The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen looked at the thing with a raised eyebrow. He then gave a soft shake of his head and a sigh as it turned and skulked away. He never understood humanity's propensity for emotional reactions to simple endings. Destiny was that which was set in motion, the end result of all things, and that was the simplicity of it all. The truth therein was that it did not so much matter as how one arrived at their destiny, only that they did.

The Kryptonian then turned to Pete Ross, who had suddenly asked a question that seemed genuinely important.

"Pete Ross," Var-Sen began, "on Krypton we did not say as such, but I understand your question. Humanity is a concept purely unique to your world. The sharing of ideals and beliefs by other species, however, is not at all unique. There are twenty-eight known galaxies, Pete Ross, and each has sentient species that share the beliefs of your concept of 'humanity' among them. And they, too, are unique within themselves.

"And there may be truth to what you said. It could be that she isn't entirely accepting of all of this, even though she hardly knows what awaits her. From someone who, until just a few days ago, was content to spend their existence as a human, I can understand how she may feel."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick was tired. He just wanted to get through the rest of his day. He grinned at Chloe, "I was joking about the Appliance worship thing. Rock N Roll High School Forever? Corey Feldman? No? It's fine, my tastes are usually a bit out there. Anyway, no, even my mother couldn't find issue with bird watching. My Grandpa Edmund may rib me a bit, but I can handle that. So we're on for tomorrow after school. Higher for Hire at your service. Merick makes a small bow, smiling deeply, "I better get going. Lunch is about over and I cant really miss class. So, I will meet you here, tomorrow, right after last period. We can head out after that. Pleased to meet you Chloe. Merick turns and head for the door. Turns back as he opens the door and tips his hat before leaving.

Merick was both tired, but also awake in a way he hadn't felt. Is this what acceptance felt like? Chloe really did seem to like him. Maybe Ferris Bueller never did have to deal with kidnapping, random teleportation, or loosing his YooHoo, but Ferris never got to spend time with Chloe Sullivan.

Merick made his way towards his next class. His head firmly in the clouds. If all goes well, he can make it through the rest of his day with out commiting any other federal crimes.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete mulled this over. "(Twenty-eight known galaxies,)" he considered. "(Sick.)"

"My brothers an' me always used to make fun of shows like Star Trek and all that," he chuckled, "'cause every alien on there looked like a person. They all looked... human. An' I'm sittin' here lookin' at you, an' if I didn't know better, I'd swear to God you were human as they came. Little frigid 'round the edges, m'man, no 'ffence, but I couldn't tell the difference. Maybe Star Trek knew their tribbles from their Hortas after all. (That's kinda funny.)"

He squinted a bit, and looked up at Var-Sen, seeming more than a little bit philosophical.

"'Content to spend their existence as a human,'" he pondered. "You ain't talkin' 'bout this Chosen One, there, are you? You're talkin' 'bout you. You lose your mojo, and just now got it back again? What happened, did Smallville's crazy-rays do somethin' useful for once?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

"Later on, Baloo," Chloe grinned as Merick saluted her, finding his exuberance all but infectious.

It was a rare person indeed who could out-pop-culture her, and the challenge was fascinating. She tapped a pen against her chin as she gazed at the closed door.

"'Rock and Roll High School Forever,'" she murmured ironically, good-naturedly, taking a moment to pick up the writing submissions that Merick had scattered. "I may have a sharp visual memory, but that doesn't help me remember things that no-one has ever watched ever."

She grinned as she sat down behind another desk.

The one with The Tablet.

"You might as well ask me to remember a line from Scorch," she suggested, to no-one in particular, "or Fish Police."

She quieted, though, sobered, as she gazed at The Tablet's daunting surface.

"And now," she whispered softly, "to business."

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen had a slight smile while Pete was speaking about "Star Trek". He too knew what a Horta was, as well as a Tribble, and Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and other extensive lists of aliens, both green-skinned, scantily clad and the normal Tholian variety.

But when Pete Ross, in his, well, 'Pete Ross' way, asked what had happened, Var-Sen's smile faded and his eyes grew cold and distant, even for a Kryptonian.

"No," he answered simply, "I made a choice. It was a choice that I thought was best at the time, to give up my powers so another, a human, might live." Var-Sen looked off into the darkness of the cave, clearly dismissing the issue for another of Pete's observations.

"I do not hold the secrets of the universe," he continued, "nor can I explain the cattle mutilations you've seen on Chloe's 'Wall of Wierd'. I am indeed an alien, from another world, not from across the border. I am as extra-terrestrial as they come, as sure as a Klingon or Vulcan would be.

"There are so many similarities between your species and mine, and yet there are subtle differences that make us each apart. Should I bleed, my blood is red, just like yours, Pete Ross. I breathe, I eat, I sleep, just like you. And you are correct, had you not seen for your own eyes, then you would not know that I am not human.

"And to think this, all this time you've grown up with another one of my people living not far from you in Smallville."

Var-Sen fixed Pete Ross in his gaze and gave a wink to emphasize his point.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick had a very had time focusing. Normally rather good at History, he had no room in his mind for things like the intricacies of Roman culture. He really could not have cared any less about Alexander the Great, or how his father lead a failed coup against him. Thoughts were racing through Merick's mind. Thoughts about the very nature of the world around him.

If Merick was able to bend space around himself, to manipulate it at the very base of it's existence, then space is not what he, Hell, what most sane individuals believed. Space was not a straight line, it was a ball or twine all scrunched up, where it seemed all everything was connected in someway. The implications were astoundng. No one can ever know. Merick new, deep down, that he could never let anyone know what he could do. He would be a test subject, or worse. On the other hand, he could use this gift. He could do things that no one but him could do. Help those in need.

I can leap through life, putting right, what once went wrong, he thinks then grins great now I am ripping off Scott Bakula, as if the dudes career hadn't gone lame enough.

Merick was so drawn in that it took the teacher several attempts to draw him back, so that he could go to last period. He glances down at his schedule. Great, gym. At least it was last period, but damn, he was in no way ready to deal with Coach Walt, that guys always such a hothead!

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete

Pete hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees as he pressed those knees to his chest.

"Man," he whispered, "if that don't make you think, I dunno what would. I mean... this'll probably come out soundin' like cheese?

"But it's like with MLK," he mused. "Havin' a dream? All this time, people been obsessed with judging based on the outside of a person. And this just goes to show you how much of a damn fool you are to do such a thing, because on the outside? You're just like us. On the outside? This girl you're talkin' 'bout, she's just like us, too. Inside, might be completely different, internal organs an' stuff.

"And then you get deeper inside," he turned his head to look at Var-Sen once more. "Souls and spirits. An' there, in there, you're not so different from us after all, least so far as I can tell."

Pete chewed the inside of his cheek for a second.

"MLK was big on this One Guy from our history," Pete murmured reverently. "Maybe you heard of Him? He said, 'Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay his life down for his friends.'

"I hear 'bout you putting yourself on the line, like that," Pete concluded, "for someone you cared about? And I figure... y'all from Krypton aren't so different from us on Earth. At the very least, we got plenty we can teach each other."

Pete stared at his hands.

"Like how to look deeper," he murmured, utterly unaware that even this phrase had hidden connotations to Var-Sen of Krypton.

 

[AmenRa]

..look deeper..

It had been written on the Tablet. Instructions to "look deeper". Var-Sen had in his possession one piece of the Crystal of Knowledge. It was the other two that he now sought, and the latest clue to the whereabouts to one of those pieces told him to "look deeper".

Var-Sen used his superpowers to look through the solid rock wall that separated them from the small room that lay behind the octagonal shape in the wall.

It was indeed small, but there was a pedestal console in its center. And, in the center of that console carved of rock, there was another indentation shaped like a shield. It was here that the Crystal of Knowledge would be placed when it was made whole again.

He turned off his x-ray vision and once again looked at Pete Ross with a nod.

"Look deeper, Pete Ross," he said. "Always remember that."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara scratched her head for a moment. She hadn't exactly checked in with her parents as to whether or not she would be allowed to play.

'Someone might get hurt,' she could hear them saying.

Kara sighed. What had she gotten herself into? But perhaps it wasn't as bad as she thought. The coach said she had a good arm, and she could control her strength if she wanted to. Coach said to come to practice right after school, but Kara was supposed to help out on the farm.

"Man..." Kara grumbled as she shuffled her feet.

Then there was the whole thing with Mr. Smith. Was it just an illusion that he was moving as fast as she could move? Perhaps she was seeing something that her heart so desperately wanted to see. Kara didn't want to be alone...

She wanted to be normal.

She wanted to fit in with everyone else.

"What do I do..." she said to herself, mindlessly walking off towards the school again. Off in the distance she could hear a gym class playing out a game, the warning bell going off a few minutes later. She scratched her head again before making her way inside, grabbing a few things from her locker before she walked to class.

Kara passed by a room called 'The Torch' on her way to class, and the door to it was closed. She had only gone to Smallville High twice, but from what she heard the door to the Torch office was almost always open.

Chloe Sullivan... a reporter and journalist. She was someone that Kara didn't really want to have in her shadow. But then... you can't really tell who's a friend and who's an enemy until you talk to them (unless they throw rocks at your head, that is).

Kara brushed aside some of her golden blond hair and knocked on the door.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe gazed at The Tablet. There was more Cyrillic 'round the edges, older even than the early seventeenth century, and it was... codified somehow. Encrypted.

She began to write it all down, jotting it on a yellow, lined notepad, skipping lines so as to leave room to write in the translation. And what a translation it seemed it would be.

Layers upon layers. Like reading Latin backwards, this was. Not only was she having to read Russian, but she was having to read Russian in code?

What really grabbed her attention, though, was the elegant, inverted alien symbol at the centre of the grey stone. It had elegant lines, it did...

It caught her eye, pulled her gaze back to it and away from the Russian code.

She reached out again, and ran her fingers along the edges of it once more.

She knew what it meant. From Professor Smith's journal.

"Resurrection." A symbol for resurrection sat at the centre of The Tablet.

There was something about that concept that was just so... awful, and terrifying, and yet so inspiring.

The idea of someone coming back from Death was so intrinsic and archetypal to the collective mythos of mankind, and yet? And yet it was so against the natural order of things. Like that "improper" fertiliser she'd fed to Lionel Luthor.

It was so very very impossible, and yet something about the notion of resurrection left her wondering... left her searching... like ghostly fingers of something half-remembered walking up and down the back of her neck.

'This is the really real world; there ain't no comin' back.'

Then a knock sounded at the door, and it was such an alien sound to Chloe that at first she thought the ending of the world prophesied by Merick's untimely entrance had come for her at last. No more resurrection; all was ending.

She sat up straight and stared at the door.

She blinked once, twice, three times.

No-one ever bothered to knock. Really, the door rarely ever was closed, that was Torch policy. But even when it was closed, those rare occasions, people tended to just barrel on in because... Chloe wasn't sure why. Maybe ancestral memory for newspapers, hearkening back to "STOP THE PRESSES!"

...she doubted it.

She rose to her feet, and she dusted herself down a bit, in case this show of politeness was coming from another authourity figure bent on making sure she wouldn't publish any more stories 'bout the freakish underbelly of this particular locale.

"It's, uh, unlocked," she assured whomever it was, calling out to them. "Come on in?"

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen stood from the rock he sat. He gave Pete Ross a nod, and a quick look to Rose and the thing called Wraith.

"I will return within the hour," he said, "there is something I must do." And with that, he was out of the cave and in the air.

The air whipped his clothes as he flew towards the metropolis that was Metropolis. He had a destination in mind, a particular one that was the northwest corner of a tall, glassed building situated near the Daily Planet.

He had told Pete Ross to 'look deeper'. And then Var-Sen had looked into the room beyond the cave wall, and he remembered why he was here. He was meant to protect the secrets of Krypton from those who would use them for themselves. And such was a man named Lionel Luthor. It had been Lionel Luthor that had set the trap for Var-Sen in the cave.

And so it would be that Lionel Luthor would pay.

Var-Sen hovered over Metropolis. He looked, using eyes thousands of times more powerful than any man's, to see into the office of LuthorCorp's CEO. And he saw him, sitting behind his big, black desk, a telephone receiver in his hand. And then Var-Sen committed himself to task, and the air condensed in a ring of cloud as he passed the Mach barrier on his way to Lionel's office windows.

But Var-Sen, traveling at speeds faster than sound and racing ahead of a sonic boom, never made it to Lionel Luthor's office. Instead of crashing into the glass and steel, something crashed into him. Var-Sen felt himself being held, and then dragged through the air. He spun, looking at what held him, and he saw himself looking back at him.

The other Var-Sen swept low, carrying them both onto the top of a building several miles away from LuthorCorp. The other Var-Sen let go of the real one, and the real one dropped the few feet to the roof. Then the other landed lightly a few feet away.

And then Var-Sen, whose eyes had been wide and unbelieving, saw the other Var-Sen change. The thing that was Var-Sen morphed into something else, green skinned, with eyes that flashed red, and a uniform with a cape that billowed in the high-altitude breeze. A smile came to the real Var-Sen's face.

"J'onn J'onnzz," he stated.

The Martian Manhunter bowed. "At your service, Var-Sen of Krypton," J'onn replied.

"How long?" the Kryptonian asked.

"Since the beginning," the Green Martian replied, "as a favor to Zor-El."

"And so you have been watching? Then you are aware of how things have become."

J'onn nodded. "I am," he replied, "and yet I am not to interfere with Kara's destiny. And that is why you cannot kill Lionel Luthor."

"But I must," Var-Sen stated, "he is evil and knows only of himself. He must be eliminated as a threat to the daughter of Zor-El."

The Martian Manhunter crossed his arms, and his eyes flashed red. "Lionel Luthor has a destiny of his own to fulfill. You must trust me on this, Var-Sen."

Var-Sen breathed a heavy sigh. "I do trust you, J'onn. As Zor-El did, so do I" he explained. He gave the Martian a bow of respect. "It is good to see you on this world."

The Martian Manhunter rose into the air. "In time you will see more of me, but until then you must show Kara to her destiny," he told the Kryptonian. And then J'onn J'onzz became a blur of red as he flew towards the distant horizon.

Var-Sen gave one last look towards the LuthorCorp building. He would heed the Martian Manhunter's words, but he would never see Lionel Luthor as a victim.

Victims. Aren't we all? he thought, then he took flight as well, heading back towards the Kawatche Cave off Miller's Bend.

 

[Superman1496]

Bruce sat on the floor in the empty destroyed room. He thought about Kara and what happened. He didn't know Kara much, but he could tell one thing about her. She wouldn't throw a guy through a wall unless he deserved it.

Which meant he was doing something he shouldn't have. Possibly threatening her, or even attempting to harm her.

In a school. In Smallville, Kansas. Anger began to fill his body.

A nice couple with their son walking home one evening in Gotham city, gunned down.

A freshman girl walking in a school in Smallville, attacked by a man.

What was the world coming to? It was spiriling downwards. And Alfred moved to Smallville because Gotham was to over-ridden with crime. Something had to change. And Bruce wasn't going to be able to do anything sitting in a classroom in a Smallville Highschool.

He pulled out his phone. He called Henri Ducard. I want you to teach me everything. I want to change who I am and what I can do. Bruce said as Ducard picked up the phone.

Perfect. We will leave tomorrow morning. If you would like, I can send someone to pick you up from school now, so that you can get ready. If not, I will see you in the morning. [COLOR] Ducard said.

And Bruce hung up the phone. He stood up. He was leaving. He didn't really have many people to say goodbye to. Chloe, yes, and maybe Pete and Mr. Smith.

Damn!

They are coming over tonight. Thank God he wasn't leaving till morning. At least that way he could explain that he wasn't leaving because Chloe scared him off.

He opened his phone again, and texted Chloe. Hey, I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'll be gone for a long time. Call me when you get a chance and I'll explain it to you.

I'm sorry, and it's not because of you, I swear. Bruce typed, then sent the message.

He took a breath, and walked outside and waited. When a Ferarri pulled up, Bruce walked up and entered. They sped off towards Wayne Manor. Alfred would want some explanations.

***

Alfred looked at Bruce as he stood there wearing a black and blue jeans. Bruce had just told Alfred that he was leaving with Ducard to train with the League of Shadows.

Alfred frowned. Master Bruce. I didn't want to tell you this untill you were much older. But seeings as how times have come the way they are, it is inevitable. Alfred said.

Bruce, when you're father died, he had just finished "rebuilding" the city from the sewers. Wayne Tower was the unofficial center of Gotham, the train connected everything. And he did this so that the people of Gotham, rich and poor, could feel connected.

The city was threatened. And that's why he started it. A man approached him with the idea of destroying Gotham through economics. Saying that the city had reached "the pinnacle of it's existance".

And I can not be sure, Master Bruce, but I think that this man Ducard was the one who hired the man to kill your parents. Because they got in the way. He said. A tear in his eye.

Alfred, Ducard couldn't have been responsible for killing my parents. He only wants justice in the world. Ducard can teach me a lot of things, and help me take on the underworld of Gotham. I can save the city. But I need his help.

Don't worry Alfred. Have faith in me. Bruce said.

Of course sir, of course. Alfred said as he stood up from his chair. I assume your guests are still coming over tonight. I suppose I should work on getting everything prepared sir. Alfred said as he walked into the kitchen, leaving Bruce alone.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

"It's, uh, unlocked. Come on in?"

Kara heard those welcome words but she was suddenly gripped with the choice of whether to trust her instincts or... open it. She had reached for the door handle, and though she closed her fingers around it, Kara didn't turn it right away.

Perhaps... she should just walk away. Getting involved with a reporter is most certainly not the best way to keep her secret from being discovered.

And even if not for that reason, why was Kara going to see Chloe? Perhaps she wanted to ask a few questions about what happened back in the abandoned section of the school.

After a moment Kara finally opened the door, stepping inside cautiously.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you," Kara said. "I was just passing on my way to class and I thought I'd stop by," she added.

Kara adjusted her backpack as she looked around for a moment, noting the various news articles that lined the walls and desks. She looked over at Chloe and brushed aside some of her hair, tucking it behind her ear.

"Actually I had a question, and I was wondering if you could help me with an answer."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe gazed at the newcomer with a momentary fit of surprise.

She had seen this young woman before, but really only in pictures.

She had recently pinned this young woman's name to The Wall of Weird, categorising her with Erin Hughes and Lana Lang as children more or less displaced by The Meteor Shower.

She had wondered as to this young woman's absence the previous day, whether it had been sheer coincidence that she had not been present for the... festivities.

And... here she was.

Chloe corrected herself quickly. Eventually, everyone showed up at The Torch. Like an Unplottable piece of magical geography, everyone tended to forget its existence until such time as they came to need it. (If this was Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, then Chloe was its Secret Keeper.)

And hadn't she asked Professor Smith to send this young woman along, after he'd spoken with her? Had he spoken with her, or was this another one of those trendy new coincidences Chloe'd read so much about?

(Coincidences tend to look good with Marc Jacobs attire and Rocket Dog shoes; Ryan Seacrest couldn't shut up about them last week on his radio show.)

Chloe cleared her throat and smiled broadly. The young woman looked a little nervy, to say the least, and for good or ill Chloe didn't want to do anything to spook her off.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you," Kara said. "I was just passing on my way to class and I thought I'd stop by," she added.

"Yes, hey," she nodded. "Kara, right? Don't fret for an attosecond, you're not disturbing anything that can't have 'To Be Continued' stamped on it in a shiny blue futuristic font."

Kara scanned the place, scanned it and skimmed it as she seemed to ready herself for something... to find her footing so to speak.

And then she tucked her hair behind her ear and Chloe got a straight-shot eagle-eyed eidetic memory view of the symbol on her bracelet and Chloe's breath went away like it had never been there. The Symbol on Kara's bracelet retconned Chloe's breath away.

'Hope,' the upright counterpart of its inverse 'Resurrection.'

(Or was it the other way 'round?)

Thoughts seared and danced and bolted and wove, faster than even Rose's linguistic mathematics.

Why would home-school farmgirl Bible Belt blonde beauty be wearing the Kryptonian symbol for "Hope?"

Was this The One that Var-Sen had mentioned, The One meant to possess the so-called Crystal of Knowledge?

Or. More likely. More likely?

More likely: she'd seen this Symbol, maybe in a NatGeo article on The Caves or on the CKU website and thought it had 'looked cool,' had it engraved on some jewelry. That was the teenaged American thing to do, like with tribal tattoos or Kanji or whate'er-- 'don't really know what it means, but it looks like something that I could borrow to represent myself, since I'm neither creative nor individual enough to make up something of my own' --wasn't it?

Coincidence.

Coincidence.

Except this coincidence was wearing neither Marc Jacobs attire nor Rocket Dog shoes and she didn't seem celebrity-savvy enough that she'd even heard of Ryan Seacrest but that was just first intuitive impression and Chloe could be completely wrong about this but she was wearing a Symbol from another galaxy.

What would Nancy Drew do?

What would Kimiko "Thunderbolt" Ross do?

Why had Chloe been covering for These People lately?

Kyle had been kind enough to give her his mystery on a silver platter, though she still needed to cross-reference the details, see if that folder was the real deal after all.

But Merick. Var-Sen. Rose. And now maybe Kara Kent?

How had she not chucked the ever-loving blue-eyed lot of them out into the spotlight and reaped the journalistic rewards? How had she not exposed the festering pus-filled knot of mystery that was Smallville, and made her mark on The World forever? What did she owe these people, especially Kara, whom she'd never seen before in her life?

For one thing, she didn't have proof enough.

For another thing, she didn't know the whole story.

For yet another thing? (And this was the clincher.) ...to expose these people would be to ruin any chance they had at a normal life. To expose these people would be to take away any semblance of Humanity they had left.

Could she be that objective? Journalists had to stay objective. (But dammit they had to Give a Shit, too, they had to stay angry...)

Her eyes burned a little, and she bit the inside of her cheek.

Why are you doing this in the first place, Chloe Sullivan? she wondered to herself. If you were finding The Truth in order to publish it, you would have done it by now. Instead of just popping teaser conspiracy-nut articles in your school newspaper for all of eighth grade, only to have Principal Jamison ask you politely on the first day of high school to cut that crap out unless you had proof, you would have schlepped it to The Ledger or The Planet or The Observer or even The Inquisitor if that's what it had taken.

If you were really going to get your Pulitzer by telling Smallville's secret, you would have done it by now. Especially in light of Recent Events.

So why are you doing it?

She remembered one of her dad's favourite movies, The Last Crusade.

She'd always liked those guys from the movie version of The Brotherhood of The Cruciform Sword because they were big on religious convictions without being total jerks.

(Except for the shooting and the speedboat chases.

After all, as soon as they found out Indy had been on the level, they'd been nice guys who only shot at Nazis.)

But one of them, Kasim, had turned to Indy after the dust had settled and asked him, point-blank: 'Why do you seek The Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory? Or for yours?'

Why do you seek The Crystal of Knowledge? Chloe asked herself.

In the movie, Indy had replied: 'I don't seek The Cup of Christ; I'm looking for my father.'

Chloe achieved a realisation: I don't seek The Crystal of Knowledge; I'm looking for my mother.

I just want to find my mom.

"Actually I had a question," Kara continued, "and I was wondering if you could help me with an answer."

Only an instant had gone by, and Chloe smiled gently at Kara, like she might have smiled at a person she'd known all her life. (Or at the very least, since eighth grade.)

Because The Truth wasn't more important than people. And Chloe could keep a secret.

(Kasim nodded, as if impressed, and replied: 'Then God be with you on your quest.')

"What did you want to know?" Chloe wondered, leaning against the desk, genuinely curious, genuinely helpful.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Just from those few words that Chloe said, Kara could tell that this girl could probably talk faster than she could run. She was a journalist, working for the school newspaper, whereas Kara shuffled hay and fed horses on a farm. At the end of the day Kara would probably choose her old routine over living the life of Chloe Sullivan.

"What did you want to know?"

Chloe leaned up against a desk and smiled pleasantly. Kara glanced over at all the articles on the wall, and there seemed to be hundreds of them, ranging from a tiny clippings to full-page articles.

"I was just wondering... if you knew anything about the abandoned part of the school? Like why it was closed off," Kara asked.

It was a stupid question.

Kara wasn't sure why she was even in here, bothering this girl who probably had ten thousand different things going on all at once.

Plus Kara wasn't really sure whether she should tell her about the encounter she had earlier with that guy.

'Hey Chloe, I just beat down some guy with my super powers. And then there were these strange green rocks that made me really weak and stuff. Can you tell me what was up?'

That would go over well.

"I mean if not that's ok, I was just curious," Kara added, adjusting her backpack out of slight nervousness.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe nodded slowly, not entirely unimpressed. Usually, when people came to her in her capacity as a reservoir of knowledge, it was to mockingly ask her what the gestation cycle was for a female Yeti, or the average migration rate of a swallow, or some other such tidbit of ridiculousness.

(This was not, in comparison, a stupid question.)

So when Kara Kent came to her in all apparent honesty, actually asking her something of use, Chloe was all too happy to grin lopsidedly and go over to the hard copy filing cabinet.

A question like that deserved a thorough and serious answer.

"The official explanation is," Choe chuckled as she paged through the top drawer, pulling out a blueprint of the school circa its expansion eleven years ago, "believe it or not, 'asbestos.' And, really, there might have been asbestos involved? But that would have been the least of our worries. Smallville's School Board approved an expansion of the high school-- and bear in mind I can't prove this next part, exactly --but then-Superintendent Tate awarded the job to a different contractor than the one that built the school in the first place, and this newer, sketchier contractor pulled some serious graft. Cobbled together cheap-as-could be building materials, and reaped beaucoup mega-profits while leaving Smallville High in the lurch.

"They used stone quarried from Shuster's Gorge," Chloe sighed, shaking her head, "as well as metals cannibalised from the old Creekside Foundry. Which, I'm sure I don't need to tell you? Two of the hardest-hit sites in Smallville during the now-legendary Meteor Shower. (Literally, hardest-hit.)"

Chloe spread out the blueprints on one of the barer desks, indicating the new, now-abandoned wing of the school.

"No-one realised any of this until this summer, actually," she noted, "and it was something of a scandal until now-Mayor Tate's office put a lid on it. There was this thing... during summer school? One of the Chemistry teachers, one Mister Rupert Harding, was caught siphoning meteor rock fragments out of the walls and using intravenous solutions thereof to enhance his physical characteristics, to the detriment of his appearance and, frankly, his sanity. (His Jekyll didn't Hyde.)

"So, anyway," Chloe continued, running a fingertip along one of the lines denoting walls apparently saturated with meteorite, "they fired this guy, this double-Freaky self-medicating teacher guy, and as soon as they realised there was such a high concentration of meteor rock, they cordoned the whole thing off and ordered full-scale rebuilding. Only they couldn't get it finished-- they could barely get it started --before school resumed, so they just put up signs and hoped to continue work on it during weekends and vacations or something."

"After all," Chloe muttered, this last part mostly to herself, though more than partly to Kara, "even if they refuse to officially admit I'm right about meteor rocks' effect on people, they still can't ignore the fact that those things are dangerous. (No wonder there's such a big turnover in Science teachers in this place; because the Science guys are smart enough to realise what's going on.)"

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara absorbed all the information Chloe told her, her brain going into overdrive to sort it all out and then file it away. She had always been exceptionally keen of mind, and she owed all that to her Kryptonian heritage. A heritage that she was only just starting to learn about.

Step one: Find out from your parents that you're an alien.

Step two: ...

Well Kara wasn't really sure what step two was.

"So that portion of the school was built with meteor rocks..." Kara repeated to herself. That basically meant she would have the be extra careful around the area. Fighting wasn't the hard part, it was having her abilities drained away while in the presence of those green meteor rocks. What relation did she have with them? Normal humans didn't seem to be weakened by them... In fact they were often times given special abilities.

Jonathan and Martha never really explained the situation to her all that clearly. She had no idea of the destruction caused during the shower. All she knew was that it wasn't a pleasant time for the people of Smallville, Kansas.

"Have they heard anything from that teacher they fired? I mean, is he still in Smallville?" Kara asked, playing the question off as if she were just learning about it all. Truth was she already had a run in with this psycho teach. And it wasn't a pretty one. Kara had never really felt pain like that before... no one had ever really hit her, for that matter. And from what Chloe was saying, it sounded like Dr. Jeckyl wouldn't be the last.

Kara glanced off towards one of the walls, and it was plastered with news articles and clippings, each covering a different story.

One was about a man with twelve fingers, another focused on a conjoined cows. Each claimed that the meteor shower was responsible.

And then Kara saw it...

It was the front cover for Time Magazine, and it features the face of a crying young girl, bold letters reading 'Heart Break in the Heart Land'. There was so much pain written on her face... it was unbearable for Kara to see. She had to try hard not to break into tears herself.

"So much... pain..." Kara mumbled out.

And she was the one that caused it all. It was her fault... all of it. There was nothing Kara could do to take it back, but that didn't make her feel any better.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick

Merick always hated gym class. It wasn't that he disliked sports, or that he was untalented at them. He was actually a natural athlete. He just never enjoyed dealing with the jocks. If he had had a different life he may have been one of them. But with parents that viewed every activity as if it were deadly, Merick never fell in with the jocks. He was 12 before he finally convinved them he could ride a bike with out succumbing to a horribly violent end.

Today, however, Merick really had very little patience for softball. And he wasn't sure if he could make it through the class with Coach Walt's yelling. His head was bothering him a bit. He just had to make it through, then tomorrow, he would accompany the vivacious, beautiful, incredi-

"DUCK TENNYLSON!!"Bellowed Coach Walt.

That's when Merick saw it. Flying directly at him was an aluminum baseball bat. It must have slipped out of Jeff Palmer's hand, and it was hurtling like a rocket straight at Merick's face. Then, suddenly Merick felt it. It was like a soft pulling sensation in his mind. Then his vision blurred slightly, as if looking over the top of a grill at a summer cook out. And much to Merick's surprise, the bat thudded, with deadly force into the shimmering barrier before him. They bat reverberated loudly, and then clanged to he ground where it rolled a few feet before coming to a stop.

Before Merick could take time to figure out what it was he had just done Merick realized that he should be in a considerable amount of pain, and the fact that he wasn't might betray his, now apparently secret full, life. With as much gusto and theatrical ability he could muster, he grabs his head, and falls to the ground, "Ahhhh... ,my head!

Merick felt woefully convinced that this was the worst fake out known to man. What else was there to do?

Before a second or two, Coach Walt was there, screaming with flaming hot fury as always, "Palmer you moron, do realize you could of just killed this kid. Get the nurse, don't just stand there!"

Maybe it was just the embarrassment, causing him to flush, but Merick could have sworn that the closer Coach Walt got the redder he was nad the hotter the air felt. Before he had time to puzzle it out, two of the jocks were lifting him to his feet, and helping him walk toward the school.

Great he thinks So far, on my first day I have made it through one study hall with out screwing up. I hope tomorrow goes better.

As they enter the school the school nurse and Jeff Palmer take the jocks position as makeshift stretcher. Merick is lead into the nurses office and set in a chair.

"It's amazing Mr. Tennylson, you don't seem to have a scratch on you. Little red in the face but no bruises or scrapes, no lascerations. Must have got your glove up just in time I reckon" the nurse frets as she looks over the supposedly wounded boy. "Well, better call your mum just in case. Concusions have a nasty way you know"

Merick had only really been paying half attention at best, that is until those four words he feared most. Better. Call. Your. Mom. No. He couldn;t have that. Not one little bit. Really, don't bother. I'm fine. I promise. Maybe I just lay back a bit, you know till the bell rings. And if I get any worse then we call. My mum is a bit of a worrier ya know? She would think I was dying or something, and next thing you know I'll be at some Neuro specialist in Metropolis having every test known to man. Please, just let me take a couple tylenol. Please?

The nurse looked a bit put off. But Merick could see in her eyes she understood about being over protective. After all, wasn't it her job to take care of all these kids? Fine Merick. But I will be watching, and if one thing changes I will have to call. Go lay on the cot in the next room. I will look in from time to time. If I think your ok, I will make sure to send you back to gym a few minutes early to change.

Merick's heart buoyed with relief at those words. He dutifully went in to the sick room and layed back. So many things to think about. He closed his eyes. His head did throb slightly. Too much excitement, he told himself, and before long he slept.

Merick was back in the room he didn't know. The room he often found himself drawn to in his dreams. He was alone this time. Normally when he dreamed of this room, he dreamed of being a very small child, and of playing with another very small child. A child that looked exactly like him. Except this child lacked the scars that covered much of Merick's chest, head and left arm. In these dreams, Merick also seemed to lack these scars. Scar he carried his whole life it seemed, but never really new why. Just that i was an accident.

Merick wandered the room. It was full of toys. All kinds of toys. The just as he turned to face the window, he saw him. The Little Boy. The Little Boy smiled. And then did something extraordinary. He talked. In the year and a half since Merick had started having the dreams the Little Boy never talked. He laughed. He giggled. He never talked. Today was different.

It's okay. You safe.

"Who are you? Are you ME?"

You silly Mehrick. You silly. I Tommy. Let's play!

Merick didn't know why, but before long he found himself playing. Playing Chutes and Ladders, and Candyland. Then the next thing he knew they were lying in a small bed. And then it happened. A large explosion of glass and wood and green light unlike anything Merick had every seen.

"AHHHH!!!" Merick woke with a startle as he fell out of the cot. He was back in the sick room. He was back in the place he knew. What the hell was that, he wondered as he struggled to pull himself together, it was dream that's all. But, why am I having these dreams. Is all this connected in some way that I cant see? Is this some cosmic jigsaw puzzle, and little old me is supposed to put together the pieces? Merick absently ran his hand through his hair. Tracing the long scar running the majority of the length of his head. It was so old, but yet it was so mysterious. Neither of these thoughts actually broke the surface of his subconcious. He was focused on the ebb and flow of the light throb in his head. Already it was lessening.

Maybe tomorrow, after Metropolis I can taly to Chloe about the dreams. She's super smart. A real brainiac if there ever was one. I bet she knows of some theory of dream interpretation or something. At least I guess, she could show me to the library. Maybe I can find a book on it or something. Merick thinks this as he is peeling himself up from the floor. He just makes it to a sitting position on the bed when the door pops open.

Merick, you seem well enough. Go ahead and get changed up already. 10 minutes till the bell.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

Chloe busied herself with folding the blueprints back up again; worse than roadmaps, were blueprints, and they were one of a number of small things that made her brain hurt.

As she folded, her brow furrowed, and she kept talking:

"Well," she mused, "Mister Harding was responsible for a lot of property damage before he was finished, and the School Board was considering pressing charges against him. A behaviourist from Summerholt stepped in, though, and claimed that his chemical dependency rendered him irresponsible for his actions. The Powers That Be decided this was a reasonable explanation-- I know, right? --and remanded him to a LuthorCorp-sponsored rehabilitation program and community service rather than give him jail time.

"Of course," Chloe sighed, crossing her arms over her stomach and staring morosely at her newly-folded blueprints, "a friend of mine at the Lowell County Sheriff's Department confided in me that Harding slipped his bonds at the rehab facility and absconded off into the night. Hopefully, he just hopped the ol' Mystery Train for Parts Unknown, but you can't always tell with this stuff. My 'weirdar' still pings when I think about him."

She glanced up at her new acquaintance, a 'why the interest, Kara?' budding on her lips, but then she saw the look on Kara's face.

A look of utter devastation.

Utter, utter devastation.

Chloe's eyes darted from Kara's face to the picture of baby Lana, and her heart broke into an octillion shards.

Oh, God. If she's Kryptonian...

If. If she is?

No. She couldn't possibly.

Blame herself?

Oh, God.

She screwed up her courage, and she put her most gentle, reverent voice on.

"Lewis and Laura Lang perished that fateful October 16th," she murmured, "and they left their only daughter behind. Little Lana, crying there in her fairy princess costume, became, briefly, a symbol for all America, a tender reminder of the fragility of life. But she's picked up the pieces, I think. She has her Aunt Nell, her mother's sister, and I'm told there's another aunt out there somewhere too. She's beloved of nearly the entire school body, and she's dating the hometown hero quarterback. The fairy princess will yet receive her happy ending."

Chloe hugged herself. "Hopefully," she breathed, thinking still again of her mother, "we all will."

She shook her head slowly. "I've talked to a lot of people about their Meteor Shower experiences over the years," she spoke up a bit, "and a continual theme throughout the interviews was that, like with the tsunamis and hurricanes that have subsequently shaken our hearts, they just wished that there was someone to blame. Someone to punish. But that's ridiculous. There's natural forces at work in this Universe, chaos theory and unbreakable physics. You can't cast blame in these matters any more than you can blame the iceberg for sinking The HMS Titanic, or blame atmospheric friction for the destruction of The Space Shuttle Columbia.

"Natural disasters," she murmured, softly, silently pleading with Kara all the while that, if she were from another star, if she were blaming herself for this, that she catch the undercurrent of Chloe's words, "are just The Universe's way of telling us that we need to wait longer and work harder for our happy endings. They're not wrath or judgement or punishment or anything else. They're not anyone's fault.

"And that," she acknowledged, "may be one of the hardest Truths I've ever uncovered."

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

It was all her fault.

Nothing Chloe said was registering. Though Kara could hear her speaking... she couldn't comprehend them. She couldn't accept them.

Kara had arrived on Earth the same day as that deadly meteor shower, and all the pain and suffering that it caused was her fault. She was the Angel of Death that fateful day.

She could... hear them screaming.

"Lana," Kara mumbled, tears practically forming in her eyes. She felt a lump in her throat, and she knew that it was time for her to go.

"I'm sorry," Kara said, slowly backing away towards the door. She gave Chloe one last apologetic look before she ran out, moving with a sense of urgency and swiftness towards a destination unknown even to her. She just wanted to run... and get away as far as possible.

That way... she couldn't hurt anyone ever again. She withheld her abilities for the moment, choosing instead to run as a normal human would. She was still on school grounds, and thus couldn't risk being seen.

Not that she really cared anymore. It wasn't like they could catch her... or even see her move for that matter. She ran around a corner that led towards the front of the school, and she narrowly missed colliding with someone. Kara stopped running, turning around to see if the other person was alright. She was greeted by a girl her own age, with dark hair and sparkling eyes.

It was Lana Lang

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

Homecoming. OK, now I was scared.

"I'll go talk to the professor. I want to know more about this place anyway." I paused a second, then lowered my voice a bit. "And yes, I will go with you to homecoming."

I turned from her and started to walk to professor Smith, when he took off. Literally. I could just make out him moving and then taking to the skies in the blink of an eye.

"Does everyone in this town but me fly?" I muttered.

I looked at Rose, then Pete. "OK, now what? Wait till he comes back, or go our own ways?"

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Lana and Whitney

Lana Lang and Whitney Fordman were the 'perfect couple'. As a senior and star quarterback for the football team, it only made sense that he should date the 'prettiest' girl in school.

Lana walked out of her last class and met Whitney in the hallway by his locker. She kissed him on the lips before smiling. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her nose for a moment before pulling away.

"You all set for the game?" Lana asked curiously.

"Yeah. The guys are going out for some drinks afterwards, but I believe I made dinner plans with this really cute girl," he said with a grin.

"Oh, you met a really cute girl, huh?" Lana teased, knowing full well whom he was referring to.

"Yeah," he said, running his hand down through her hair, "with dark hair and the cutest smile in the world," he said before kissing her again.

Lana sensed something was a bit off with Whitney, though. Even though he said he would spend the night with her, she knew he kind of wanted to hang out with his buddies.

"If you want to cancel tonight it's okay," Lana said, smiling warmly. "Nell could probably use my help around the shop."

"Nah, my friends can go without me," Whitney responded. Lana brought her hands up to her neck and she removed the necklace that she was wearing, handing it over to Whitney.

"Lana..." Whitney tried to refuse at first, but she closed his fingers around the necklace.

"For good luck," she said. Whitney smiled and leaned in to kiss her again. When they broke apart he held the chain in his closed fist, the meteor fragment pressing into his skin.

"I want it back, though," Lana said and smiled.

"It means a lot to me," she added.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Lana and Kara

"Someone's in a big hurry," Lana said, collecting herself after having a near-collision with Kara. She wasn't upset or angry at Kara, and instead put on that same charming smile that was known for putting people at ease.

Kara also calmed herself down a bit, a little teary eyed but alright none the less.

"Sorry," Kara said. Her voice was still a bit shaky, and doubly so when she realized that it was Lana that she had almost run into. Kara had tried running away from her past, only to come smack back into the present moment.

"I wasn't... sorry," Kara added. Lana simply smiled and shook her head.

"It's okay. I wasn't really looking forward to going to class anyway," she admitted. Lana wasn't one to normally skip a class, but she figured her teacher wouldn't really punish her for missing one day.

"I don't think we've met before," Lana said curiously while looking at Kara. She didn't recognize her from any of their classes, so she figured that Kara must be new to Smallville High.

"I just started going to school here," Kara said.

"Well that explains it then," Lana said with a pleasant smile. She extended her hand and offered it to Kara. It took Kara a few moments before she finally extended her own hand and shook Lana's.

"I'm Lana."

"Kara,"

After they shook hands, Kara nervously put hers in her pockets, hiding them away.

"Did you just move into town?"

"My parents own a farm in town,"

"Are you Jonathan and Martha's daughter?" Lana asked curiously. Kara nodded her head, and Lana smiled brightly.

"I had no idea," Lana admitted, even though they lived not more than a mile apart.

Kara was starting to feel a bit more at ease now, and she even forgot about her plans to leave Smallville. Even with her tragic past, Lana didn't seem to hold any resentment or anger towards anyone, and she carried this air of confidence around her that made Kara seem timid.

"Well I'm sure we'll see each other around," Lana said, deciding that it was about time she got ready for the game later on. She said goodbye to Kara before heading out towards the gym's locker rooms.

Kara stood in the hallway for a short while, her mind filled to the brim with thoughts and ideas about what she should do, and whether she was meant to stay in Smallville. When the bell finally rang, the halls quickly became filled with students, and she was left standing with her back against a locker.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe

The heartbreak, the octillion-shard heart-shattering, was in no way reserved solely for Chloe. She could see the heartbreak on Kara's face, could feel the myriad fragments of a stalwart heart rend the air with their jagged passing.

A weight formed in Chloe's stomach, and she reached a quiet consoling hand out for Kara's shoulder, that maybe through some kind of tactile telekinesis she could reassemble the girl's sundered self with a touch.

But Kara was gone. Professor Smith couldn't have wished for a swifter, more sudden exit, and he was a professional at such things.

Kara was gone, and Chloe's hand closed on empty air.

Shoulders slumping, Chloe made to go after her, just on the off-chance...

...but then the phone holstered at her hip vibrated at her. Insistent. Brooking no hesitation. Thus, with a soft sigh, she had to stop and let Kara have her getaway.

She flipped the phone open and, at first, she brightened a bit. The boy billionaire with the so-called "dragonslayer eyes" had dropped her a line, evidently a reply to her encouragement from earlier.

But then she read the message.

And feeling as she did, already exhausted, octillion-times heartbroke, that message caused her to laugh a broken laugh and sob a broken sob, and she couldn't even tell to herself which was which. She couldn't tell her sobbing from her laughter.

'Hey, I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'll be gone for a long time. Call me when you get a chance and I'll explain it to you.

I'm sorry, and it's not because of you, I swear.'

She knew, she knew, she knew she was being ridiculous.

What did you expect, Chloe asked herself, derisively, a happy ending?

She sank to her knees, there on the floor of The Torch, and held her phone shut in front of her.

This is what I get for allowing myself to imagine things, she lamented. For imagining possibilities.

She hadn't known the boy more than a day, day and a half, and at best they'd exchanged meaningful glances. It's not like they had some sort of Jane Austen "understanding" between them.

But he was beautiful and he was brave and he was broken and all of these things spoke to Chloe on a deep level indeed. Ancestral memory, so to speak.

He was leaving. And it wasn't because of her.

Of course it is, she sniffled. Of course it's because of me.

Recently, a friend had recommended to her the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. She hadn't had a chance to read it yet, what with everything that had been going on, but she'd read up on it briefly online.

In the story was a small town, and over the course of a century-- over the course of six generations --the town ended as it began, secluded and solitary, until it was eventually obliterated as if it had never been. Its beginning had been idyllic, its ending sad and strange, and throughout it all the cyclical nature of Time came into play amidst an atmosphere of magical realism... there was alchemy and prophecy and a heritage of physically mighty enigmatic men...

Márquez' town of Macondo very much reminded Chloe of Smallville.

Once upon a time, Smallville had been a little-known spot on an oft-forgotten map. A kind and gentle place of old-fashioned values and enterprise. But then had come The Meteor Shower. And like the militaristic massacre and the half-decade rain that laid waste to Macondo, like that poor place's gradual destruction, what had begun with Smallville's storm twelve years ago had not yet ended, the downhill slide had not yet come to a halt.

Chloe suspected, here and now as she knelt on the floor, that it wouldn't end until Smallville was an empty patch of land, wiped clean of all evidence of life. It wouldn't even take six generations.

She wondered if anyone would escape to tell the tale, as some had escaped the end of Krypton.

(She knelt on the floor and she stared down at the phone in her hands and thought miserable, counterproductive thoughts. She was just so tired...)

Smallville's end might have started with a bang, but it would finish with a whimper.

Her face tied up all in knots, Chloe Sullivan began to cry.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Pete

Rose bit her lip and looked away, covered her face with the ruby-soaked tendrils of her hair, a massive trembly grin slowly spreading from ear to ear.

Homecoming was over a month away. Who knows what would happen between now and then? The world could end a dozen times over in a month's time.

But at the same instant?

She'd asked a boy out. And he'd said yes. This was, to a girl normally frightened of people who spoke to her on the phone-- much less in person --about as momentous as things could get.

Rose McCrimmon kept her own counsel, kept her thoughts to herself, but she couldn't help but glow. Literally and figuratively. Golden-glowing girl.

Pete stood gazing after the suddenly-absent Var-Sen, his eye twitching a little.

"Later on, Krypton Man," he muttered.

And he caught The Wraith's own muttering about the power of flight, and he grinned his trademark lopsided grin, clapped The Wraith on the armoured shoulder.

"S'allright," he encouraged the darksome superbeing, "I don't fly much either, 'nless I've got a straight stretch ahead of me an' a tank of nitrous. We can form a club. The Dudes on Terra Firma. The Just-Us League of Earth."

He jutted his chin out towards the cave, indicating Var-Sen's path of departure.

"As for waitin' on our illustrious host, there?" he shook his head. "Who can say with that guy? Dude's got more riddles than some sphinxes I could mention. ('Look deeper,' for one.)"

Rose wandered up, still glowing a little bit, still grinning her trembly grin.

"Let's give him another minute," she suggested. "He's learning a valuable lesson: no matter how crucial a Destiny is, sometimes? It can't help but get distracted. Fate has ADHD."