The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

"Yeah," Chloe remarked, running her fingertips over The Tablet as she talked on her cell. "But seriously, Snapper. I'm not trying to be euphemistic or to use double-entendres. I need to use the spectrometry lab at Met U, and I need to not be disturbed in there. I need to use it... privately."

Chloe closed her eyes and placed one hand on her furrowed forehead as Snapper uttered an inevitably flirtatious response. Honestly, you could slap a restraining order and a harrassment suit on this kid, and he'd laugh it off as "playing hard to get." Boy geniuses were always so socially maladjusted.

(Too bad she liked guys who wore glasses.)

"No," she replied, with bemused chagrin, "but nice try. It's inorganic material, so I won't be radiocarbon-dating anything."

He warbled at her a little more, and she couldn't help but grin helplessly.

"Well," Chloe chuckled, "throw in a beta-test version of Doctor Magnus' latest point-by-point image-recognition software, and we'll talk."

Warble warble.

"Over coffee," Chloe allowed. "And don't take that the wrong way: I talk with most people over one kind of coffee or another. You might say coffee and I go hand in hand."

Warble!

Chloe grinned wider still. "Okay, then. Talk to you on Friday night."

She gazed down at the phone as her thumb tagged the red insignia to silence the call. She shook her head.

"Now," she mused. "If only I could get guys to fawn all over me when I'm not desperately trying to get work done, I'd be all set..."

And then.

Swoosh.

And papers were flying everywhere behind her, she could hear it, and little prickly angry feelings began to crawl up the back of her neck. She whirled to face the intruder, though even as she whirled she knew she knew she knew already who it was.

Merick.

He was flustered and he was disoriented and he was apologetic and the only thing he'd managed to dislodge-- thank God --was the yet-to-be-collated submissions for the creative writing insert she was planning to include for the second week's first issue, a new twist on the whole "what I did on my summer vacation" trope. But still.

But still.

She didn't have time for this, and she was exhausted, and much as she liked Snapper he could really wear her nerves thin...

Her nerves were worn really, really thin.

She missed Bruce. She'd only gotten to see him for a split-second right at the beginning of the day.

And for all of Merick's stumblebum palooka charm, he was no Bruce Wayne.

She stormed right up to him, and for a moment she thought she might box him around the ears despite his pleading not to hurt him.

Instead, she poked a finger into his chest and struggled to remain calm.

"Listen, Tennylson," she growled, channeling more than a little of her battlewagon cousin Lois, "I'm an understanding person. I really am. But whatever prank you've got going on with the unstable wormhole has got to start involving someone besides me."

She grabbed his hat out of his hands, popped it back into shape, and shoved it back onto his head.

"Believe me," she shook her head, "were it any other day but today--"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick was completely dumbfounded, what could he do. At least now he thought he could maybe understand what he did, at least the fundamentals of it. He literally was shuffling through life like it was a book. Life really is like a book, each moment a word, a phrase, a page. If you knew how, and Merick was slowly learning he thought he did, you could string those words and phrases together, make them touch, and you could change the story. As long as he new where to go, he could go, or so the theory goes.

For the first time in a long time Merick was TRULY, afraid. Chloe looked every bit the Valkyrie. Merik thought of one thing, and only one thing... He needed to get out of Dodge. With out a moments hesitation, Merick started to summon to mind all the places he every felt warm and safe. Then he spun on his heels, and was gone. But something didn't feel quite right. For starters, he didn't feel the soft sensation of air ruffling over his skin, the oddly warm sensation running over him, the things he had felt, but not truly noticed before. Those were gone, in there place was an odd shimmer. The world seemed slightly distorted, almost as if it were out of focus.

Then it all cleared, and unlike before, there was a loud pop, like a small child popping his cheek at a Sunday Mass, it seemed to but too loud. And he was standing in his father's office. And he wasn't alone. God help him. He wasn't alone.

 

[AmenRa]

Lionel Luthor sat back in his chair.

His planning had not gone quite as well as he had wished. He knew the alien would return to the cave, and he knew the green meteor rock would affect him. He had no wish to kill Smith, but he definitely wanted to get his attention.

Smith knew where the pieces to the Artifact were. Or, he possibly even had some of them, if not all of them.

Swann had searched for them. So had Queen, and Teague, and Wayne. But of all of them, Lionel Luthor would find them. He would make certain of it. He had taken steps to be certain that only he remained to find them.

Lionel clicked "play" on the laptop screen once more. He watched the infra-red enhanced image of the alien John Smith enter the cave and trigger the small explosion. The meteor rock landed on the floor, and John Smith fell to the floor from the rock he had been sitting on. But then, something happened. The camera had been placed badly, obviously, because Lionel couldn't see who else had come into the cave. The explosion must have jarred the small CCD, because it looked like the lens had frosted over.

Lionel stopped the video and closed the laptop. He stood from his desk and walked over to one of the many windows that lined his office. Looking out, he saw the sprawling skyline of Metropolis. Something caught his vision, and he focused on the tiny ledge outside the window. There was something there. Lionel bent down and looked closer through the glass.

It was a cookie.

An Oreo cookie.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe's world yawed, rolled, and pitched.

There came a pop, and for an instant Chloe remembered a sci-fi novel... not The Boy Who Reversed Himself, by William Sleator, but The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold.

(The Boy had been a young adult novel. And she'd picked up The Man, thinking it would be some kind of sequel, and, well. The Man Who Folded Himself had not been for young adults even at all.)

There had been a time machine built into a belt in the David Gerrold novel, and whenever the main character used this belt, an electrostatic burst would drive the air out of the space into which he traveled so that he would not get his molecules cross-wired with those of the local atmosphere. And it was this that Chloe thought of the moment she felt that pop.

Chloe's hands snapped open and she released Merick's hat.

She staggered away from Merick, backing into his father's desk, a stricken look on her face.

"Merick," she whispered, "did you just tell me you were a big fan of mine and then kidnap me? Because I'm sure, as a reasonable human being, you can understand how that behaviour would be seriously suspect. If you're not a reasonable human being, then maybe you've turned into a crazy stalker type because of repeated exposures to interdimensional forces and you think I'm your distaff duplicate from an alternate chronology. In which case? I think I'd like to leave. Actually. Actually?"

She swallowed hard, and, even as she struggled not to panic, she looked around for something she could use to defend herself.

"Actually, Merick," she murmured, through a lopsided fearful purposeful smile. "Either way, I think I'd like to leave."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Bury it. I think I could do that.

I reached out and took the cold stone from Rose, and she seemed relieved to have lost it.

"I will return. This stone will not be seen again."

I phased my body into shadows, growing wispy and indistinct to the others, only my softly glowing eyes remaining steady. Then, with a thought I sank down into the earth.

And down.
And down.
And down.

Eventually I emerged into a cavern. The light from my eyes giving me enough light to see what I had emerged in. The cave was enormous, with great crystal spires growing throughout the structure. I could feel that the pressure down here was great, much greater than the surface, but it affected me not at all.

I walked forward until I came to a pedestal. On the bare rock I placed the now softly glowing green stone. It was a mystery I may have to dwell deeper into, but right now that would not be necessary.

I resumed Shadowform and started rising up through the strata of earth above me. Slowly at first, then faster. A few minutes later, I emerged back into the cavern, shadows swirling around me, as if in greeting.

"It has been done M'lady. The stone is somewhere safe, where it can do no more harm."

I looked over at Pete and Professor Smith. The professor looked a little winded, and Pete just looked like he wished he knew all that was going on. Rose was still on the ground, but her color was getting better. My guess was that her elemental powers were evening out her internal temperature.

I walked deeper into the cave, the symbols clear as daylight to me. I had never seen anything like them.

"What is the place?" I asked, to no one in particular.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

Rose stood, shaking a little. Shaking, but smiling.

"Thanks, uh, M'Lord," she smiled appreciatively. "You're a lifesaver."

Her powers were capable of much, but there seemed to be a fairly solid upward limit to how much energy she could channel in a given period. She felt like she'd run a Marathon.

If Kyle hadn't shown up when he had done...

Well. She wouldn't have been able to keep that rock locked down very much longer at all.

She tugged the Capri-Sun out of her pocket and found, with a soft and bitter and sincerely amused laugh, that the little juice-pouch had frozen solid. Her fingertips flared gold, and she thawed the juice just as she'd thawed Thomas during the previous afternoon's debacle.

Rose stabbed the pouch with the straw and took a hard swig. Downed half the pouch's contents in a swallow. (A little too warm, now, but still, it was liquid refreshment and she was parched.)

Pete felt like he could use a drink himself. Unfortunately, he'd dropped his bag lunch somewhere over McNally Farms. (Hopefully, his Red Delicious apple had smacked that dirtbag McNally in the skull, Newton-style, because karma.)

Instead, though, as Rose quenched her understandable thirst, Pete spoke up to answer The Wraith's question: "This is Native America's answer to Roswell, I guess? Turns out UFOs ain't just a twentieth-century phenomenon."

Rose nodded respectfully to Var-Sen, a silent 'you're most welcome,' before downing the rest of the drink.

She murmured faintly. "This is like Aslan's How, from Prince Caspian," she murmured. "A monument and a hiding place and holy ground for something ancient and beautiful and scary. A place of resurrection, where the dead yet live. Deep Magic, and yet Deeper."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen walked over to Rose and sat a hand upon her shoulder. He looked to the Wraith, and took up Rose's explanation.

"This is indeed the place of Deep Magic," he explained. "This place has always sacred to the Kawatche, and it was their source of Deep Magic I believe. Their story tells The Traveller, who was one of my people, that came from the stars and brought many a wonderful thing. He was called a god by them, and like all gods and stories about them, there were myths written.

"One of these legends you see before you here on the walls of this place," the Kryptonian said, gesturing towards the pictures. "This tells the story of Numan, who came from the stars as foretold by the traveller, and would set things in order with this world. The story tells that Numan would shoot fire from his eyes, have the strength of twenty men, and be able to fly.

"I can do these things, but I am not Numan. And," he added, "Numan is not a 'he'. I have recently learned that I am not the only Kryptonian to walk among you. And it seems, from what we have just witnessed, there are those in power who are aware of the one weakness Kryptonians share: the remnants of the Power Crystals that once gave life to our homeworld, which I now call Kryptonite.

"You will all be witness to the indentity of the Chosen One. And, since you all have secrets, you will be powerful allies in keeping this one. I have no doubt that, in time, you will all be called upon to use your powers. You must learn to trust one another so that you will prevail."

Var-Sen walked over to a large stone, scanned it quickly with x-ray vision, and then sat.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

"What are you doing here?! Nevermind. I didn't mean to. Listen, I think I can fix this. Merick reaches out quickly, wrapping his arms around Chloe, this time there is no pop, this time the familiar sensations swarm over him. This time Merick is in complete control.

Just as Merick and Chloe make their exit the door open. "Is someone back here?" asks a tall lanky man wearing a lab coat. He knew he heard voices, and he'd be damned if one of them didn't sound like his son. But he knew Merick had to be in school, at least for a bit longer. Must just be the stress. "Sorry Mrs. Batson, guess I am just hearing things. Let's get back to Coco. Dr. Dale Tennylson, turned and walked back into the exam room. Patted the mane of the beautiful horse he had been working on and continued his work.

I did! I did it?! Sweet!Merick had never been so glad to have accomplished anything. He was back exactly where they had left off. Ok, listen, let me explain. I owe you that much. with out waiting for an answer Merick takes off his hat, smiles and sits gingerly on the edge of Chloe's desk, desperate not to make more of a mess than he has. Merick starts to speak, and as usual when he is nervous he starts to speak faster, "I think I figured out the how, just not the why. See, I can fold the pieces of life around me, and apparently, around others, and it is kinda like turning the page in a familiar old book, or perhaps, it is like building a bridge. Either way. I really am sorry. So sorry. I didn't intend to kidnap you, not that you aren't incredibly beautiful, smart, sassy, and more than kidnap worthy. You so totally are. I mean, if I WERE a demented freak, I would totally be all like, Hey that Chloe Sullivan is kidnap worthy, I thinks me's got work to do. Or maybe Adam Ant, he was a bit dreamy, and I loved Goodie Two Shoes, anyway, none of that really matters, because I am not insane, at least I hope not, and I really meant no harm, I really didn't know I could do that, I mean take others along. Friends? Merick finally breathes, looks down and mumbles "Damn, that Micromachines guy aint got nothin on me." Merick smiles, tiredly reaches out with his hand and summoning his best Mandy Patinikin says "Hello, My name is Merick Tennylson, you just almost met my father, really, I promise, I am a nice guy.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe stared at him. Blankly.

"The jury is still out," she opined eventually, "on how crazyfaced you really are."

She took a look around, took a few deep breaths, attempted to stabilise her world, turned upside down as it so suddenly had been.

Chloe leaned against another desk, the one with Kyle's folder on it, the one with The Professor's Tablet, and she scrutinised the young man with her oft-iridescent eyes.

"'Speaking of ways, pet,'" she mumbled softly, "'by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.'"

Chloe shook her head, and continued: "'In other words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.'"

She blinked.

She covered her face with both hands, and she burst out laughing, weary laughter, but truly sincerely amused.

"Here I am calling you 'crazyfaced,'" she pointed out, "and I'm the one quoting Madeleine L'Engle at the drop of the proverbial hat, apropos of nada. I may as well start rattling off passages of Morgenstern in the original Florinese."

She sighed softly, and dropped her hands, and she looked at Merick...

There wasn't quite forgiveness in her eyes. Not quite. Maybe not ever. But there wasn't quite malevolence there, either.

"You'll have to cut me a yard or two of slack," she suggested, ruefully but goodnaturedly. "I'm not used to such whirlwind courtships. Usually it's customary to meet the parents after we exchange obscure musical tastes, and not before.

"(I generally go for a little Deep Purple or Faith Hill, depending on my mood,)" she revealed quietly. "(But when I'm on deadline and writing? Go West. Indian Summer. Seriously, you can laugh if you want.)"

She walked up to Merick, and shook her head, and extended her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Merick Tennylson, if initially dubious. I'm Chloe Sullivan. And my first official question as your local insatiable journalist?"

Chloe smirked faintly. "Who mixes your coffee blend? ...because good Lord your conversational style is even faster-paced than mine when I get going."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

So, Professor Smith was an alien, and I was now supposed to be one of the "Chosen One's" protectors.

Well, it has been one of those weeks.

Rose was still looking pretty pale, even for a redhead, and the Professor was still a little shaky too. And I needed a few minutes to think.

"I will be back in a few minutes. Please wait for me."

I shadowstepped to San Antonio. There was a nice dark alley by a fantastic coffee shop. A few minutes later I had three expresso's (one with a double shot in it) and a half dozen large chocolate chip cookies, all steaming hot. A few seconds after reaching the shadows, I was back in the back of the cave, my bag of goodies only slightly cooled by the journey.

"Here. you all look like you could use this. You especially Rose."

I leaned back against the wall, where the image of the two-headed thingamajig was, and relaxed a bit.

"So, where is this Chosen One?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick eased a bit. The weariness draining away from him. Maybe everything was cool. He casually takes off his jacket, and sets it over a chair, adjusts his fedora and smiles. "I prefer YooHoo my darling, speaking of which... when I came in did I have one. I could of sworn it was in my hand. Eh, no worries."His grin this time more happy than he has been in a long time.

"If you can whip out the original Florinese I am even more impressed than I was before. By the way, Faith Hill? Really? Not that I can talk. Mostly 80's one hit wonders in my collection. As he finishes his sentence he chuckles a bit and shakes his head. "I really do feel bad about all this. And now that I think I know how this works, I promise, no more surprise entrances, I can manage to at least knock first. Merick subtly and subconsciously runs a finger over a small scar on his upper bicep as he thinks for a moment. "I know the how, just wish I understood the why. Anyway, Chloe, I gotta beg now, as if I haven't already been a thorn in your side. Please, keep this between us? My parents would die if they knew. My mom's a bit overprotective, well, that is if by a bit you mean neurotically obsessive. She would freak, and I would definately spend at least the next twenty years either grounded or in a hospital somewhere. So, whatta ya say?

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

Pete accepted a couple of cookies, gratefully, saluting The Wraith with one of those cookies.

"Thanks, m'man," he chuckled. "I lost my lunch on the flight over."

He paused. "Well," he grunted. "Actually literally lost it, rather than the other thing. Anyway. Props for the victuals."

Rose pondered the coffee for a long moment, steaming hot, and belted the entire contents down her throat. Sure, it wouldn't exactly be thirst-quenching in the long run, but at least it was warm. In fact, it would have been hot enough to maybe burn another person's tongue, but heat was no enemy to her.

"Prophecy," she murmured softly, gazing down into the empty cup as if finding The Grim in her tea leaves, "has always had trouble staying on schedule. (Free will can be such a pain in the neck.) But The Universe is governed by laws as well as chance, as well as choice, and it unfolds accordingly. Chosen Ones come when they're ready, but not always when we want them to be ready."

Pete wrapped one hands around one of those cups of coffee and stared hard at Var-Sen. Stared hard. Took a big bite of cookie, and chewed thoughtfully.

"So what if she doesn't show," he contemplated. "What if your Chosen One ain't ready, and we gotta pick her out of a crowd, instead? You wanna give us signs an' portents to look for, so's we can be on guard?"

Rose nibbled around the edge of a cookie, and arched an eyebrow, mumbling absent-mindedly, remembering a couple of very pointed looks Var-Sen had given certain girls with flaxen tresses. "(I bet you five bucks she's a blonde.)"

Pete whipped his head around to look at Rose, an eyebrow arched.

You cannot be serious. I mean, blondes are a dime a dozen. But. What if. Chloe? Oh, no. Hell no.

He pointed a finger at her, chuckling. "You're on," he declared. "You are so on. Chosen Ones are brunettes, everyone knows that."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen watched and listened to the conversation with an amused smile. He also took a cup of coffee and a cookie from the creature called Wraith. He took a sip then shifted himself on the stone.

"Kryptonian women come" he said between bites of cookie, "with different hair coloring, the same as humans," he finished with a smile. "Things were set in motion so long ago for the coming moments," he added. He finished his cookie, then sat quietly, his thoughts returning to the last time he saw his homeworld, and the last time he spoke with Kara's father.

"She will come, Pete Ross," Var-Sen assured the boy. "It is her destiny."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe leaned against the desk, arms crossed over her stomach, her eyes narrowed at Merick as gears turned in her skull.

She stared at him for a moment, and then she closed her eyes the rest of the way and laughed a tiny laugh. "This?" she muttered, "is getting to be a really bad habit."

Chloe cracked those eyes and murmured a phrase that had been cropping up in her vocabulary far too often lately: "'Off the record.'"

She turned away from him, only briefly, and sat herself down behind the desk upon which sat that infamous Tablet.

"I'll keep my lip buttoned," she assured him. "I've got a friend whose mom has a slight overprotective streak of her own, I can swing a little sympathy silence. And? I'm no Mister Wizard, but I can maybe see my way clear through to helping you figure out the 'why' of your little ability. (I've got an idea or two about that already.)"

She got a kind of... inscrutable look on her face.

"But there's a catch," she explained. "And I'm not trying to be a blackmailing little bitch, but I really could use your help, and since I'm helping you already..."

Chloe steepled her fingers, and shrugged. "I've got to be in Metropolis tomorrow night, and while I can afford a cab? It might do my dad and me better for me to keep that money for more practical things. You think you can site-to-site us 100 miles south?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick thought about the idea of teleporting 100 miles. Wow. That was distance. Without answering Merick closed his eyes, and started to concentrate, better to be sure he could do it with out hurting her first. He focused on Metropolis. He tried desperately to see it in his mind, To fold the bits and pieces to line up. Then it happened.

Swoosh...Swoosh.. BLAM-O!

Merick didn't quite make it to Metropolis, instead he ended up about two feet away and in a very uncomfortible position. picking himself up he grinned at Chloe, Well, that didn't work. I think I might only be able to teleport or whatever to places I can see, or that I know. Mericks brain was going a mile a minute, he wasn't cncerned about his secret so much now as he was letting down the only person who had really been nice to him since kindergarten. Then he hit on something. If all I need is to see it... Chloe, I think your on. Merick hoped this would work, it had to.Chloe, what's the highest point in Smallville?

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe blinked, startled, as he vanished and reappeared, practically faster than she could see, an instantaneous process.

He was gone. And he was back again. In all of an attosecond. Maybe less?

He landed very uncomfortably. Chloe wondered, wincing at the horrible mess he'd made of his limbs and environs, if Merick had been Launchpad McQuack in a past life, for all the frequency of his less-than-stellar touches down.

She rose to help him, extending him a hand... but for all his Fenton Crackshell social awkwardness, Merick had a natural athleticism to him and he was up before she could reach him.

But then his face scrunched up, indicative of some serious cerebral goings-on, and Chloe arched an intrigued eyebrow. Gyro Gearloose?

And then Merick came out with the results of his gearloosing, and Chloe blinked for a moment, not-quite comprehending...

"The windmill at Chandler's Field," she regurgitated easily. "But why...?"

And then it dawned on her what he was talking about.

"And," she grinned, grinned, eyes wide with the excitement of discovery, "and, and... you can see Metropolis from the top of it on a clear day. God bless the endless flatlands that are Kansas!"

She whirled, sat behind the desk he'd rendered disheveled earlier with the 'porting that had cost him his Yoohoo, hand moving like lightning to the mouse of one of the funky-coloured Alienware desktops...

Click. Click. Victory.

"Tomorrow afternoon," she murmured, delight rising in her tone, "there's not supposed to be a cloud in the sky."

Chloe grinned at Merick over the top over the top of the monitor.

"You up for your first long-distance flight," she wondered, "Captain McQuack?"

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick grinned widely, amused that someone had as quirky a taste in pop culture as he does. "Sure thing Miss McDee. Head out after class if you want."

A look of panic crosses his face. "One thing, I am so going to need an alibi. I don't think my parents would be too keen on me telling them I'm going to be late for dinner, so I can teleport the every wonderful and beautiful Miss Sullivan to a major metropolitan center." Merick, his face a crimson mask of bashfulness, furroughs his brow, "Study group? That might work. Or I could always tell them we are off to perform Large Home Appliance worship, I mean all the cool kids are into it. Merick smiles awkwardly.

 

[AmenRa]

Approximately Twelve Years Ago...In the Hyperspace Vortex to Earth

Quiet and cuddled, the interior of the small spacecraft glowed faintly with a softness provided by a small crystal.

Its passenger lay sleeping with blankets of red, gold, and blue swaddling her. Throughout the three year journey, the craft would provide all for the infant.

While she traveled and dreamed and slept, a voice spoke softly to her.

"It will be many years before you hear these words again, my child," the voice said, "and I give them to you now as much for me and your mother as I do to pass the time on your journey to your new home.

"You will find many things on Earth that you would not have known if you had lived on Krypton, Kara," the voice said to the sleeping child. "Some of these things are wondrous, and some of them are evil. In time, when you grow and learn, you will know the truths of humanity. They are a primitive race, my daughter, and they have much to learn.

"They are a great people, Kara. They wish to be. It is for this reason above all: their capacity for good, that I have sent them you."

"Remember, it is forbidden for you to interfere with human history. And, you must never set one above another.

"Remember us, Kara," the voice continued, "remember Krypton. Your mother and I love you and we will always be with you, and such is why this ship was built and you were sent away, so that as our lives were ending, yours would begin. All will have come full circle when you fulfill your destiny, Kara. The father becomes the child, and the child becomes the father."

The voice grew softer as a quiet lullaby of a long dead planet softly played inside the ship.

And the Last Daughter of Krypton slept a baby's sleep as the spacecraft hurled itself through the void.

 

[Superman1496]

The events witnessed by Bruce after gym nearly knocked the wind out of him.

First, he happened to see Kara down the hallway. He also thought he cought a glimpse of Smith, but, couldn't be sure.

Then, as if someone had turned on a rock concert with the worst music, Kara screamed in the middle of the hallway, instantly becoming embarrassed. Then she quickly took off down the hall, complaining of a headache.

Bruce had learned a thing or two from Alfred. And if Kara had that bad of a headache, Bruce could help. He took off down the hallway after her.

Then they came upon a section of the school Bruce had never seen. And for some reason, he decided to duck out of the way as Kara looked around.

The area looked as if Robocop and the Hulk got into a nasty street fight. Bruce waited as Kara left to go and get a better look.

Slowly he crept down the hallway. Then sounds that could only remind Bruce of some wicked Jean Claude VanDam movie came from the class room.

His first instinct was to go and help Kara with whatever it was she was doing (whatever it was, it didn't sound fun or painless).

But Bruce's eyes saw a scene that threw him a little off balance. Staying out of the light, and hidden in the shadows, he saw Kara knock a large man through a wall, as if it was nothing.

But how?

Quickly thinking, Bruce figured, a big man, weak walls, shot to the sternum. It was possible. A damn lucky shot, if Kara had never been taught to fight.

But, being from a small Kansas farm, who knows what her father taught her, and for that matter, fed her.

As she stood there in the sunlight, Bruce thought about coming into view. As he started to move, his "gracefullness" kicked a small green rock towards Kara.

Smooth, Bruce, smooth. He thought to himself as he froze.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

OOC: Well i was hoping to keep Kara's little escapades a secret but oh well ^_^;

---

Kara was left standing over... well she had no idea who he was, but she was left standing over him. He was alive, but unconscious. It wasn't an easy fight, but it was quick and decisive. Hopefully he wouldn't wake up in the same foul mood that she had found him in.

And Kara was no longer alone. She could hear a few rocks tumbling against the floor before heading her way, and judging by their speed and inaccurate paths were most likely the result of someone hitting them by accident. Out of instinct Kara jumped back quite a few steps, a safe distance away from the deadly bits of meteor rocks.

Kara had been 'sick' in the past, and always whenever she was around the meteor rocks. She had no idea why... but she never questioned it.

Green does not equal go.

Kara thought about sticking around to see who it was that was stalking her, but she wasn't sure she wanted to be caught standing over the body of someone who looked to be dead. Not too far from where she was standing, Kara saw a small fence post and a few trees that lined the softball fields.

Perfect!

Deciding that it was too risky to use her super speed, Kara instead ran at a fairly normal pace and made a bee-line for the fences. It took the least bit of effort for her to climb up and over, and she landed on the other side, brushing herself off.

"Kent!"

Great! Just when she wanted to go unnoticed she had to hear her name being called out as if it were being done through a megaphone.

Kara glanced over to the side and she saw her gym coach. He was walking towards her, and she felt her heart skip a few beats.

'Just... relax....' she thought to herself.

"Hi," Kara said.

"What were you doing over there?"

"Me? Nothing," Kara lied. Her coach raised an eyebrow but then shrugged it off.

"Whatever. Listen, you did a good job out there on the field today. That's quite a swing you've got there," he said.

"Thanks."

"I'm serious, you've got some natural talent there. Have you considered joining the team?"

"The softball team?"

"Well yeah. We could use a good player like you."

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

"What? Don't think your parents would approve?"

"Probably not," Kara said.

"I bet you'd be surprised to know that you're mother was on the team once."

Kara couldn't help but look surprised at that fun little fact. The coach smiled once he noticed her look of disbelief, and he figured that if he pushed a little harder at her then he'd have a new addition to his team.

"Yeap. She had a good arm too, though I don't think as strong as yours. You've got it in your blood, kid. So what do you say?"

"I guess I could try out..." Kara said, and she instantly felt his hand slap down against her shoulder.

"Good, good. Practice is right after school. Just show up and we'll take care of you," her coach said before smiling. He walked off a moment later, and Kara was left standing there wondering what she had just gotten herself into. She couldn't help but smirk at the coach's comment about her genes... especially considering Kara wasn't even remotely related to the Kent family.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

OK, I could accept that the Prof. was a alien. Rose and Pete seemed to believe he was one.

Hell, I wasn't that certain I wasn't one. A changeling baby laid down in mother's crib. A Cuckoo child raised by humans.

But no, I had proof, straight from the extra-dimensional rulers mouth. Seems my life wasn't my own.

Then he started talking about his "chosen One" and her Destiny.

Destiny.


"Thats a big word to throw around. Destiny. Means that our fate is chosen, that whatever we are taught or want does not mean a thing. Our souls belong to the fates, or some writing on a wall."

I stepped away from the wall and took a step toward Professor Smith. I knew to the others it would be getting darker, shadows withering in response to my emotions.

"Your 'Chosen One' may not have a choice. I may not have a choice in my fate, but I'll be damned if I go into it meekly. Your girl may feel the same way. She may be scared out of her mind because of it. I know I am. I may have a grand fate planned out for me, but I'll be damned if I go into it meekly. Where I end up may not be my choice, but HOW I get there is."

I walked a little farther back into the darkness of the cave. I knew I was reacting to my own fate more than his words, but dammit, even if I was a freakshow I still was human.

I hoped.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

"'Large Home Appliance Worship?'" Chloe arched an eyebrow, bewildered. "Which cool kids do you mean, exactly? I've never...? Don't get me wrong, I'm good with the whole Freedom of Religion thing, and if you want to set up an altar in my dad's basement around the chest freezer he bought at Fordman's eighteen years ago, be my guest... but that sounds a little out there, even for Smallville."

She hesitated, contemplating. "Then again," she mused, her trademark irony sneaking in around the edges, "worshiping a freezer bought at Fordman's makes more sense than worshiping Whitney Fordman, which is what the whole town seems to do anyway. So, yeah. Large Home Appliance Worship. Knock yourself out."

Chloe held up a finger. "You should maybe throttle back on The ThunderQuack just yet, though. We're not going anywhere 'till tomorrow night. For one thing, conditions for a launch need to be just right, so we're going to wait for the calm weather Friday afternoon. Clear skies over Audubon Bay, so to speak."

Her lip quirked slightly. She stood and moved to the cabinet in which she kept the advanced tech, like the camcorder and such.

"And speaking of Audubon," she grinned softly, extricating a fairly formidable pair of binoculars-- donated by The Alumni Association in hopes that The Torch's sports reporter would use them to properly identify which players did what at the big games --and dangling them from the strap, "here's your alibi."

Chloe slid the binoculars into their protective case, and snapped it shut with a flourish. "Birdwatching," she grinned triumphantly. "Nice, sedate birdwatching. Ornithology, for the school paper. Even your mother can't quibble with that being perfectly safe, now can she?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

Not for the first time, Rose reflected the irony of her wearing this particular shirt today... after all, "The One Who Bears The Star" had been the source of much predestination controversy in his day, before the whole thing had been revealed as a serious misunderstanding. (Involving bad prunes, for Mim's sake.)

But Kyle had a lot of fury in him. She knew that; she'd seen it the previous day. His life, it seemed, had done the best it could to break him, and it had succeeded in tattering him around the edges at the very least.

Yesterday, his rage had scared her.

But so much had happened since then. And she was still scared of things?

Friendship, however, was stronger than fear.

She followed him into the dark-- Death Cab For Cutie --and gave his arm a squeeze with both hands. (It was like hugging a girder... between built-up tension and the tensile strength of his muscles...)

"I don't know. If," she murmured softly, "you're familiar with the concept of a Unified Field Theory? But it's like... this idea some physicists have that, back when everything was shiny and new and things were still cooling down from The Big Bang, that fundamental principles like gravity and electromagnetism and the nuclear forces, that all these were the same thing. That maybe, just maybe, we could truly understand how Everything works if we trace those fundamental forces back to that same one thing."

Rose wandered around in front of him, leaned against the wall beside him, gazing up at his face with glinting blue eyes.

"I had this idea, once," she murmured, "that that that maybe it was more than just gravity and such. That... that on a certain level, hotter faster wilder than we've observed, Destiny and Free Will actually boil down to the same one thing.

"Now," she continued, her voice soft but not quite relenting, as if she were simultaneously scared to stop before she'd spoken her piece and scared to speak such silly things aloud, "you can look at that a couple of different ways. One is, it doesn't matter what you choose because it'll turn out to be your Destiny anyway. The other... the other is... is that things become your Destiny because you choose them."

She trailed off, and she lowered her head, and she slumped against the stone of the wall. She held her head in her hands and she laughed faintly, sadly.

"It sounded better," she mumbled. "It sounded better in my head. Most of what I say works better on paper. I guess it doesn't make much sense, aloud. But you see my point, right?"

Pete, meanwhile, sat himself on The Cave floor beside Var-Sen's current rock of choice, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Don't let him get to ya, Prof," Pete suggested, thoughtfully. "Some guys just talk smack 'cause they don't know any other way to talk. Me? I like to think my mind's open enough. (Workin' with Chloe has done a number on my Weird Shit O Meter.) I just usually need time to adjust, is all. That's bein' 'only human,' I guess."

He grinned softly, faintly. "Maybe your Chosen One needs time to adjust. Would that be unusual? A Kryptonian bein' 'only human?' Or is that something y'all said on your planet, too?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I reached down and gently tilted Rose's face up with my finger, until we were looking into each others eyes.
"It made sense. I'm not really angry at anyone, I am just feeling trapped." I chuckled. (Which in this form is pretty damn eerie from what Bekka says.)
"I didn't miss our date because I forgot, or because I got trapped at home. I missed it because when I left yesterday I got trapped in Shadow."

I turned and leaned against the wall next to her, then continued.

"You know all those scientific theories about parallel dimensions and such? Well, they are true. There is a Heaven and a Hell, and it also seems there is something in between. Thats where according to the ..Godess of the place I am supposed to be her consort or something and rule by her side."

I looked over at Rose. "According to her, I am immortal. I'll never get sick, grow old, or have kids. I don't eat or sleep now, and in this form I don't even breathe. And in two years I have to go back, and I don't know if I can even come back home. So Dr. Smith being so smug about whomever she is accepting her "'destiny' with open arms got to me."

I chuckled again. "I am just a kid myself ya know. I can always pull out the raging hormones excuse." I paused a second. "Think I should go apologize for being an ass?" I asked her.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose

"Not Time Future, not Time Past," Rose nodded quietly, gazing up at him, managing not to recoil at the sound of that netherworldly laughter, "but 'Time Sideways,' yeah. My dad knows all about that stuff. I got really nervous, when we talked about it-- I was like, six? --I was afraid that people from parallel worlds would wander in all the time, and we'd have places like 'what if all the good guys were bad guys,' or 'if World War II was still happening,' we'd have that showing up on our doorstep.

"But then Dad reminded me," she smiled faintly, "that these universes are called 'parallel' because like parallel lines they run alongside our universe and don't intersect with it."

Rose's eyes then widened at the subsequent memory, and she shook her head.

"Of course, then he started explaining perpendicular universes," she murmured, "and I think I got a nosebleed from thinking too hard too fast. My dad's kind of on a weird level."

Rose shook her head again sharply, casting off the tendrils of remembrance, and returned to Time Present.

"I think maybe you win the contest of weird things happening to you," she acknowledged to Kyle The Wraith wincingly, ruefully. "But gorrammit, even if you don't eat you still owe me a dinner date. You go back to that Queen of In-Between or whomever she is and you tell her that you were my consort first. And that I'm keeping you, at least until Homecoming. At least."

Rose blinked, and her eyebrows bunched so hard they almost met in the middle.

"Oh, Lord," she breathed. "I just asked you to Homecoming."

Wavery, quavery, she grinned up at Kyle The Wraith.

"So, yeah," she murmured, sheepishly, "maybe you should go 'pologise to The Professor. Instead of thinking about what I just said."