The Last Daughter of Krypton - IC

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe. "Every man dies, not every man really lives."

"Tactical retreat. You are the only one that can heal the fallen. You need to be safe until then. Besides, London isn't so bad.

He made sense.

Complete logistical sense. Even if she were only dead temporarily, if she got herself killed she'd be out of it for an indeterminate period and that'd mean she'd be no good to anyone.

That didn't mean she had to like it.

She sat down hard on the edge of her bed and smiled wearily up at him.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she recalled with her crystal-perfect memory and that weary smile a line from the novel of Braveheart: "'Paris smells like rotting flowers. London smells like rotting fish. If you prefer fish to flowers, then that is up to you.'"

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara flew high up into the sky and waited. She expected J'onn to come rushing up to meet her, but instead he flew off into the distance, becoming nothing but an ant in the distance. Eventually he faded from sight. Down below, however, the rest of her friends were still gathered in attendance.

The young Kryptonian had hurt Rose, but she had also withheld the bulk of her strength.

Why?

'Why?'

She's your friend.

She wanted you to give up. They're holding you back.

Down below, Var-Sen was talking things over with Rose. Comforting her.

'Spreading his lies.'

'You don't need them'

Could she take them on? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Taking one last look towards the ground and then towards the Fortress of Solitude, Kara instead flew off towards the United States, gaining ground and soaring swiftly through the air. She was free. Completely and utterly free. She had stood up to the older Kryptonian and the Manhunter himself. Yes. She had the power.

Kara arrived in Kansas soon thereafter, touching down right in front of the steps that led up to her house.

 

[Lunaramblings]

"Tactical retreat. You are the only one that can heal the fallen. You need to be safe until then. Besides, London isn't so bad.

He made sense.

Complete logistical sense. Even if she were only dead temporarily, if she got herself killed she'd be out of it for an indeterminate period and that'd mean she'd be no good to anyone.

That didn't mean she had to like it.

She sat down hard on the edge of her bed and smiled wearily up at him.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she recalled with her crystal-perfect memory and that weary smile a line from the novel of Braveheart: "'Paris smells like rotting flowers. London smells like rotting fish. If you prefer fish to flowers, then that is up to you.'"

"Chloe. I love you. If you are needed, I will see to it we get to the front lines. For now, rest." Merick smiled. Merick dropped his field and sat next to Chloe. Holding her tightly in his arms. Softly he kissed her head and stroked her hair.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I have never told any of the gang this but Kara's Fortress of Solitude almost glows to my vision. Especially here in the North, where the sun won't rise for three more months.

I watched the battle unfold, biding my time. I could only stop Kara by hurting her, and while the others could hold back, I couldn't. My strongest punch wouldn't even make her pause.

It would be claws and bolts of concussive shadow if it came down to it, and I would be drawing blood. It may drive her more into madness, so I had to wait.

I watched the battle unfold, a piece of the night unnoticed by the others, and saw Kara speed off.

South.

The others hadn't seen her. J'onn had left, and Var`Sen was picking Rose up. The only reason i had was because to me night was day.

Shadows swirled around me and I stepped out of the Kent barn and saw Kara on the steps. I had guessed correctly. She had come home.

"Kara," I yelled, "We need to talk. Don't force me to do this."

My hand was pointed at her. Even as fast as she was, my darkbolt would strike her before she reached me. It would also most likely stop any chance of a peaceful outcome too, but lives were at stake and I couldn't take that risk.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ceri. One mother to another.

Var-Sen's SUV squealed backwards out of the driveway of The McCrimmon House, Ceri spinning the steering wheel one-handed even as she buckled in with the other and even as the wheel spun she let go of the wheel and fumbled out her phone.

Buckled, steering with her other hand now, she began to dial the home of Jonathan and Martha Kent.

They need to know about this. If their daughter's gone wrong, if she's a threat to them, too, if she sees them as attempting to restrain her freedoms as John and I did and she lashes out...

She hesitated, and glanced at the phone.

Wait. Can she superhear mobile transmissions?

Ceri scowled. And put her foot down, not slowing nor halting until skidding into the mouth of The Kent Farm's own drive.

She had no thought for what she'd do upon getting there, especially not...

...with Kara and Kyle squaring off in the barnyard, beneath the basketball hoop and next to the front stoop.

(And where's Rose, exactly? Can't think about that, now.)

She slid out of the car. She could have rammed the girl, maybe, but the best that would have been was a distraction.

If Jonathan or Martha were home she needed to get them out of there...

She felt very naked, all of a sudden. Very unarmed.

For a moment she thought back to Van McNulty's rifle and its Kryptonite bullets. She wondered whatever happened to that...

Kyle was aiming some sort of attack at Kara, ready to move, whether it was the shadowy webbing or the concussive darkbolt, Ceri had to trust in Kyle that if Kara came after her, he would be able to slow Kara down.

Ceri ran. She ran for the house, she'd figure out how to get in there on the way, but she had to get The Kents out of there...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe. Counting blessings.

"Chloe. I love you. If you are needed, I will see to it we get to the front lines. For now, rest." Merick smiled. Merick dropped his field and sat next to Chloe. Holding her tightly in his arms. Softly he kissed her head and stroked her hair.

She closed her eyes, and mumbled, and for the moment luxuriated in the sheer unadulterated safety of Mer's comfort.

She could feel the tingle of the white light coming back to her, restoring the energies she'd drained out of herself to knit Var-Sen back together. Sometimes it came back all at once, sometimes it took its time, just like it would if she'd expended enough that she'd perished.

Tilting her head, she kissed Mer' back softly on the mouth, and touched her forehead to his.

"I don't deserve you. I really, really don't."

 

[Varshanka]

Zatanna - back in her shoppe

Moving through the town, and receive stares from EVERYONE. Zatanna didn’t bother stopping and asking directions. She simply walked. Straight for the manse. And just as her foot touched the bridge that crossed the lake, she felt it. That shifting of energies. That sudden spike of teleportation. Or shadowwalking, whatever term he used. A simple casting revealed no humans in the environs, leaving her rather frustrated. But she’d be back.

Looking over at the citizens of the realm she quirked an eyebrow. Looking at the gathering of armed and armored individuals that had taken to following her she said, “Oh, Puh-lease. If I was here to attack I’d have a legion of warriors. Not just myself. Sheesh. He can’t even stay long enough to torture them?” Shaking her head she sighed and looked at the castle once more.

“Just tell him I was here kay?” And with a ripple of her tongue she was gone.

The air in the back room of her shoppe turned a bit brimstone and sulfer for a few but since she hadn’t actually gone to HELL it was just a hint. Not the full on gag-me-with-a-fucking-garden-hose stench.

Looking down at her hound she raised an eyebrow. “So.. What the fuck is going on around here?”

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose. "If you asked me how I'm doin', I'm fine."

"She has been...infected," he answered Rose. He then scanned her with x-ray vision as he touched her gently where Kara had pushed her.

She turned to look at him. Really look at him. This scientist, this statesman, compatriot to the visionary whose works had saved his daughter and, to a certain measure, his entire civilisation.

God, it was good to see John again.

Her first alien. Her first really really Close Encounter of The Third Kind.

(Not really, you know, Kara was before John, but still.)

"Nothing broken," he announced. He gingerly gave her a hug.

Rose smiled wobbily, hugging him back emphatically, and did what she did, she quoted lyrics: "'Nothing's broken,'" she murmured, "'nothing broken but my heart.'"

Drawing back from him, she looked him in the face. "Now. Explain. 'Infected?'"

He gave a deep sigh.

"The meteor rocks," he told her, "the Kryptonite from our world affects us differently with each manifestation it takes as it was expelled from the fires of Rao. Green, as you know, can kill us. It damages us, physically. Red Kryptonite causes a different reaction. It damages our mind. It does enhance strength, but along with that, it destroys our inhibitions. It warps our reality, and causes our sense of self-worth to enhance to dangerous levels. The class ring she is wearing is made from a piece of Red Kryptonite."

"Oh," Rose mumbled, touching her own red hair absent-mindedly. "I thought she'd been drinking or something. Black Frost beer? I didn't know what to think."

And then J'onn spoke as he was leaving.

"Remember," he said, "think to me when you have found her. Do not approach her alone."

Var-Sen nodded his head. "You have my word, J'onn J'onzz."

Rose nodded firmly, standing up a little taller when thus commanded by The Lawgiver. He may not speak this way often, but when he did... people took notice.

"Mine, too," Rose solemnly vowed. "No more half-assed 'cowboy diplomacy.'"

The Kryptonian turned towards the Fortress. "I'm going to call for back-up," he announced to Rose.

Rose blinked, and hurried after him, her feet somehow flicking her across the surface of the snow without sinking. "There's back-up for this?"

She hesitated... wondering where Kyle had gone. Hadn't she left him near The Fortress?

He's gone after Kara.

God, I hope he heard J'onn's orders.

(He never listens.)

She began hurrying faster. "Yeah. Back-up could be good."

 

[AmenRa]

The Fortress of Solitude

Dormant systems powered on when Var-Sen and Rose stepped into the Main Chamber of the Fortress.

The structure, with its enhanced AI, sensed Var-Sen's presence. The Fortress had scanned him at the molecular level, matched him to the database, and allowed him entry.

(Unbeknownst to the Kryptonian scientist, the Fortress' automated defenses had also prepared an attack based on that molecular scan. Just in case. And Rose, too. The Fortress of Solitude would not allow anyone into its inner areas without defensive posturing. Just in case.).

Var-Sen had hoped the AI would not render a construct of Zor-El. He did not wish to tell his mentor and friend's consciousness that his only daughter had succumbed to the influence of Red Kryptonite.

Var-Sen steered Rose over to a crystal console, which he activated by changing the position of one of the crystals. He then placed and replaced a few more crystals, arranging them so they glowed in unison on the console.

He looked at Rose for a moment, then gave a small smile.

He turned back to the console and began to speak in an alien language, the language of his homeworld, the language of Krypton. It was melodic, yet some of the words were curt and short, clipped vowel sounds and some sounding as if they had no vowels at all.

When he finished, he removed one crystal from the console, and the others flashed.

"The message has been encoded and beamed to Sanctuary," he told Rose. "Even now she has received the message and is preparing to utilize the Gate to come here," he explained. "She should come through over there," he said as he pointed to an empty area surrounded by crystal spires.

Var-Sen looked at Rose for a second. "Oh," he said, smiling, "I told her the situation here regarding Kara, and how to attune the Gate for a more precise trajectory. I also told her I love her."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Cliff. Of Insanity.

Lex Luthor's limousine rolled to a halt just outside the main drag of Smallville's Main Street, and the man behind the wheel frowned.

Sheriff's Department vehicles were starting to come out of the woodwork, there was a lot of damage...

Nell's Bouquet, the flower shop attached to The Talon, Misty's destination, this had had a hole punched through it, the shit had hit the fan and the shit was still settling.

Not to mention, there was a Saab sitting inexplicably in the middle of the road looking like someone had taken a can opener to it.

Everyone looked like they'd seen ghosts.

Squinting, Cliff switched on the limo's police scanner, adjusted a knob, fluttered his fingers one-handed over the keys of the dashboard's built-in satellite data unit.

'Got some business happening at the school, too, seems at first blush like somebody's done set off another one of those "clean explosives" in the gal's room,' Sheriff Miller's voice sounded. 'Somebody find me Edwards. I bet you dollars to home fries these two things're connected... just reroute traffic best ya can, can't get Frank's Auto to tow that Swedish hunka junk 'till we can reconstruct the event. Trouble is, no-one seems to remember anything except something green and glowin' in the flower shop after it all went down, and we ain't found no trace of that.'

Cliff grimaced, and, turning the volume back down on the scanner, he glanced over his shoulder at Misty Graves, smiling worriedly. "Looks like we've had an incident. Maybe a couple? The Talon's cordoned off..."

He examined the road ahead carefully. "I can still maybe get to The Beanery on foot, if you still want a coffee. Bring it back to you."

Tapping another key on his dashboard SDU, Cliff again glanced at Misty, this time in the rearview mirror. "Sounds like these people are pretty traumatised. No-one's remembered what's happening. Or at the very least, no-one's talking."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose. Justified.

Var-Sen steered Rose over to a crystal console, which he activated by changing the position of one of the crystals. He then placed and replaced a few more crystals, arranging them so they glowed in unison on the console.

This place always took Rose's breath away. She felt, not for the first time, kind of like she had in The Caves, that perhaps this were holy ground and she should remove her shoes. That sort of awestruck reverent fear was writ large on her face...

He looked at Rose for a moment, then gave a small smile.

...until Var-Sen reassured her. And then she grinned, and relaxed a little.

He turned back to the console and began to speak in an alien language, the language of his homeworld, the language of Krypton. It was melodic, yet some of the words were curt and short, clipped vowel sounds and some sounding as if they had no vowels at all.

Rose closed her eyes to hear this... oh, it was lovely. The supermath linguistics of Krypton...

When he finished, he removed one crystal from the console, and the others flashed.

"The message has been encoded and beamed to Sanctuary," he told Rose.

Rose opened her eyes again, and nodded quietly. Superluminal transmission. Can't believe I've lived to see it.

"Even now she has received the message and is preparing to utilize the Gate to come here," he explained. "She should come through over there," he said as he pointed to an empty area surrounded by crystal spires.

Rose glanced at the landing pad. "Scotty, eat your poor wee cridhe out. (Actually, wait, no.)"

Var-Sen looked at Rose for a second. "Oh," he said, smiling, "I told her the situation here regarding Kara, and how to attune the Gate for a more precise trajectory. I also told her I love her."

Rose grinned at that. "All good things for her to know. Especially that last bit."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya. Sanctified.

The photosonic shower sizzled softly, hummed to a quiet, and Raya sighed gently as she slipped out of the crystalline stall and into the black satin dressing-gown. This garment was a souvenir from Earth...

Var-Sen rather enjoyed this colour on her.

From the next room, Raya heard beeping, insistent, harmonic.

Moving thereto, she found that the data crystals singing to her were indicative of a message. And when she played it, her eyes hardened, and swiftly, she shed her robe, her slender, subtly powerful frame moving for more battle-appropriate attire...

...and then she heard Var-Sen, in Kryptonian, append his affection for her.

<'I love you.'>

Standing there naked in his lab, she glanced at the console and smirked ever-so-faintly.

Her husband had always had good timing.

She blew a kiss to the data that was his avatar, and then focused on the dire matter at hand. Swirling a combat vestment around her, all blues and reds and golds, she took up a photosonic quarterstaff, snapped its dual royal-blue blades to life.

(This was not mystical like her old dagger, left behind with M'onel in The Phantom Zone. But perhaps it would serve. The Daughter of Hope going rogue was an eventuality too terrible to contemplate, to countenance.)

She returned to the console, flicking switches, shifting crystals...

A light began to build as the transdimensional matter-stream initialised, handshaking across the trackless gulfs of interstellar space.

And through light she stepped, from world to world, in one Yearning stretching moment as one might leap from skyscraper to skyscraper, a single bound...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Raya. Unified.

Rose threw up her hand as the brightness of the whiteness of the light powered out of that space and into that bright white light space stepped a beautiful blonde woman, dressed in primary colours and weilding something out of Jedi lore.

Rose hesitated, lowering that hand, fully understanding in that moment how Var-Sen could love this woman. "Uh, hey there, Ma'am-Sen, we've got a situation."

Effortlessly, Raya switched to English, nodding to her, adopting the nomenclature that dearest J'onn had told Raya that The Thunderer used for Rose: "I am cognisant, Valkyrie. Thank you."

Rose blinked, and grinned at the use of that name.

Raya turned to her husband, touched his cheek, kissed him softly, briefly, palpably. "(And for the record, I love you also. You always bring me such interesting places.)"

Raya pursed her lips, withdrawing from the kiss, twirling that staff one-handed. "Let us make haste to the business at hand. Where is The Last Daughter?"

Rose smiled faintly. "There's only one direction out of this joint, and it's every direction: South."

 

[Lunaramblings]

"Chloe. I love you. If you are needed, I will see to it we get to the front lines. For now, rest." Merick smiled. Merick dropped his field and sat next to Chloe. Holding her tightly in his arms. Softly he kissed her head and stroked her hair.[/I]

She closed her eyes, and mumbled, and for the moment luxuriated in the sheer unadulterated safety of Mer's comfort.

She could feel the tingle of the white light coming back to her, restoring the energies she'd drained out of herself to knit Var-Sen back together. Sometimes it came back all at once, sometimes it took its time, just like it would if she'd expended enough that she'd perished.

Tilting her head, she kissed Mer' back softly on the mouth, and touched her forehead to his.

"I don't deserve you. I really, really don't."

"Please. Like I am any real catch... I am just a meteor infected, scarred up nerd. Chloe, you are amazing. Really. And there is no way that I come close to being worthy of even your presence let alone your love. But, I will tell you this.... I am glad I have it. Even with everything that has gone on in the last few months, just knowing I can hold you like this... Makes it all worth while. Makes the world worth saving. No matter how many coffee tables I have to break to do it.

Merick smiled as he held Chloe tight.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen of Krypton

He drank in her beauty as she stepped forth from the white light of the Gate's passage.

She moved like a great feline, sveltly, subtley.

He knew well the power contained within her body. His physical memory was surrealistically aware of how she felt when she moved against him, how the ripple of muscles under taut flesh felt beneath his hands.

And, for a moment, he forgot about Rose standing there, and he simply stared at his wife.

His beloved.

His everything.

"Uh, hey there, Ma'am-Sen, we've got a situation."

He broke into a grin.

Raya turned to her husband, touched his cheek, kissed him softly, briefly, palpably. "(And for the record, I love you also. You always bring me such interesting places.)"

His eyes darted to Rose as he clenched his jaw. Her touch was electric. He had to clench his fists to stop himself from doing something absolutely inappropriate to the current company and setting.


Raya pursed her lips, withdrawing from the kiss, twirling that staff one-handed. "Let us make haste to the business at hand. Where is The Last Daughter?"

Rose smiled faintly. "There's only one direction out of this joint, and it's every direction: South."

Var-Sen nodded his head as he rose into the air. "We can discuss possible locations as we travel," he told them. "But I would think our first destination should be Smallville. We should travel to the Kent Farm, where her Earth parents may be able to assist us."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Chloe. With apologies to Raymond Chandler.

"Please. Like I am any real catch... I am just a meteor infected, scarred up nerd. Chloe, you are amazing. Really. And there is no way that I come close to being worthy of even your presence let alone your love. But, I will tell you this.... I am glad I have it. Even with everything that has gone on in the last few months, just knowing I can hold you like this... Makes it all worth while. Makes the world worth saving. No matter how many coffee tables I have to break to do it.

Chloe reflected on this. That it was only the nature of her power that kept her from being Merick's opposite number with those scars; they'd both been pretty much buried in their respective houses that first meteoric day and Chloe had lived to tell only by dying first.

They were both nerds, both meteor-infected, him in his brain and her in her heart...

But she'd been given a chance to heal and he was still struggling with that a good decade and two months later.

Merick smiled as he held Chloe tight.

She held him back, tightly, her voice a murmur: "'But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. ... he is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. ... if he is a man of honour in one thing, he is that in all things.'"

She trailed off, and she gazed at him, total recall not enough to summarise how she felt. About her stumblebum palooka of a knight in emerald-force armour.

"'...he talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.'"

"'...he has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.'"

"'He is the hero;'" she repeated, a lump in her throat, searching his face, to make sure he understood the depth of what she attempted to express with the words of a dead genius. "'He is everything.'"

...and she kissed him, then, for quite awhile.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Raya and Rose. Wild, blue, yonder.

He drank in her beauty as she stepped forth from the white light of the Gate's passage.

She moved like a great feline, sveltly, subtley.

"Uh, hey there, Ma'am-Sen, we've got a situation."

He broke into a grin.

Raya turned to her husband, touched his cheek, kissed him softly, briefly, palpably. "(And for the record, I love you also. You always bring me such interesting places.)"

His eyes darted to Rose as he clenched his jaw. Her touch was electric. He had to clench his fists to stop himself from doing something absolutely inappropriate to the current company and setting.

Raya's senses were as acute as those of even Heimdall, friend to The Thunderer, and she did not miss the certain kind of tension in her husband's frame, the glance at his youthful compatriot... and she grinned into the kiss.

Rose couldn't help but meet his gaze, reflexively, she saw the look on his face, and with cheeks as red as her hair, she gestured to the mouth of The Fortress. I can. Give y'all a minute. Not like I'll, you know, freeze to death...

But this turned out to not be necessary. Which, hey, cool, because she adored these people but that woulda been awkward. (Heh. Newlyweds are the same on any planet, I guess? Go figure.)

Raya pursed her lips, withdrawing from the kiss, twirling that staff one-handed. "Let us make haste to the business at hand. Where is The Last Daughter?"

Rose smiled faintly. "There's only one direction out of this joint, and it's every direction: South."

Var-Sen nodded his head as he rose into the air. "We can discuss possible locations as we travel," he told them. "But I would think our first destination should be Smallville. We should travel to the Kent Farm, where her Earth parents may be able to assist us."

"A fine assessment," Raya agreed, and she, too, defied gravity, snapping shut the blades of her staff, slipping this away into the folds of her cloak, and holding out her hand to Rose. "You. Should 'strap in,' as the parlance goes."

The Valkyrie could fly, Raya knew, but her velocity was somewhat lacking.

Rose took Raya's hand, held on tight, added her own antigrav loft to the equation.

"Let's fly."

"Allons-y."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Merick smiled as he held Chloe tight.

She held him back, tightly, her voice a murmur: "'But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. ... he is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. ... if he is a man of honour in one thing, he is that in all things.'"

She trailed off, and she gazed at him, total recall not enough to summarise how she felt. About her stumblebum palooka of a knight in emerald-force armour.

"'...he talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.'"

"'...he has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.'"

"'He is the hero;'" she repeated, a lump in her throat, searching his face, to make sure he understood the depth of what she attempted to express with the words of a dead genius. "'He is everything.'"

...and she kissed him, then, for quite awhile.

Something strange always happened when he kissed Chloe. It felt like the rest of the world had stopped. Usually Merick could feel things. Subtle things. Almost like a GPS in his head, he just knew which direction to go. But when he was with Chloe, there was no direction in which he would go. He would only be with her. It was as if his own internal world had been paused. Like he was removed from the world around them and only they existed in that moment.

Merick kissed Chloe lovingly. The way she taught him. He was a very good student. Merick felt a single tear roll down his cheek. He had never felt like he mattered. Not in Honduras, China, not even on that beautiful beach. But here. Now. He knew he mattered. If only to Chloe. And that was good enough. That was what really mattered.

Elsewhere in Smallville things were not as good...

Dale heard the sirens. He heard the scanner crackle as reports came in from the school. He had his phone in hand almost before the sheriff finished responding. He was calling Merick. Dale cursed as the phone would not connect. Not even a mailbox. Just.... nothing. Must be something with the towers Dale thought as he was moving.

Edmund met him in the yard.

"Think it was Mer' again? He did blow up that hallway back along?"

"Unless Merick has learned to manifest fire and heat, no. His energy is clean. This... this was something else.

Dale drove the truck like a man possessed. With all of the alterations he and Edmund had put into it, even Pete would have been impressed, and Dale was no slouch behind the wheel. Dale and Edmund arrived at the school as officials started to arrive.

"Hey, we just heard, where're the kids? Everyone accounted for?" Dale called out to the officials as they had started out of their vehicles.

Edmund looked around the yard. Taking in the surroundings. Hoping to gleam anything. After a moment he looked at the officials. "Give me the word and I will have anything you boys need here. My company will foot the bill for whatever is needed."



In the school, just prior to the explosion, Paul Gordon had seen something impossible. He had just opened the door when he saw Merick disappear. One second he was there, the next he was gone. Then the world went to hell.

Paul Gordon had never openly disclosed his condition. Synesthesia was hard to explain. It was many years before Paul even knew he was different. But he believe that with out his condition he would never have fallen in love with music the way he did. He could see the music. Taste the music. It was palpable. But during the last meteor shower something happened. He had been in his shed, his homemade studio. He was working on a new song when the shed exploded as a meteorite the size of a soccer ball tore through the roof and exploded at his feet. Every since then he could sense things. Every time a person spoke, he could feel their words. Sense their emotions and what they meant. It was like being a human lie detector. And there were other things. Things that made him uncomfortable.

When the explosion occurred, the sonic reverberation was so immense. And so primal and emotional that it literally overloaded his senses. Paul Gordon laid in a heap just inside his classroom. Unconscious.

 

[AmenRa]

Var-Sen, traveling

With Raya and Rose at his side, the Kryptonian scientist soared through the skies above Earth.

Var-Sen was no soldier. And, save what hand to hand combat training he had received from Raya, he knew nothing about fighting battles, except in the tactical sense. But, like Kryptonians under yellow suns, had powers that would serve him, and he had intellect, and knowledge.

And, even though he was no soldier, he was quite capable of handling himself in a fight.

Even with another Kryptonian.

As they flew, Var-Sen turned to his wife.

"J'onn J'onzz wishes us to not engage her alone," he told Raya. "The Lawgiver has battled with Kara Zor-El already, and he left us in the arctic when she escaped. His last words were for us to locate her and contact him.

"I would surmise that he has something planned," he finished.

As they flew, crossing over Northern Canada's tundra, Var-Sen noticed a curious imprint on the Earth below him.

It appeared to be an impact crater, not unlike the one left by Kara and J'onn near the Fortress.

But this one was splattered into the frozen ground, and had been for some time, for a herd of caribou grazed lazily at the crater's edge.

Var-Sen focused his extraordinary vision into the crater's center.

And he saw a curious thing.

At the bottom of the vast depression appeared to be....

....a hammer.

 

[Lunaramblings]

The Man had many stops he intended to make. He was standing in Merick's bedroom when the door opened. He didn't make the effort to get away. Though he could have.

He smiled as he came face to face with Marcy. "Please, don't scream. I am a friend. I come to give warning of an impending danger. You, your his mother aren't you? You must heed my words." The Man smiled as he stepped toward Marcy.

Marcy didn't wait for long. She had been through so much. She was a survivor. A fighter. And that is what she would do now. She threw the basket of clothes at him. In the second she drove a hard kick into his midsection. As he doubled she drove a knee hard into his nose as she grabbed his hair and pulled him forward.

As fast as Marcy responded, His reaction speed was faster. As the knee hit home, shattering his nose, he grabbed her leg and heaved her onto the bed on the far side of the room. Before she landed he was gone.

Marcy was on her feet and moving before she realized this. This was not the life she had thought she was getting into. But this is the life she had been given. She had been warned that this could happen. Edmund had insisted that she learn to defend herself. Now she was glad he had. As she was on her way down the stairs she heard the truck thunder by the house. Maybe they were after him? That must be it...

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rose and Raya. Born to be.

Rose had some familiarity with guardians of right who had been anything but soldiers before their rise to glory.

Steve Rogers, f'rinstance, had been an artist, an asthmatic shut-in. And had become Captain America.

And Orion Pax had been a lowly dockworker, or an archivist, depending on the story, before becoming Optimus Prime.

One might say the same thing about a certain farmgirl.

She wasn't there yet.

Right now she had been distracted by unwitting villainy, but Kara would eclipse all of these.

The wind tore around her, and she could not make out what the two Kryptonians were saying, though they could practically converse. She could barely keep her eyes open, much less follow a discussion. (Still need those goggles.)

As they flew, Var-Sen turned to his wife.

"J'onn J'onzz wishes us to not engage her alone," he told Raya. "The Lawgiver has battled with Kara Zor-El already, and he left us in the arctic when she escaped. His last words were for us to locate her and contact him.

"I would surmise that he has something planned," he finished.

"To surmise this," Raya noted, "would be in keeping with past precedent. As plans go, our Lawgiver is something of a chessmaster. Between us, surely we can enact sufficient containment to keep her from doing harm or absconding 'till J'onzz can arrive."

As they flew, crossing over Northern Canada's tundra, Var-Sen noticed a curious imprint on the Earth below him.

It appeared to be an impact crater, not unlike the one left by Kara and J'onn near the Fortress.

But this one was splattered into the frozen ground, and had been for some time, for a herd of caribou grazed lazily at the crater's edge.

Var-Sen focused his extraordinary vision into the crater's center.

And he saw a curious thing.

At the bottom of the vast depression appeared to be....

....a hammer.

Raya followed Var-Sen's gaze, and unleashed a Kryptonian expletive in her startlement.

Squinting, barely able to make out the jagged shape far far far below, much less the primal artefact lodged in the bottom of that shape, Rose called out at the top of her lungs against the baying slipstream... "WHAT? WHAT IS IT?"

Raya only smiled, easily able to hear Rose, and mouthed back to her: "An omen. Perhaps."

 

[AmenRa]

Of Gods and Men

He had walked for days.

Or, had it been weeks?

He didn't remember. He couldn't tell. He didn't care.

His clothes were battered and torn, his face dirty, his beard thick with unkempt growth.

And yet, he trudged on. Walking a course only he knew through the wilderness, ice, and snow. It had taken many days to get this far, the use of money procured provisions, snow sled dogs, but even those hearty canines had given up after a while and turned back, leaving him alone, with nothing but his feet to carrying him and a driving reason to follow on.

Wolves had stalked him at one point, driving him faster, as fast as an unhealthy leg would allow.

They didn't get him, the wolves of the forest, but they had tried.

He had spent that night in a tree, climbing it even with pain in his damaged leg, with the wolves of the forest circling him, yipping and pawing and howling for him to come down and enjoy a quick and painless escape to eternity.

For that, he had cursed the reason he made this journey.

And, now, with every step, he cursed that namesake more and more.

Onto the flat tundra, a wasteland, a desert itself his journey had brought him. His trek across this was not difficult, but it was hard enough, and he cursed the one who had made him this.

He had assumed it had been finished. His task completed, his bond to this otherwordly one done.

But, no, it seems the gods in their cruel humor found it necessary once again to task him. To drive him to the point of breaking, to re-unite the bond that he once shared with them.

Such was the cycle of things.

Such was the fate of gods and men.

He did not see the figures soaring so high above him, nor would he had cared if he had. He only wanted this thing done, this task completed. He had work to do, real work to do, and this seemingly endless trek through the Great White North had not been on that agenda.

But, he could not have resisted the call.

Another hand held his, another force beckoned, a bound brother, a warrior from the North himself. And this one could not be denied existence. This one would not be denied rebirth.

A herd of caribou grazed in front of him. They looked up as he approached them wearily, stepping heavily, his balance and posture going. Some of the beasts moved for him, some simply looked up as they chewed their tundra grass, and some didn't even care.

He stumbled through the herd, not having enough energy to go around them, and they grunted and snorted at his intrusion.

And then he fell.

He tumbled over the lip of a crater, a hole in the Earth, and he tumbled heels over feet, the pain in his leg making him cry out, and even the caribou, for an instant, pitied him.

He stopped at last, in the bottom of the big crater, his breath coming in ragged gasps, frothing and condensing in the cold air. Slowly, he turned over, now laying on his back, then in another minute or two, rolled to his side, taking stock of himself, assuring himself that nothing was broken beyond his soul.

As he pushed himself up, he opened blue eyes, and he saw it.

There...

Not three feet from him.

And even though he had cursed it, and called it names, and spat at it during the past nights and days, when he saw it now, for real, before him, Donald Blake smiled.

And he reached out for it.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Pete and Harmony. In the thick.

When the explosion occurred, the sonic reverberation was so immense. And so primal and emotional that it literally overloaded his senses. Paul Gordon laid in a heap just inside his classroom. Unconscious.

Pete and Harmony had been... talking. Actual actual talking, and not making out in a custodian's closet.

Pete had presented the notion that he would soon be a jock and no longer an embarrassment to her and her friends, and Harmony had expressed bewilderment at this, questioning the sheer possibility of that, questioning her friends' validity to judge what was embarrassing. Pete was frustrated by this, he'd thought he was being a hero to her, and there was... a talk. A fairly emphatic, shouty talk.

But then the walls had shaken and plaster had rained down and all of a sudden they had more important things to think about. Hurrying out of their hiding place, they hurried through the halls holding hands... until they reached the door to the Music Appreciation room, the door ajar, one of Paul Gordon's feet sticking out and keeping the door open.

Pete released Harmony's hand in a heartbeat, ducking into the room, looking him over hurriedly. "He ain't hurt. Not. Outwardly. I dunno what it is..."

Pete checked the man's breathing, checked his pupils' dilation, heart rate, pulse...

"C'mon, Mr. G," Pete growled, "whatever music you done just tried to appreciate, can't've been that bad."

Harmony's hand was on her throat, she looked like she'd been kicked in the chest, her eyes were wide, she couldn't handle this, maybe she was flashing back to a Meteor Shower or two, but...

Pete whipped his head around, looked at Harm. "Girl. I know I ain't high on your list right now. But do what I ask. Please. I need to stay with him. Go get help. Go find someone. Anyone. Who can help. Now."

Voicelessly, Harmony nodded. And ran as fast as she could. Right the Hell out of there.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Ethan and Harmony. "Sound the Alarm."

"Hey, we just heard, where're the kids? Everyone accounted for?" Dale called out to the officials as they had started out of their vehicles.

Edmund looked around the yard. Taking in the surroundings. Hoping to gleam anything. After a moment he looked at the officials. "Give me the word and I will have anything you boys need here. My company will foot the bill for whatever is needed."

Sheriff Miller grimaced at Edmund Tennylson. "Much as I appreciate your apparent willin'ness, Mister Tennylson, to pay for all of our local construction projects, the new clock tower an' all, your rolling in to glad-hand and seek PR strikes me at the moment a little more Luthor-esque than I'd like."

He glanced away, and then swung his gaze back again, eyes half-lidded. "As for your son's question, we're still doing head-count. No sign of Merick as yet, m'sorry, but a couple of the teachers've confirmed there's no bodies at the blast site."

Adjusting his hat, Ethan harrumphed. "With that in mind, I'm hopin' y'all'll quit rubberneckin' an' either pitch in 9/11-style or at least take a step back an' let us count those heads."

At this, Harmony McClure came staggering up, looking wide-eyed and haggard, latching onto the first trustworthy creature she saw. Perhaps surprisingly, and perhaps because Harmony was slightly shell-shocked and off-kilter, this wasn't Sheriff Miller.

This was the man who used pepper spray to spice up his steaks. (Fact.)

"Doctor Tennylson," she panted, clutching her knees, holding her side, "thank God you're here. It's Pete. He found Mister Gordon... he's passed out or something, we don't know what."

"You should," she mumbled, pleading, "you should hurry. You can save him."

 

[Varshanka]

The newcomer - she flees, she begs, she pleads, she prays

Moving through the crowded students she made her way to fresh air. Being near people was bad. Touching them was worse. Touch teenage boys was much much worse. The only worse was touching adult men with bad things in their heads. Bad deeds in their souls.

But she made it, her itch returning before she’d made it from the crowd. The itch that slithered from the back of her skull to the pit of her stomach. The itch that made her arms scratch. The itch that made her want to vomit.

Stumbling she ran, ran away from the school. Ran for safety. Ran for sanctuary.

Running up the steps she burst inside. The cool chill of the room washing over her. The itch fading in a blessed instant. Pausing for the briefest of moments she took deep deep calming breath’s.

The maddening buzz gone. Peace restored. Blissful peace. Dipping her finger in the water she touched her forehead as her right knee tapped the red carpet, her hand moving across her chest in a long practiced move.

Lips moved in Latin as she prayed, her words barely more than a whisper. Loud enough for HIM to hear. But few others of the mortal realm ever would. Whispering she pleaded for guidance. For release from her burden. She begged for release from this curse, and strength to carry it.