The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie's long brown coat flapped around him in a light September breeze as he leaned against the Saab, and he blew air through his lips and frazzled his fingers through his hair. The top button of his button-down shirt was undone, and he'd loosened his red tie as he'd frequently done back at boarding school in England.

(He was feeling rebellious at the moment. A little slacker geek-chic went with the territory.)

They had been fighting again. All morning, they'd had virulent words, and then Ceri'd dragged him to work with her so that she could yell at him some more. Fortunately, they'd had less opportunity to do this than she might have liked, as she'd had a relatively long string of male customers wanting trims, and then she'd had to consult on an up-do for a wedding. (Which had been brilliantly ironic, considering the ultimate result of their own last trip down the aisle.)

But her book for the rest of the day had been clear, and that had meant only one thing: bellowing each other's lungs out over his cavalier attitude.

And Ceri wasn't wrong. He was too cavalier. He'd been too cavalier with their marriage and he'd been too cavalier with their daughter. It was one thing to get caught up in one's work, but right at the moment Jamie didn't really have any work to get caught up in, now, did he?

He had, however, stumbled upon a reprieve.

He'd suggested to Ceri that if she was so frustrated about what Headmaster (Principal Jamison, they called headmasters "principals" here, whatever that meant) might have thought of Rose's fireblast, then she should "bloody well ask the gent."

And so they'd shown up at Smallville High, with all the red-and-gold banners out front and the immaculately-manicured front lawn.

Ceri had made Jamie stay with the car.

She had been quite concerned that a) Jamie would make an arse out of himself and that b) Jamie making an arse out of himself would cause Ceri to lose her temper at an inopportune moment.

"Quite right, too," he murmured faintly to himself as he leaned against the car in Smallville High's parking lot and felt the September breeze wrap around him.

But Jamie didn't like to sit and wait, he didn't like to stand and wait, he was a cross between a hummingbird and a shark...

He blew air through his teeth and out across his lips and he shook his head.

He couldn't go visit Rose, interrupt her mid-class. That sort of disruption would be detrimental to whatever fence-mending Ceri was right now attempting with the administration.

But Jamie didn't like to sit and wait.

Tugging on one ear, he began a slow jog towards the school, navigating the small knot of stalkerazzi newshounds lingering on the fringes.

"No comment," he grinned at them. Just in case.

He strolled through the halls with his hands in his blue suit's trouser pockets, deep brown eyes narrowed as the throngs of the student body milled around him.

The place had the definite air of a locus that was picking up the pieces.

He hadn't seen The Ledger this morning, hadn't listened to the radio, hadn't watched the news on the telly-box.

What in clever blue blazes happened here? he wondered, one of his slender eyebrows arched high. Dress rehearsal for The End of Days? Sorry I missed it; I always did like a good post-Apocalyptic yarn. Not to mention? I bet I would look absolutely dashing riding a white horse.

"Sic transit gloria mundi," he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

(As Jamie said this, he had been walking past a man who looked like a somewhat younger version of the late John Fiedler, and the man who looked like John Fiedler gave Jamie a very surprised look. But Jamie didn't notice. He'd found the library.)

"Just check my e-mail," he suggested to no-one in particular. Schools these days always had Internet access, and he hadn't checked his e-mail since the previous night. Perfectly reasonable that he should do so now, eh?

He strolled into the library, peered about a bit, that eyebrow seemingly stuck in its perpetual arch.

He found a workstation easily enough, but this one was presently occupied by another man who had chosen to wear blue today-- though this man's coat was black rather than Jamie's brown --and this man looked like he had a lot on his mind.

Jamie sighed faintly, and laughed a little. He was hardly the most patient man in the world, but he could see his way through to waiting his turn for a bit.

He walked along a bookshelf, trailing errant, sensitive fingertips over the spines of all those hardcovers. He paused to scrutinise a copy of Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett, and he chuckled faintly as, next to it, he found a copy of one of Fereidoun M. Esfandiary's works of fiction.

This, he tugged off of the shelf and, wanting to refresh his memory, began to page through it. Good ol' FM-2030.

"If you only knew the half of it," he muttered, a little bit brightly, a little bit sadly, to no-one in particular... as he stood there with his back to the man in black and blue.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Emil (and Meyer & Boyajian)

Emil rose from his chair, and inclined his head to his ersatz benefactor, his "sponsor," his "patron."

He didn't quite bow. But a certain show of respect was par for the course, was it not? After all, Lex Luthor might well have just handed Emil everything he'd ever wanted on the proverbial silver platter.

Meyer elbowed Boyajian and shot to his feet; evidently, they were leaving.

Boyajian made a face, and drank down his coffee in a hurry. Hot coffee, waste of good hazelnut.

Emil's lip quirked. "Pleasure doing business with you," he remarked. "Good night, Mister Luthor. I wish you sweet dreams as you sleep the sleep of the financially sound. I myself will sleep the sleep of the triumphant, and my dreams shall be interesting indeed."

And he turned, and he walked from that place, and he whistled a soft little tune: Mozart's Concerto No. 4 in E flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 495, the popular rondo.

Boyajian rose more slowly than had Meyer, wiping his mouth ruefully with the back of his sleeve.

Meyer nodded briskly to the young billionaire. "Mister Luthor," he murmured respectfully, and then followed Emil.

Boyajian gave Lex a little wave. "G'night, boss."

He then tromped after Emil and Meyer, hurrying a little to catch up.

"Does 'every comfort he desires' mean we're going back to The Windgate in Metropolis?" he queried Meyer in a whisper that really wasn't as quiet as it could have been. "Because there's this beautiful blonde there named Lyla now and I really think she'd go out with me if I just got a second to ask her."

Meyer grunted faintly. "What makes you think she digs you?"

"Said she digs guys with a bald pate," Boyajian suggested. "I think maybe she was raised by a strong but benevolent balding surrogate father figure, or something."

Meyer gave Boyajian a look of mild despair. "Look, Big Guy, I hate to break it to you, but you don't think this 'Lyla'-- her profession being what it is --might have some small talent for acting?"

Boyajian looked instantly crestfallen, and Meyer sighed glumly.

Meyer's eyes flicked over to Emil, who stood bemusedly by the car, whistling up at the Kansas evening sky.

"Hey, uh, Doc?" he began, wondering if he could work in a suggestion that they do the very thing that Boyajian had had it in mind to do, "where to next?"

Emil stopped whistling, and shook his head. "I do hate to disappoint, but I'm afraid it's nowhere more exciting than bed. We have much to do."

Meyer glanced wincingly back over at Boyajian. "Sorry, Big Guy."

Boyajian waved dismissively. "S'fine. I'll catch 'er next time."

Silently, the two men drove Emil to the guest cottage on The Luthor Estate, where Emil quickly made himself at home and crawled into bed.

As promised, he dreamed interesting dreams indeed.

He dreamed the same dreams he always had, of an ancient golden city surrounded by endless snows.

As Emil Hamilton dreamed, he smiled a very triumphant smile.

 

[AmenRa]

The library had suddenly become crowded. And, it was no longer quiet. A man, speaking with a distinctly different accent than was the local norm (actually an accent not unlike his own), had came into the library.

And he was talking.

Libraries were supposed to be quiet.

So that people could think. So they could contemplate. And so they could burn the top pages of a yellow notebook to ash with their heat vision.

Var-Sen risked a half-glance behind him and saw the newcomer was looking at a book he held. The Kryptonian effortlessly wisked the ashes away into the air with his hand, giving them a slight, focused breath of air so they dissipated.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It shouldn't be long until Kara had her break. He exited out of the Internet Explorer, then stood from the terminal desk chair. As he turned around, he looked down at the human holding the book.

His manner of dress did not suggest teacher. Certainly not student.

"The half of what?," he asked, not sure if the man was speaking to him or not.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

Jamie sniffed absently at the air.

He'd always had a kind of hyperaesthesia, mild since his youth, and exacerbated by his continual consumption of caffeinated beverages. His senses were unpredictable, and often enabled him to pick up on very strange and unexpected things, often without realising how very strange it was that he should pick up on such things.

(He'd long suspected that Rose's own heightened senses and occasional synaesthetic effects were due more to his genetic influence than the event that had given her those other powers, but he had no proof of this.)

Faintly, he found himself aware of a scent of burning, though it was ever so fleeting.

And then the man in black and blue was talking to him, and Jamie blinked in surprise.

Had I said something? he wondered briefly.

Oh.

Right.

Bloody brilliant.

"The Future," he replied, closing the book with a faint little smile. "Esfandiary predicted that we'd achieve a true scientific utopia by 2030, not unlike the Technological Singularity suggested by some of his fellow transhumanists. All it would take would be some stumbled-upon discovery-- like a Seed AI, self-propagating, recursively self-improving --and we'd skyrocket forward by quantum leaps and quantum bounds. (Indubitably, it'd have to be a friendly AI, wouldn't do to invent a Skynet or what have you.) This is all still theory, though, of course, none of it's quite possible yet. But it's closer than Esfandiary ever would have dreamed... we're grazing it with our fingertips.

"He wanted The Future to be glorious," Jamie chuckled, tucking the book under one arm. "But he didn't know the half of it."

He extended one hand, grinning his friendliest grin. "Jamie Hamilton. Doctor. Pleased as Punch to meet you."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen listened quietly to what Dr. Hamilton had to say. Most of what he said was true, and if indeed humanity was able to lift itself out of its own greed and vanity, and then grasp what was directly in front of them, the entire race could possibly propel itself eons into the future.

Possibly even attain the technological status of Krypton.

No, he dismissed that though instaneously. That would never happen.

Var-Sen extended a hand of his own and grasped the one offerred.

With a nod, he replied with an introduction.

"John Smith," he answered, "Professor of Archive Studies, CKU." He made it a point to not grip Dr. Hamilton's hand excessively. Humans were so frail.

"What brings you to Smallville High, Doctor?" he asked.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jamie

"Oh," Jamie waved dismissively with the Esfandiary novel, "this, that, the other thing. Mostly the other thing. (She's awfully lovely, the other thing, but she can be a right Banshee when she's in a snit. Which isn't fair, really, because Banshees are Irish (and sometimes Scottish), not Welsh. She might as well be a Gorgon, for all the Greek in her.)"

He retrieved his hand from the man's firm grasp and examined his own fingertips with interest. There was a vague tingle in them, nigh-imperceptible. Like they'd grazed against something.

"'Mary had a little lamb,'" he mumbled, distractedly, "'its fleece electrostatic. And everywhere the lamb would go, the lights became erratic.' Is that. Is that? Protective bio-electric force-aura? Dense, though. Millimetres thick, if that. No, no, couldn't be. Bloody impossible, for one thing."

He turned his intrigued gaze onto The Professor's face. "'John Smith,'" he mused, as he extricated his glasses from an inside pocket of his suit coat and slid them on. (Mild scrutiny ensued.) "Could be anyone, name like that. Name like that would hardly stand out in a crowd. Not like, oh... for example... 'Ford Prefect?' 'David Agnew?' 'Ka Faraq Gatri?' Of course, my daughter Rose-- she's a student here --mentioned meeting a John Smith just yesterday, though the unlikelihood of you being the same fellow-- name like that --would be simply astronomical, wouldn't it? Positively... stratospheric."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen studied the human before him.

Bio-electric force aura. An interesting descriptor, indeed. The mitochondria in a Kryptonian's cells worked geometrically in utilizing Solar radiation to produce a dense force field that extended perhaps only a few nanometers around their bodies. It was the thing that made them indestructable.

Hamilton felt it? Not possible. At least until the man mentioned being Rose's father.

"Rose is quite an interesting young woman," Var-Sen stated to him. "Very conversational, when you get her to talk," he added. The Kryptonian scanned around the library, noting the others there, some with their noses in books, others filing in from the hallways. The library was about to become over-crowded. Var-Sen leaned close to Hamilton, and whispered directly so only the human could hear. "Secrets kept are best kept alone, Doctor. Some things are not meant to be known. Some things would frighten, even terrify, those who do not understand. Of this I am no doubt you are aware," he told him. Var-Sen then slipped a business card quickly and discreetly into Hamilton's lapel pocket.

"Call me should you ever require my assistance," he said. He then gave a slight bow and walked towards the hallway.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: Guess I'm move things along, Bruce has been stranded on that base for quite some time now ^_^;
---

Kara continued to watch from the sidelines as the rest of the game continued on, and she went out into the field when it was the other teams turn to bat. She had learned to control herself a little better, and appeared to be on par with the rest of her classmates.

It wasn't easy, though, suppressing your abilities. She felt like running full speed to catch a fly ball, or to swing as hard as she could to take a nice crack at the ball when it came at her.

In her head Kara could hear her parents reminding her that she needed to blend in, that she needed to control her abilities. The last thing they wanted was to have someone find out about her, and then take her away to be experimented on.

As class drew to a close, Kara helped out in getting all their gear back together before they all moved back inside, heading to the locker rooms to change and get ready for their next class.

Kara thought for a moment and then remembered she had lunch next. She picked up her things and made her way towards the cafeteria, wondering if she'd meet up with Rose at some point. She recalled that they had earlier agreed to meet up for lunch, right after their bizarre encounter with... Professor Smith? Martha had made her lunch, so she didn't have to wait on the cafeteria line to buy her food.

 

[Lunaramblings]

It was well into the morning when an oldish brown station wagon pulled up to the curb outside the high school.

"I don't like this Merick. You have a fever, really let me bring you home and make you a nice lunch. You can start school tomorrow." Chided a worrisome middle aged woman. Her name was Marcy Tennylson, and for the last two days she had kept her son detained in his room for fear he may be ill.

"99.6 is not a fever. It is 1 tiny degree above normal. Please mom, I cant take another day in my bed."Her son Merick loved his mother dearly, but he hated to be babied and he wanted nothing more than to start his freshman year.

"Fine, but if it goes up I expect you to come home immediately. Dinner should be ready at 6. Let me just drive you to the door, Hun.

"You have come far enough, I think I can manage.With this Merick quickly got out of the car and shut the door before she could muster any response.

Here he stood, this is the best day of his life! He took a moment to survey himself. Vintage Tee, jeans, Converse, brown tweed jacket and of course his beloved Fedora. Merick never went anywhere without his Fedora. It belonged to his Grandpa Edmund, whom he never actually knew. "I look good."

Merick started running across the yard, anxious to get to his first class. He was never popular in Junior High, but this year would be different, it had to be. He was at a near sprint when he heard the bell signaling the end of the current period. "Damn it!"

A strange look came over Mericks face as he ran, suddenly, with no warning, but for a soft swoosh, Merick was gone.

BAM!

Before Merick had time to do much of anything there was a wall smashing into his face. Papers were all over the place, and he was laying on the floor of a room he didn't recognize. "Smooth"Merick muttered as he stood up. He looked toward the front of the room letting out a small gasp as he realized he was not alone. "Watch out for that last step. Its a doozy."he quips awkwardly as he adjusts his now slightly wrinkled jacket, and more than slightly crushed fedora. Merick quickly headed to the door. Not only had he just completely screwed up, but he do so in the worst way he thought you ever could, in front of a beautiful girl like Chloe Sullivan.

All I have to do is get out, maybe she didn't noticehe thinks as he gets to the door, which he walks smack into before realizing it was locked. Who in the bluest of blue hells locks a school room door! Just be cool Merick, just be coolhe thinks as he finally works the lock open and strides out into the hall, roughly the same shade as the sea of letterman jackets he wades into.

This was the worst day of his life!

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri and Jamie

"Conversations with my Rosy are always interesting, yeah," Jamie murmured, ever so faintly, eyes inscrutable, as he watched the man called John Smith walk away. "Hot and cold running song lyrics. And secrets, oh, so very many secrets. I know a thing or two about secrets. Just a thing. Or two. About secrets. And I also know you never want to try to shift a collective consciousness' paradigm without popping the clutch first. Dead messy, that."

He extricated the business card for a moment, read the numbers on the card with his bespectacled eyes, as countless grumbling rumbling students flitted and milled about him, filling the library with their noise and their hormones and their promise, their boundless boundless promise.

Nothing alien about the business card. Maybe Rose had just been facetious about that?

But no, but no. He'd felt that tingle on the tips of his fingers, that impossible tingle.

He'd never felt a tingle like that, not on a human being.

(There had been a boy, once. He'd been dying. Every breath of the air itself had slowly slowly killed him. He'd been very sad, but very brave. He'd said his name was Lar, and he'd had a lot of valour.

He'd vanished in a flare of white light, had valourous Lar. Jamie'd often wondered if that's what Death looked like where Lar had come from, or if Lar had gone... Somewhere Else.)

Jamie kept his thoughts to himself as he slipped that card back into his pocket. The glasses followed.

Isn't that interesting? Jamie pondered. Professor Smith put it in me pocket; he didn't put it in me hand. Like he didn't want me to touch his skin again, didn't want me greasing up his force-aura.

Well, I can respect that. Even extraterrestrials need their space.

He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers and caused his long brown vintage coat to flare around him not unlike a cape. With his mind all but lost in its own thoughts, he opted not to check his e-mail after all, but to return to the outside world, return to the car.

What's the old proverb? 'Three can keep a secret, if two are dead?'

Oh, but I can keep a secret. I've even been dead, once. I can keep a secret.

He found Ceri waiting for him, and she looked more than a little sullen.

Until she saw the look on his face.

Jamie, obviously, could not see his own face. He only wondered what she registered there. Portent? Awareness?

He only knew he felt far more pensive than usual, and not nearly so Puckish.

"Are you all right?" Ceri ventured, cautiously, puzzled.

Jamie grinned at her faintly. He grinned gamely, though not entirely convincingly. "I'm always all right."

He climbed in the passenger side of the car. "How'd it go with Phineas Nigellus?"

Ceri slithered into the driver's seat and shook her head. "Not quite bollocks, not quite aces. Interim Principal Kwan's tied up in meetings for the foreseeable future. I did manage to get an appointment for next week."

Jamie managed a grin at her phrasing, despite everything, a rather genuine grin indeed. "'The foreseeable future.' I like that."

Ceri chuckled. "Oh, aye, true," she rolled her eyes, but Jamie's grin was infectious and she couldn't fend off a smile of her own. "And how foreseeable is this future, exactly?"

Jamie shook his head, still grinning. "Not very foreseeable at all. I'll see your ironclad prophetic predictions and raise you, erm, six or seven dollops of chaos theory."

"Fly, butterfly," Ceri croaked with faint, weary, but wholly sincere laughter. "Fly like the wind."

They sat in quiet for a moment. Sat in the car.

"So," Jamie began, with a bit of wariness, not certain if he was doing the right thing by speaking thusly but making a go of it anyway, "what now, then? Do we, erm, pick up where we left off?"

Ceri didn't answer for another quiet moment.

Life with you is never easy, is it? she pondered. Even when it's easy, it's still so blessed difficult!

Still.

Still, though.

Who ever said life would be easy?

You know better, don't you Ceri Gwyneth McCrimmon?

She fixed Jamie with a thoughtful gaze.

"Yes," she declared. "We pick up where we left off. But not like you think."

Jamie arched an eyebrow, and glanced about as if to check if the coast were clear, and as if to say: 'Really? What, here, now, in public?'

Ceri grunted goodnaturedly. "Not like that, either."

Jamie was a rogue and a half, and he managed-- somehow or other --to play up the fact that he was feigning a lack of disappointment. He made her smile.

"Let's drive," she suggested.

"Let's do," he agreed.

And off they went, passing an oldish brown station wagon as they did so.

Jamie just missed seeing another young man vanish clean out of sight.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete chewed the inside of his cheek as he got changed back into his school clothes. Maybe he'd been wrong about the McCrimmon girl. Maybe, for once in his life, the human radar gun had gotten his MPH wrong, and Rose had just seemed cheetah-quick and had just been damn quick for a sapien.

(He hadn't seen Chloe yet today. He needed to discuss this with Chloe, before he busted a move.)

But then? Aside from a little self-preserving equivocatin', had Rose done anything wrong?

Maybe not. But the Truth was important, he knew that. And whether she was guilty of a crime or not, a young woman who could go zero-to-sixty was so far outside of normal so as to redefine the term.

He'd watch her for a little longer yet. Just to see. Just to see.

He retrieved his brown-bagged lunch-- he'd been serious, after that soup thing --from his locker, and he made his way to the lunch room.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

Rose hadn't, thank The Great Spirit of The Eternal Dynamo and all The Five Fists of Science, had a turn at bat. Bad enough she'd gotten grass stains on her very favourite long-sleeved tee, but the last thing she wanted to do was get caught out on a pop fly after her disast'rous performance as an outfielder. But then, fortunately the coaches had blown their whistles and called them in from the cold, and Rose had managed to hurry away from there, hiding the red blush down the back of her neck behind the spill of her equally red hair.

Rose still had the five dollar bill.

It had become very much the worse for wear, so much so that vending machines wouldn't look once at it, much less twice. But it was still legal tender for all debts public and private and despite the scowl on the lunch lady's face as she accepted the bill from Rose, she still did accept it from Rose.

Rose had herself a slice of heat lamp-warmed pepperoni pizza, a ladle-full of creamed corn, and an ice cream scoop-shaped dollop of mashed potato. And a Capri-Sun.

Rose made a face. Ooh, yum. A puddle of grease and two sides of starch. Julia Child would be so proud.

She stopped, though, holding her tray with the paper plates and the foil juice-pouch on it, and she gazed wearily, warily around. Looking for a familiar face... or, at the very least, an ally in times of scary nutrition.

 

[AmenRa]

She was walking by as he walked out of the library. She was there, in the hall, with the other students.

The Daughter of Zor-El was walking less than five meters from him. And the hallway was full of students.

Var-Sen contemplated for a half-second. He then moved at super-speed, dodging students as they walked, moving around them, over them, until he stopped for less than a heartbeat in front of Kara.

To Kara, it would appear as if time had slowed, as if everyone else had stopped, frozen in space. But the actuality of it was that Var-Sen was moving so near lightspeed that only the eyes of another Kryptonian could see him.

And only the ears of another Kryptonian could hear what he said when he stopped moving for that fractioned second.

"Kara," he whispered, "Kara, you and I share the same home world. We must speak, we must talk of things to come. I will be waiting for you in the Kawatche Cave, the place of prophecy, and where you will find the answers to your questions," he finished.

He then moved away from her, to the end of the hallway, where he stopped his flight of superspeed and stood still. He stood there just long enough so the Last Daughter of Krypton could see him. He nodded to her, and gave a genuine smile, and then he exited the hallway into the cafeteria.

He walked briskly through the cafeteria's main area, where he saw Rose, to whom he waved and smiled. Var-Sen stopped for a second, looking at Rose, cocking his head to one side and considering. Rose was an ally, and he trusted her. He mouthed the words "the cave" to her and then continued across the cafeteria to the courtyard beyond.

Once outside, in the parking area, he looked quickly around, and seeing no one watching, he took flight.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

The coaches had blown the whistle soon after Kara knocked one out of the park, and we all filed in and went our separate locker rooms. Most of the guys were laughing and joking around, but Pete looked a bit thoughtful, and Iron-Jaw's buddy McPierson was just trying to look cool, but only managing , well, he looked like a weasel. The jocks were definitely up to something this year.

I got changed and headed to the cafeteria. A few dollars later and I had another slice of Americana and some grease, with a side of 2% milk. (I didn't have to eat, but a good cover is all about blending in.) I took a seat and sorta zoned, letting the low mutter that all crowded places wash over me.

I was taken back to a week before my parents were killed. Dad had surprised us all with Spurs tickets, and we went. I remember it well. Collin was so excited I had to hold him in my lap to keep him sorta still, and Bekka had taken Beth into hers. We had all had such a good time.

I sat there lost in my own thoughts, not even noticing the tear trickling down my cheek.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick came out of the guidance office feeling only slightly better. He had just been lectured about the importance of class time, the importance of not falling behind, and the importance of extracurricular activities.

Seems I can't catch a break thought Merick as he tried to navigate the hallways, already late for his next period. Thankfully he had study hall, he had a lot to get caught up on. Seemed like every teacher he had had assigned at least half the text book as homework. Now, if only I could figure out what the hell happened this morning, well, maybe after some math...

Merick arrived at his study hall and tried in vain to do his work, however his mind kept wandering back to his arrival. How exactly did he go from running across the front lawn to doing his best impression of the Kool-Aid Man? Not that Merick was overly surprised that he had done this. Two weeks ago he had done something similar, while walking down the hall to the bath room, he suddenly found himself in the shower. But that had to be just him zoning out. Its not like he was a character in one of his favorite Marvel Comics, it's not like he was Kurt freaking Wagner! At least he didn't leave a puff of sulfur...

Merick decided there had to be an answer. People don't just wake up one morning able to teleport. He subconsciously traced his hand slowly over the scar on the top of his head, the one that was obscured by the thick crop of hair that he always kept combed over smoothly. Then the scars on his arm.

Merick knew a lot of things, he knew that he loved 80's pop. He knew he couldn't resist a bad scary movie, he also knew that he was missing a little over the first four years of his life. And he had the sneaking suspicion that there were a lot of answers to be had in that time.

He didn't know why, but he decided that maybe, just maybe those missing years would also contain questions, important questions. Merick's quite contemplation was interrupted by the bell. He looked down shocked to think class had ended and all he had done was sit there, brainstorming crazy ideas, ideas that had to be impossible.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

The world will end.

Someday, someday, whether by Man's own hand, or by the fatigue of an exhausted, arthritic Universe, or by the spoken word of a God Who may have decided to start the whole thing over.

It remains to be seen whether the world will end with a bang or with a whimper.

Chloe sat in the darkened Torch with her head in her hands, recovering from a bizarre round of self-hypnosis in which she'd tried to piece together all the missing shards of the horrifying massacre of Kyle's family using gestalt subconscious techniques. A bizarre round of self-hypnosis in which she'd come up with more questions than answers.

The only way Kyle could have escaped is by vanishing. But how would a person do that? Simply flicker out of one place and into another? What sort of particle physics would that inv--

There came a bang and there came a whimper, and Chloe nearly fell out of her chair because she thought, for a fleeting horrifying second, that the world was coming to an end.

She nearly fell out of her chair and only barely saved herself, blinking tear-stained eyes, by grabbing the edge of her desk with both hands.

A boy was there. A boy in very distinctive garb, trying to pull himself together after having bumbled and stumbled into her beloved Wall of Weird, scattering photos and news clippings...

Chloe sat there with her mouth open. Stunned silence.

What the... Hell?

She fired a glance at the door.

Still shut. She swung her gaze back around to the young man, who-- quite frankly --looked just about as bewildered as she felt.

"Watch out for that last step," he warned her. "Its a doozy."

She stared at him blankly. The first step off of what? A transwarp conduit? One of Clarice Ferguson's 'Blink' portals? Four-dimensional space as described by William Sleator in The Boy Who Reversed Himself?

Chloe shook her head as he made for the door.

As soon as Earl gets back, I am seriously going to have him take a look at that lock. I bet 'Var-Sen' did a number on it that one time that he--

And The Boy Who Excused Himself had to stop and fiddle with the lock to get the door open, and Chloe's face and brain contorted in opposite directions. Because if he'd been able to get in without unlocking the door but he couldn't get out again...

The fourth-dimensional suggestion was making more and more sense.

Maybe the school was a crossroads for The Fourth Dimension, a place in which you could go forward and backward, up and down, left and right... and ana and kata.

The lad slithered out into the hallway, and only then did Chloe snap out of her awestruck reverie...

She sprinted after him, but by the time she reached the door, a troop of The Testosterone Elite had wandered by in their letterman jackets and their surly, self-amused expressions and the halls were filling with still more students on top of that.

Chloe stood for a moment, desperately searching the milling horde.

The young man was long gone. Maybe he'd even disappeared the way he'd come in, Disapparated the way he'd Apparated.

Chloe retreated, closed the door behind her. Took a deep breath.

With a heavy heart and a furrowed brow, she walked over to The Wall and began picking up the clippings and the thumbtacks that the young man had scattered when he'd so suddenly appeared. As she began lovingly replacing the images, she slowed slightly, and she frowned.

She hadn't recognised the lad at first. Not at first. But there was a bothersome familiarity to that mode of dress.

With a quiet bit of math, Chloe determined what she thought was the exact spot where the young man's face had struck The Wall, and she left that space open. She then hauled the junior high's last yearbook out of the hardcopy files, and paged through it as rapidly as she could.

...and there she found him, right in there with the eighth-grade class from the previous year. Wearing that very same hat.

Merick Tennylson.

She pursed her lips and she sighed faintly.

Merick. Have you been an interdimensional gallivanter for very long, or was this your first jaunt?

People keep disappearing and reappearing around here the way that people appear and disappear in dreams... too much more of this, and I'm going to seriously consider converting to solipsism.

She placed the yearbook on the flatbed scanner, converted the image of Merick Tennylson to a digital format, blew it up on her computer, and printed it out as a 4x6. This, she ceremoniously tacked up on The Wall.

She smiled sadly at him, as his image grinned cheerfully back at her from under the brim of That Hat.

Sorry, Merick. Freaky until proven innocent.

She turned away from him, and returned her gaze to where it should have been in the first place: The Tablet. So very much to do. So very little time.

She drew in a shaky breath. She let it out again.

Sorry, Var-Sen. Need a break. I'm only human, after all.

She locked The Torch behind her and made her way to The Crow's Nest, the school store. There, she purchased a bottle of green tea and a Fruity Oaty Bar.

(Hardly an espresso-saturated latte/Power Bar combo, but she was hoping it would do the trick.)

Returning to The Torch, she sat by a window and slithered the blind up. She ate and drank thoughtfully, and tried to find a modicum of the quiet she'd attained before recreating that Texas Non-Chainsaw Massacre in her head.

She could do this. She could crack this Tablet. But she was going to have to start delegating some of this other stuff or she was going to seriously lose her mind.

'Freaky until proven innocent,' she thought with a small stab of chagrin.

And how exactly does one prove oneself innocent in your book, Chloe Sullivan? she wondered.

By making oneself useful, she realised with a start.

Rose.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

She hadn't spotted Kara yet, and really, that had been her first priority.

But as ice-blue eyes danced from face to face to face, and still she didn't see her beautiful neighbour, Rose had wondered if she shouldn't maybe consider other options.

And her eyes flicked once more, and... and?

Professor Smith! Var-Sen? What was he...?

He was looking at her like she maybe had something in her teeth. Like maybe she'd sprouted a second head, and the head belonged to a genius who had once been an ape-man but now resembled a cat...

Then he mouthed at her: 'The Cave.'

She blinked, bewildered, and he was off again.

Now what was he...? I enjoy a Piper Perabo movie as much as the next girl but--

Oh.

Stupid.

Stupid the size of Wales.

That Cave.

She watched him go, more than a little incredulous.

So. Now, The Cave? Not, you know, later The Cave?

God, I am never going to graduate high school. I should just take my G.E.D. now and be done with it.

She clomped her tray down and scarfed the creamed corn, ate the pizza as quick as she could without choking, and shoved the Capri Sun into her pocket.

She ignored the mashed potatoes. (Besides, they looked all lumpy.)

Rose began to jog after Var-Sen when she saw Kyle.

And she stopped dead in her tracks.

Her eyes were sharp. Sharp like razors. And she saw that tear gleaming on his cheek as he stared into nowhere. And the sharpness of razors stabbed into her heart.

God, he looked sad.

She stopped. She glanced after Var-Sen. She glanced at Kyle.

Can it wait just a quick sec, Professor Krypton? Please brook a brief delay; after all, I'm hardly as fast as you.

She hurried over to Kyle as quickly as she could, plonked herself down on the seat beside him...

Rose held up her fingertips next to his cheek and, with the same sort of soft exertion of will she'd used to keep her vision clear during the sprinkler-deluge the previous day, she captured that teardrop, that wandering lonely bit of water, and she lifted it telekinetically from Kyle's face.

It flickered across to her palm and sat there, quivering, as she cupped that palm upwards. She smiled faintly at Kyle, and she leaned in and-- best as she could, given her utter lack of experience in such matters --she kissed him softly on the lips.

She wasn't lacking in feeling, that was for certain. And she had decent embouchure. She was a better kisser than she thought she was, though she could probably use a little more practise.

Rose drew back, and she ruffled his hair with one hand, dispersing the teardrop into water vapour with the other.

"'You are alive,'" she said simply, gently, firmly, "'so live."

And then she was gone again, just like Var-Sen always did, saying what needed to be said and then Getting Out of Dodge. (Which, hey, Kansas. Getting Out of Dodge was just being respectful of local tradition.)

She ran for the courtyard.

(Cussin' softly, Pete saw her go, Pete saw her go fast like a runaway sapien and faster, and he followed as best as he could. Because between Crazy Alien Dude and the fleetfooted redhead, something Hella screwed up must've been going on...)

She didn't stop at the courtyard. She didn't have the advantage of vanish-quick superspeed. She was fast, but not nearly that fast.

She ran across the ballfield and effortlessly vaulted the fence that she'd crashed into earlier.

(Pete ran at full tilt, breathing hard, and scrambled over the fence. Not effortlessly, by any means, but with a heart of gold and iron determination driving his every movement.

He picked himself up, him and his bagged lunch, and watched Rose dart in behind the sheds where Mr. Jenkins usually parked his truck.

He took a deep breath, and kept up the pursuit...

He tore 'round the corner and saw Rose lifting off, ten feet above the ground and climbing, and before he realised he was even doing it he could hear his voice come out in a roar: )

"MCCRIMMON!"

Rose stopped in mid-air. Stopped still. Levitated.

And she swiveled in the air, and gazed at Pete with wide wide blue blue eyes.

Pete shook his head at her, gasping for breath, and held his arms apart in a massive, all-encompassing question mark of a look... "Hrh... hrh... how?"

Rose looked pained. Agonised. She floated back down towards the ground without quite touching it, and she held out her hand.

Her voice was a whisper, a whisper full of the pain etched on her face: "I don't really have time for this; I've got to be somewhere and I, uh, don't want to be the last on the scene?"

Pete stared at her. "What are you...?"

Rose smiled at him. A sad sad smile.

"'You want me,'" she recited.
"'Come find me.
Make up your mind.'"

Pete took a step forward, and planted his hand in Rose's outstretched grasp.

'Even when I think you're whacked,' he thought to himself, 'I show up ready to rumble.'

Rose smiled a little sadder, and Pete felt a part of his heart break.

But then Rose hauled Pete with her into the sky, careful not to dislocate his shoulder in the process, and flew hard towards The Kawatche Cave.

 

[AmenRa]

The Kryptonian stepped through the powdery dirt that was the floor of the great cavern of the Kawatche caves. LuthorCorp had since cleared their techno gear from the main room. He figured this wasn't the last time they'd be here, and he expected a call from Lionel Luthor any time now in reference to the machine he destroyed not long ago.

But now none of that mattered.

He glanced over the drawings on the wall. Pictures that told a story, drawn by wise sages of an ancient tribe were intertwined with the specific glyphs of Kryptonian language. A language that told a story all its own.

Here was where Var-Sen would tell Kara Zor-El of her destiny. Here was where he would show her what it meant to be Kryptonian. In this place he would show her that she was not alone on this world. And neither was he.

And if a certain extraordinary human girl whose father had captured his intellect (and she had captured his heart) showed herself, then he would show Kara there were others she could trust on this Earth as well.

And then he would place her on her path that would lead to her destiny and her birthright on Earth.

Not to conquer.

Not to destroy.

But to bring hope.

Peace.

So that Krypton and all that it embodied in ideal and thought did not die in vain.

Var-Sen moved to sit on a stone, and when he did his weight triggered the most minute of detonators that had been hidden in the roof of the cavern. There was the smallest of explosions, not even enough to shatter glass, but enough to loose some stones that had been carefully hidden so high up in the cave's walls. These stones fell to the floor of the cave.

One of them was jagged and black in places, yet parts of it shown brightly green.

It glowed because it was close to one of its own.

The Kryptonite, under a power all of its own, felt the charging of the electromagnetic field of the cellular structure of Var-Sen's body. And it reacted. And it poisoned.

Var-Sen fell to the floor, the glowing green rock sucking his strength from him like a leech. He reached towards it, wanting to move it away, but the poison traveled up his fingers, into his hand, up the veins in his arm. His skin grayed, his pupils constricted and they, too, turned green.

He had no energy. He had no powers. He had nothing. Feebly, he gasped for breath. He would cry out, but he could not. He was too weak.

But he knew that this had been planned for him. And he knew who had planned it. And his only thought was that he hoped Rose had followed.

Because in that instant Var-Sen vowed the most terrible thing against the one who had betrayed him this day.

Vengeance.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holyshitholyshitholyshit!"

Pete gasped for air as they landed, grinning giddily and bending half over and laughing softly as he cussed a blue streak.

"Holy shit," he reiterated. "That? That is a rush and a half. That is... that is Legend."

Rose stared at him for a moment, as if finding this all hard to believe.

But then again... "grace under pressure." Pete was a good guy. He was a good. Guy.

She grinned a wobbly grin. "I'm glad you approve," she nodded slowly. "But next time? (On the way back, I guess?) Could you maybe sacremerde a little louder? I don't think the other half of Lowell County could hear you."

Pete chuckled helplessly, and managed to get some more of his breath back.

"Yeah, yeah," he nodded. "I'll work on it."

He jabbed a thumb towards the mouth of The Cave, nearby which they'd touched down. "So why are we here, anyway?"

Rose winced. "Dunno, actually. It was The Professor's idea."

She narrowed her eyes. "What say we find out?"

Pete nodded, and gestured for her to precede him.

Rose proceeded to precede... and realised, after a few strides in darkness, that infrared vision would only help her see, and not her ersatz compatriot.

She held aloft a hand, and surrounded it with firelight, and the cavern glowed a gentle saffron-gold.

Pete arched an eyebrow. "You got more tricks up your sleeve than Criss Angel, huh?" ...but he was not unappreciative. Beat using a camcorder's nightvision, any day of the week.

Rose shrugged, and seemed disinclined to talk about it...

Especially when they rounded a bend, entered the main cavern, and found Var-Sen swathed in the green of a very angry-seeming meteor rock.

They stiffened, simultaneously, as if mentally commanded.

Pete's hand shot to Rose's shoulder. "Keep back from that crap, girl," he admonished, "it'll bend you and mix you up and turn you into--"

He trailed off. Rose was staring at him dubiously.

"Oh," Pete grimaced. "Right."

Rose's eyes didn't linger on Pete, though. They shot back over to Var-Sen...

"Don't look like it's transforming him, tho'," Pete murmured, weirded out. "Looks like it's... it's straight-up poisoning him..."

Rose bit her lip. Pete wasn't wrong... he wasn't even slightly wrong. That's exactly what it looked like.

She'd seen Uncle Em do some weird stuff with meteor rocks and some of it had involved animal testing. Bugs and worms and some perfectly innocent albino mice...

But she'd never seen a reaction quite like this.

"Proximity," she murmured. "Not contact. Radiation?"

Pete stepped forward, frowning worriedly, rolling up his sleeves: "We gotta get him outta there."

Rose put a hand on his shoulder. "Dangerous for him; dangerous for you, too."

It wasn't just math whirring through her right now... it was math and it was Science. Mad-ish Science learned at her daddy's knee.

"Radiation maybe resulting from the decay of atomic nuclei?" she whispered, striding forward. "But atoms can't decay if they can't move."

She knelt by Professor Var-Sen, knelt over the shimmering glowing angry rock.

She could feel him beside her. His customary familiar warmth was gone, just gone...

He was so cold. He was dead cold.

Not if I can help it, Rose glowered, and once more she switched gears: she switched from heat to cold, from molten saffron-gold to searing blue-white with lightning 'round the edges.

That ice-cold lightning crackled from her fingertips as she extended them around the rock, cupping it like a fortune teller might cup her crystal ball. The lightning sizzled and danced, flashing across the surface of the rock, and the green light mixed with the cold cold blue.

Rose exhaled, and her breath was frost. Her eyes were glinting, flint-hard, so very very blue.

And ice began to form, began to slither around the surface of the rock.

Sweat snuck down the back of Rose's neck, and this, too, froze solid. She was perspiring from the effort but still she poured it on. She froze the rock, froze it more than solid, got it down down down to Absolute Zero, got it as Absolutely Zero as she could possibly get it.

She thought she was going to black out. She thought she was going to throw up.

She poured it on.

The molecules in the meteor rock slowed. Halted.

Stock-still atoms couldn't give off particles in the form of radioactive energy if the particles couldn't move to escape. If the molecules couldn't move, they couldn't undergo chemical reactions to produce energy in any form, much less radiation.

(Fire couldn't oxidise without heat. And Rose knew a thing or two about Fire.)

She froze the rock and locked its energies down but if she let up for a second it would thaw and she wasn't sure how quickly Var-Sen would recover...

"Pete," she wheezed, teeth gritted. "Safe for now. Get him out of here."

Pete nodded firmly. There wasn't time to be slackjawed about what the girl had just did.

Flight. Heat. Ice. Running like a bat outta Hell.

This wasn't no run-of-the-mill, one-trick-pony Meteor Freak. Rose McCrimmon was Something Else.

But he didn't take time to be slackjawed. Instead he hurried to Var-Sen's side and offered him a hand up.

"Let's get you gone, Professor," he suggested. "'Fore this Fruity Pebble turns us all into Jolly Green Giants."

 

[AmenRa]

He was dreaming. Of that he was sure.

Or, perhaps he had taken the step Across.

Either way, he saw Krypton as it was meant to be.

Beautiful, white, shining. The Great Dome, the Council Hall, the spires of Kryptonopolis. The Great Valley, where there still stood a monument to the first of the three Great Houses, their symbols forever etched into the crystals.

And then blackness. And voices distant. One weak, but powerful. One strong and amazed.

Var-Sen's eyes snapped open. He gritted his teeth. The pain was receding, but yet it lingered still. He shifted his vision to see Rose, the powerful, and he awed at her command of the cold. And then he saw the outstretched hand of Pete Ross. Var-Sen reached for that hand, took it, and summoned his returning strength to stand.

He stumbled, caught himself, and stood upright. He placed a hand on Pete's shoulder and directed him to walk to the other side of the cavern, away from the green death crystal, to stand against the rock wall near where the single shaft of light pierced through the cavern roof.

They were far enough away from the Kryptonite now, far enough away that's its radiation could not hurt him here should Rose release it.

Var-Sen stepped into the single shaft of light and he was reborn. He raised his arms, he felt the warmth of Sol pour into him, recharge him, and bring him back.

He opened his eyes and saw Rose. He knew what she had done for him. He spoke to her.

"We are safe, Rose," he said, "and no longer in danger of becoming Jolly Green Giants." He clasped Pete's shoulder and managed a smile.

Var-Sen saw a shadow-thing move beside Rose, coalescing out of the darkness of the cave. At first he thought to rush to her, despite her efforts against the Kryptonite, as this thing that knelt beside her was most un-natural. But then, he realized it was someone, and not just something, and they were trying to help her.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Kyle

I didn't even know she was there until I felt her lips on mine.
My eyes shot open & I initially drew back, but then leaned into the kiss.

It was... nice.

Rose looked into my eyes with a very serious and concerned expression on her face. "You are alive. So live!"
And then she was gone. moving at for her was probably a slightly enhanced speed. I noticed Pete get up and take off after her, a strange look on his face too.

Like he knew something. Damn!

Following Pete was pretty easy. Especially when he yelled out "MCCRIMMON!" as loud as he could. Thats when I noticed Rose flying.

I was sooooo outta my league with her. Fire and Ice and brains wrapped up in a sunrises beauty, and now she could FLY!!!

She landed, they said something, and then they were off, Rose taking Pete up into the sky and heading South.


I stood in the shade of the old Oak that I had hidden behind, thinking. Rose was headed off somewhere in a hurry, and Pete knew about her powers, and they seemed to be if not friends then friendly. But Rose had a urgent look on her face, like she was late for something.
And they were totally ditching three hours of school at least!

I stood there thinking for a while. Rose had powers. In many ways greater than my own. It seemed that she could take care of herself if she was going into any kind of danger. And she had taken Pete with her, who as far as I knew was a normal teenager.
But Rose was also a innocent. As innocent as a child in some ways. And there were Bad Things out in the world. One had changed my life, destroyed what was and left me hollow. Others I had faced, be they angry kids with guns or hardened men who killed to live. I had faced both, and I knew I could handle myself in most situations.

Rose was an innocent.


I Lowered my defenses and felt Shadow envelope me, strengthening me, making me whole, and in the place where once boy, almost a man stood, a Wraith stood instead. I could feel the harsh rays of the sun around me, the coolness of the shadows under the majestic old tree, and I felt.... alive.

My teleportation power required two things to work. Shadows, and concentration. Once I had been somewhere I could go back there effortlessly, but the first time I had to will myself there. Before I had always gone to a specific, but large place. Gotham City, Denver, London, Metropolis. This time I wanted to go where Rose was.

I focused my will and concentrated. Anyone looking at me would have seen it getting dark under the tree, except for two brilliant lavender points glowing about head-high on a person. I concentrated and felt the world still around me. Felt the weight of the shadows around me.
Take me to Rose. Take me to where I can protect her. Do as I will!

The world shifted as i desolidified into Shadow, and everything shifted, then I came out in darkness.

No, not true darkness. There were low, powered lights scattered about, and a blue glow.

The blue glow was Rose, hunched over a rock in a slowly growing pool of hoarfrost, her body trembling, straining. Her hands glowing blue with frost in her hair and her skin pale, oh so pale.

I moved up to her, the mist and frost around her acknowledging the cold that was me, and parting, letting me in. I knelt down in front of her and she finally noticed me, a piece of darkness given flesh.

"You have done your part Rose. Go, let me take this away. Your on the edge, and you need to back down. Go back to the light, leave the dark to me."

My hand was out, and I waited on her to let go, to get out. Somehow this was dangerous, and somehow she had stopped it, but if she kept going it might hurt her, hurt her badly.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara had been walking down the hallway, moving this way and that as she ducked and darted between the crowd of students that filled the hallway. It still amazed her, that in one small area there could be so many people her own age. But one thing set Kara apart from all the others: she wasn’t human. Kara was an alien… a girl from another planet. She didn’t know where, nor did she know who her real parents were.

But Kara had been fortunate enough to have the Kents as her adoptive parents. And that was a thought that always brought a smile to her face.

Her mind was blank as she walked down the hall, heading off towards the cafeteria where she hoped to meet Rose, and possibly some of her other friends. All of a sudden, however, Kara noticed someone moving in front of her… moving at a normal pace while everyone else stopped.

It was Mr. Smith…

He was moving… as fast as she could!

And what he said in that sliver of a moment was just as startling as when she learned she wasn’t human.

“You and I share the same home world,” he said. But before she could say anything to him he had exitted, and she was left standing in a sea of students. They continued to act normally, though some noticed the slight breeze that had kicked up and quickly brushed it off as only the wind.

Kara remained motionless for a moment. She had… sensed something strange about Mr. Smith when they talked briefly earlier, on the school steps. She passed it off as him being odd and creepy.

“The Kawatche Cave?” she mumbled to herself, and she felt someone bump into her shoulder from behind, and she was knocked out of her little daze. She was about to call out that whomever it was should apologize, but the second after it all happened Kara clutched her hands to her ears and fell to her knees.

It sounded like she could hear everything… as if someone turned up the volume on absolutely everything ten-fold. She could hear everyone walking, talking, chewing, laughing, crying… at the same time. And there was this loud banging, like someone was hitting something with a sledgehammer…

But she couldn’t focus in on it. Her head was soon flooded again with even more noises. All in all it was like a giant stereo turned up full blast.

Even something as simple as a zipper closing was painfully loud.

“Make it stop…” Kara complained, her eyes shut tightly as she tried to adjust herself.

“Stop!” Kara cried out.

A few students nearby looked over at her, and someone even knelt down beside her to see what was the matter. Kara moved her hands away and everything was back to normal.

“You okay?” the other student asked. Kara took a moment before she nodded her head.

“Yeah…” she said softly, before being helped to her feet.

“Kay, well maybe you should go to the nurse’s office,” he suggested. Kara shook her head.

“I’m fine, thanks. Just… had a headache is all.”

The other students looked at her as if she were nuts, but they quickly lost interest in the slight distraction Kara had provided and resumed their normal activities. Stopping in the middle of the hallway to yell about loud noises wasn’t really the best way Kara could start off her high school career.

She started off towards the cafeteria again when she remembered something disturbingly wrong with what just happened. Kara recalled that considerable banging sound, like someone was chucking desks against a wall and then beating against it with their fists.

Kara had to find out what was wrong.

Apparently Smallville High School had its own dark secrets, and in a few moments, Kara found herself walking up to a section of the building that was roped and chained off. The hallways were dark and rather quiet, though she could hear a faint banging sound coming from deep within the corridor.

Her blue eyes looked down at the lock that held the chains together, and picking it up with her hand she crushed it. The chains immediately rattled about before falling to the ground in a heap of metal, the fences opening up a little. Kara checked to see if anyone was watching, and when the coast was clear she slipped inside and crept down the hall.

After checking into a few classrooms that were locked and/or boarded up, she peered around into an empty classroom that had its door practically torn off, and saw a few chairs and desks turned over. Papers lay scattered around on the ground, along with books and other assorted items.

A fight definitely broke out in here. But between who, and why?

“Hello?” Kara called out, finally stepping inside. She ducked just as a small slab of concrete came whirling towards her head. It smashed against the wall behind her, quickly breaking apart into smaller pieces.

After ducking she looked off in the direction the rock came from, and she saw a tall man standing there, hunched over a little and his face flushed with anger. He didn’t look too pleased… nor did he look at all human. His skin was veiny and pulsing, and his eyes were as red as blood.

Someone had obviously taken a page out of the Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde legend and applied it all too literally. Kara wasn’t sure if she should, or could, try talking to him. He was pissed about something, and had apparently decided to take his frustration out on her. She stood up as he came forward, and before she could say a word he had reached out and grabbed her arm violently. Kara quickly knocked his hand away, but he grabbed her again and chucked her against the opposite wall.

Kara fell to the ground, a small dent having been left where she came in contact with the wall. She looked up to see him coming over to her, and when he reached down to grab her again she clenched one of her fists closed and punched him in the jaw. Kara hadn’t bothered to hold back her strength, as she gathered this brute wouldn’t react to a normal blow. He was sent flying into the wall on the other side of the room… and continued plowing straight through it.

Kara stood up and dusted herself off, a small smidgen of dirt covering one of her cheeks and her hair looked a bit ruffled. She looked through the gaping hole to see Mr. Hyde stand back up, a little dazed, but seemingly just as pissed off as before.

“Great,” Kara said to herself, looking on as another slab of concrete was chucked at her through the wall. She quickly ducked aside and used her quick speed to run forward, her arm pulled back as she aimed another punch at the man’s chest.

It never connected. Instead she felt both his hands come crashing down against her back, and she knocked down against the floor. Kara couldn’t remember the last time she ever felt pain this intense, nor did she think she would ever feel the same way again. It was like being hit by… well she couldn’t really compare it to anything.

But it hurt.

And she felt weak… as if all the strength in her body was suddenly leaving her. She couldn’t explain it… all she could see were these tiny rocks speckled with tiny green gems. They seemed to radiate around her… glowing with a strange energy about them.

She couldn’t do anything but lay there as a pair of strong hands grabbed her jacket and lift her body up. Her strength returned to her normally, and she felt her body being chucked off towards the direction of the classroom. A second later and she was sent crashing through the wall and into a row of desks, landing just shy of the other side of the room.

‘Ow…’ Kara thought to herself. At least she was away from those rocks…
She finally stood up, and she took a moment to regroup herself. She would need to attack this man head-on, while at the same time avoiding those strangely glowing rocks.

Kara conjured up quite a bit of her strength and speed for her next attack, and she launched herself at the man with all she could muster. This time she wouldn’t be caught by surprise. As he came towards her, Kara ran at him to intercept his attack, and punched him squarely in the chest. The force of her attack sent him barely backwards, crashing through the wall and out through another. Sunlight poured in through the holes, and from where she was standing she could see him lying on the ground. She waited for him to get back up… but he didn’t move a muscle.

Kara sighed in relief and walked over, emerging into the sunlight and feeling its warmth fill her body. She felt so much stronger now that she was outside, which was more than she could say for the man lying on the ground beneath her feet.

Kara couldn't recognize him... but then she didn't really know that many people to begin with.

===

OOC: I'll probably add more to this later, but I have to go to class /cry

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick decided he had had enough. He needed to get somewhere to think, fat lot of good that had done though. Merick looked down at the scrap of paper he had clumsily scrawled his schedule on. Lunch was next. That was fine by him.

Merick wasted no time grabbing a YooHoo and a fruit cup out of the lunch room and making a bee line for the outside. He settled on a small bench, in what he figured should be a quite place to think.

"Ok, so first things first. I need to try to explain what happened this morning. What did happen? First, I was running, and it was like I couldn't stop thinking about getting to class. I have already missed so damn much, only natural t want to get caught up. Right? Merick looked at his YooHoo, half wishing it would offer some form of support or advice."Ok so here we go. I will walk right into that office, and I will tell her, 'Look, I dont know what the hell happened. I was just running toward the school, and then it was like my mind was rolling, like a leaf in a wind storm. Except, that isnt entirely right either. It was more like I was turnng pages in a book. Like one of those old time cartoon flip books. I just wanted to get to class, and then the next thing I know, BLAM-O!' She'll buy that right? I mean it is the truth, but it is also a bit awkward. Well, it's not like I am performing Large Home Appliance worship over here, just breaking the rules of physics. OK so, thats it. I am going to walk right back in there, and I am going to go to the Torch office and I am going to say Just at this point suddenly, Merick disappears, with nothing more that a small swoosh of air filling the now empty space. There is a small swoosh as Merick emerges, sitting on a desk, in an all too familiar room, "Chloe, I didn't mean to crash your office, the Kool-Aid guy just made it look SO fun, too bad they neglected to mention how much more solid real walls are when you aren't an animated character. Merick realizes as he finishes his sentence that he is no longer on his bench. Where the Hell did my YooHoo go!? Where the Hell did I go!? Merick takes of his hat and starts wringing it in his hands Hey, Chloe, you don't really know me, but I'm a big fan! PLEASE DON"T HURT ME!!!!

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

She flinched at first when she saw him, but then recognition dawned, dawned through the redblack haze of exertion...

She smiled at him, wavery and quavery.

"Ray," she mumbled, remembering the name she'd long thought was his, and immediately, in her exerted haze, tacked on a suffix: "...th."

"Wraith," she grinned softly.

And she lifted the frozen rock into his outstretched hand. She was trembling, trembling, but she was strong... she was brave and she was strong.

"Wrap it up in shadow," she requested, her voice cracking a little under the strain, "if you can? Bury it, nice and thick, so no light can escape. The light hurts Professor Smith. The light might change Pete. I think we're safe, though... we're already changed."

Pete had been grinning triumphantly at Professor Smith. Dude had more colour in his cheeks already; he'd been looking a little green.

And, apparently, he'd approved of Pete's feeble pop-culture punnery. So that was always validating.

But then the beast stepped out of the blackness, a shadowy figure, an incarnation of the absence of light, and now Pete's jaw went slack.

But Rose didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed, and she even... she even seemed glad to see him. She called him by name.

"'Wraith?'" he croaked softly. "As in. As in 'The Wraith?' Scourge of the Metropolis underworld? That Wraith?"

Rose turned to Pete and nodded, smiling a lopsided, weary smile.

"S'okay," she breathed. "He's my--"

She got a funny look on her face, but it was only momentary, and she recovered.

"He's. He's a friend."

Pete shook his head, whistled long and low. "With friends like that... who needs archnemeses?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen gave Pete's shoulder a very light squeeze, then held out his arms to Rose.

Until Wraith disposed of the Kryptonite, he wasn't going to go near it, even if it was frozen beyond frozen.

Inwardly, he smiled. Such bravery, such pride he had seen from these two superbeings. Even from Pete, who had no powers, but dared to trod where superbeings did.

Perhaps, he thought, Earth was indeed worthy of the gift visited upon it by Zor-El. And Var-Sen was glad that these three would be with him in the cave when Kara showed up.

He gave Rose a smile, the best he could manage under the circumstances, and one that let her know how very proud of her he was. She was not his child, but he felt a bond with her just as if she had been taken from Krypton as well.

This Wraith, as Rose had called him, and Pete too had recognized, was no stranger to Var-Sen. He, too, had read stories. Now, he too was a believer.