and together we set about to solve the mysteries of the universe. You see, Kryptonian technology is thousands of years ahead of what you have here. We manipulate the growth of crystals, and through crystals we build, we explore, we are.

"Over many generations, and many centuries, we have visited your world to explore, to study, to understand. I was part of one such mission. And while here, I broke a base ordinance. I fell in love with a human female. She was drawn into a web of deceit orchestrated by those who we had befriended here. When it was time for us to leave, to return to Krypton, she and I were betrayed. I had to stay behind on Earth or she would have been killed. To do so, I had to relinquish my powers. To live among humans, I had to live as one of them.

"A few years later, she betrayed me. I was forced to fight for my own survival, lest I be put on a plate for inspection by every government on Earth. Even though I was without my powers, I was still Kryptonian. I was still an alien.

"And since I have lived among you, learning your history, learning your languages. I have seen the great accomplishments of your science. I have seen the folly of your wars. I have seen the dark side of humanity, and I have seen the ultimate displays of generosity and compassion. It is for these reasons that I now search for these crystals."

Var-Sen finished, then pointed away to a section of the night sky. "Rao was once there," he told her, "but it is no more. There was certain events set into motion when I left by the most vile criminal the twenty-eight known galaxies had ever seen. I am fearful these events resulted in the destruction of my homeworld, and are the reason why the green rocks came from space to Earth."

 

[Superman1496]

And both Var-Sen and Rose were gone. A hot blast of air hit Bruce in the face. 'And Alfred thought Gotham was to chaotic for me.' Bruce thought to himself.

So, um...yeah. Bruce started, but he didn't even know what to say.

You two keep looking for something to figure out that keyhole, I'm going to see if our two unaturals are still around. Bruce said, walking to the entrance of the cave.

There was charred grass on the ground, and resinance of flames on the rocks and bushes.

Fire had seemed to taken place, obviously. And he was wondering which of the two had something to do with it.

The one who claimed he was fire, or the one who knew "a little" about it.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe and Pete

So they were going to stay put?

After that?

No offence to Bruce, no offence at all, but after that, they were so not staying put.

They were about ten seconds behind him, Chloe still shoving her laptop into its satchel as she ran to keep up, Pete just ahead of her with wide wide eyes.

Chloe was shaking her head, nigh-incessantly, as she cast her gaze about.

"She's not out here?" Pete wondered, casting his gaze about. "Neither of them are... man. They are so long gone. Did you see how...? Man. I would not want to meet either of those two on a straight quarter-mile, if you smell what I'm steppin' in."

Chloe stood in silence.

She sank to one knee, and with unerring eyesight she found a chunk of glass mostly-buried in the sand.

She picked it up carefully, and she gazed at it. The glass was dirty, and smoky, and it was warm to the touch... this was sand that had been fused into glass by heat.

Chloe let it clink to the ground, and she stood, and she hugged Var-Sen's journal to herself.

She stood there in silence.

"I asked her if her parents had a secret life," she muttered, laughing softly to herself. "I asked her about her parents. I never asked her about her secrets. So. She didn't volunteer information. But she didn't lie to me. That I know of."

Pete walked over to a shrub, one of whose leaves was smouldering. Carefully, like snuffing a candle, he licked his fingers and smothered the flame by pinching it between those fingers. "Maybe there should be like a warning system on the door of The Torch," he suggested. "Sets off an alarm if anyone's got a big secret they gotta divulge first. Woulda come in handy for that Smith guy. 'Var-Sen.' Whateverthecrap his name is."

Chloe sagged a bit, and walked over to Bruce, and tried to keep herself from crying as she pressed her forehead to his forearm, flinging her arms around his waist and laughing more than a little brokenly.

She leaned back a bit, she gazed up at him. She gazed up at Bruce Wayne.

"I don't think I can handle any more mysteries tonight," she smiled wearily. "Even I have my limits. (Apparently.) Right now, I just want to go home."

Pete picked up a rock and chucked it out into the night like he was skipping a stone across a lake's surface.