Back in Metropolis...two days later...
If I crack up
And lose my head
Try to hide beneath the bed
And leave the television on
So I don't think of what's gone wrong
I beg the dawn
Clark sat silent in front of their fireplace, from time to time staring off into the sudden feeling of emptiness that was consuming him. The days passed by, monotonously. What did you do with time when you had it in super-abundance? Where did you put your eyes when you had already seen everything? What direction should your thoughts take, when daydreams could lead you into so much trouble and pain? What were once happy memories and emotions had been rendered torturous to look back on.
And where was happiness? In the yesterdays? In the tomorrows? Not in this hour, this minute, this second. With his parents' deaths, Clark had one thing, and one thing only, to give him a spark of joy- hope.
Stumbling around in the broken pieces of his grief and loss, Clark found his only solace in his new contemplation- his new agenda. However, he was quite unaware that his life, as well as all of the lives he held dear to him, were soon to change so drastically, so dramatically, that the words "daydreams" and "memories" were to become synonyms for heaven- and just as hard to find.
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"Clark?"
Lois sighed heavily as a sudden rush of emotions filled her head, keeping her from peaceful sleep. She groaned, rolling over to look at the time as the red digits on the alarm clock reflected off the dresser- 2:37 AM; too late for her to just be getting to sleep. Beginning to stir in bed, she reached over to grab Clark but found an empty space where he should've been laying. There was no question in her mind that Clark hadn't been the same since that night. With her family opting to shorten their visit, giving them time to adjust to things together, she had tried to get him to open up; to talk about things to help work through it. She'd at least wanted to remind him of their other pressing situation and get him in to see Dr. Klein. But he'd become distant, shutting himself down to the point where he'd barely mutter five words to her in a single day. He hadn't become cold or mean, just distant. He was less interested in going out, in seeing people. He'd brushed off Perry and Jimmy's invites to dinner, and refused to discuss or even acknowledge their already-passed anniversary.
There was no big personality change in him...but he wasn't the same. He'd go to bed only after Lois would, and would always sneak away downstairs once he'd been sure she was asleep. WIthout his knowing, Lois had snuck down after him most times, only to find him sitting on the floor beside the fireplace, reaching a hand in, allowing his fingers to trail over the dancing flames for a moment or two.
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Lois was frozen as she continued to lay waiting in bed that night. Her hand hovered near her throat, her heart seemingly stuck there, darkening her features in grief. Something disturbed and frightening burgeoned in her heart just from having watched her husband's reaction to their tragic, senseless loss. Even against tightly shut eyes, she hadn't been able to shake that image...the vortex of rage, streaming from her husband's eyes as he cradled his parents' bodies. And while it was all she could do to fight down the sickness she felt when she saw all the blood covering the two people whom she'd been so fortunate to come to call 'mom' and 'dad', the unrecognizable look on Clark's face as he fled from the scene was unrelenting, shaking her to the core.
"Oh..." She breathed a weary sigh, tightly wrapping her arms around herself as she walked downstairs. The minutes dragged by monotonously as she waited, her eyes filling with unshed tears as she prayed a silent "please" to the powers that Clark would return to her safe. He'd already been weakened by the probes Dr. Klein had discovered, and with all that had happened, she'd feared the worst for both his physical and mental states.
As she crossed back over her steps in the living room, before she could even get to the windowsill, she saw that he'd already touched down, silently. Without bothering to close the glass panels behind him, Clark slowly paced towards her.
Lois launched herself into his arms, pulling him close, and softly pressed her lips against his. Stroking his head softly, running her fingers along the sides of his face, she let out a shaky breath. "Thank god." She held him by his shoulders and stepped back to look at him. "Clark..." Her unshed tears were beginning to blur her vision, but as she looked into her husband's eyes, she had never seen such anger, such hatred, such blind rage as she saw now. "Clark, I can't even begin to understand how you're feeling, but something else isn't right here." Clark's eyes were wide and alert, but there was no indication he comprehended her words. "You have got to see Dr. Klein. When I spoke to him before, he said you've been injected with some kind of probes that might be controlling you. That's why your powers have been off. That's why you've been hallucinating."
Something was wrong, of that much she was certain. How could those eyes, those eyes that were always so full of love, so full of happiness, now be so full of hatred, so full of pure, unbridled rage?
Staring beyond her, Clark's eyes focused on the back wall, the contents concealed behind it now demanding his immediate attention. The rage had consumed him now, and he felt a wave of power overtake him like he had never felt before. A dark shroud fell over his eyes, and he felt as though he were inside a dark cloud, almost watching himself from the outside.
"Clark, what are you doing?" Again, Clark said nothing, and Lois felt a cold chill run through her body as she saw his hand reach around to his cape, tearing it off in one swift motion. Letting it fall helplessly to the floor, his other hand pushed the side paneling, revealing the row of suits hanging neatly behind the walled compartment.
"Clark," Lois tentatively took a few steps towards him before continuing. “I think you should just sit down. You've been affected by these probes, and with all that's happened-“
“Just keep telling yourself that. You think you know me so well, don’t you?” His cutting eyes were enough to push Lois to more tears, but she maintained her composure. <This isn’t him. His mind's been affected. It’s not him.> “Do you really think that I believe you actually care for me?" he asked, coldly, flatly.
“You don’t really mean that,” Lois spoke aloud, needing to hear the actual words- the truth that Clark was crumbling before her eyes under the probes' controls- for Clark’s sake, as much as her own. She hoped that somehow he could fight off the effects- somehow he still had some of his senses. “Clark, that explosion in the warehouse; one of the bombs was there to expose you to these probes." Seeing him start to fidget in his stance, she crossed over to him, grabbing him by the arms. "And that kid, Leviathan, I think he's a part of all this. That’s what's making you like this. Can’t you see that? He injected you with them to weaken you- to make you susceptible. He's trying to break you down to control you. I mean, you’re not making any sense-“
"My parents are dead!"
His outburst took her by surprise, causing her to release her hold on his arms. "I know...I know..."
"*That's* what doesn't make any sense," he cried back through gritted teeth. "*I* don't make any sense!"
"What? What do you mean?" Lois felt herself walking backwards against the wall, dazed by what she had just been told. With awkward hands, Clark tore the s-shield right off of his suit, casting it aside with a disgusted sneer. Raising a hand to the neck of his outfit, he ripped the material covering his upper torso from end to end, clawing his way out of the suit as if it angered him; as if all the sorrow and grief he'd experienced had seeped into the very fabric he wore and scalded him with a relentless blaze.
Then, when it seemed that he would be crushed under the intolerable pressure, a cold purpose flowed over him, sealing him off from his pain, and layering him away from the past. With a strangled cry of anguish that ripped his throat and his wounded heart, he reached out to the hanging row, ripping apart every single one of the red-and-blue costumes...each one hand sewn by his dead mother. When the last flurry of color fell to the floor, there was a single sealed case remaining, one that Lois had never remembered seeing until now. "What's that?"
Clark merely brushed past her, carrying the case against his chest. His eyes barely passed her a glimpse as he set it down on the nearby table. Lifting one latch, then the other, he looked down at the costume laid out before him, and didn't look back up.
With his gaze fixed on the floor, he discarded the last of Superman's attire and lifted out the black second-skin that he'd worn once before. The suit that was his people's legacy- his supposed "destiny"- would now serve as the steel veil of his new purpose.
He dressed with unconscious grace, his outstretched arms sliding into the thin material with ease. Tugging the hem into place, he craned his neck sharply, catching a glimpse of himself in the nearby mirror. He shuddered inwardly at the hardness he saw reflected that shut him off from what he had been.
/"You were never one of them."/
/"You're one of us."/
The onslaught of voices detonated in Clark's mind as he dropped to his knees, recoiling across the room.
/"We don't need them."/
/"We can go beyond them."/
Through the overpowering voices, crippling him with their seeming validity- deep within the recesses of his mind he heard a voice calling to him. He paused, perched on one knee, as he listened to that faint voice speak to him.
Lois got up from behind Clark and dropped to her knees in front of him, placing her hands tightly on his shoulders. Tears streamed down her face as she pleaded with him, begged him to listen to her. "Clark, listen to me," she said forcefully. "This isn’t you. You have to fight this!"
Clark stared past her, his eyes still fixed on the window. He jerked, panicked, trying to push past her, but was caught by surprise when she pushed back against him, blocking him as much as her small frame would allow. "I’m not letting you leave here," she managed to get out between sobs. She took his angry, anguished face into her hands, forcing him to face her. With all her heart, she tried desperately to reach him through the anger and anguish that now filled his own heart. “Clark,” she pleaded, "I love you. You are my life. And I will not lose you." With a gesture of aching tenderness, cradling his face in her hands, she drew him closer, capturing his lips, trying to make as much contact with him as possible. "I love you," she repeated softly against his lips, emphasizing each of her words.
Clark's icy, angry stare began to melt, as her words began to find their way through the dense cloud of anger and pain to his aching heart. Through the pain, his eyes finally focused on Lois' anguished face. She was crying, begging, pleading with him. "Clark...please...I love you," she whispered, pressing her forehead to his as she sobbed. "My whole life, I've never loved anyone or needed someone...until I had you."
Break through, save me
Rescue me
Wake me from the dead
My weary head in your embrace
Clark was fighting for control. His wife's words had arrowed into his mind, nearly breaking the flood of impulses and thoughts ravaging his mind. But at the last instant, the probes kicked back in, sending an explosion through his mind- a red haze of pain. Clark felt a sharp stabbing, like a knife plunging through the back of his head. Senseless noises sounded in his ears, merging with the steady stream of commands quickly overtaking him.
/"You belong with us."/
/"You are beyond them."/
/"They need to be eliminated."/
/"You're not one of them."/
"Stop!" His whole body racked with ugly, choking sobs, Clark lurched to his feet with a twist of his body that was as graceful as it was anguished. With his eyes deadset on the open window, he continued his rant. "I don't belong here! It isn't right! Because of what I am!"
"Clark, you're delirious. What do you mean?" Lois' voice broke, her words divided by sobs. "What do you think you are?"
As he lept to the windowsill, Clark simply turned around in the frame, suddenly so calm that Lois was even more terrified than before. "I'm...not...one of you..." he said, barely loud enough for her to hear as he took to the sky.
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"Gentlemen..." Superman's powerful voice boomed out of nowhere, startling Braden's hired goons into red alert, scattering them back into battle formation. Suddenly a dozen weapons were aimed at him as he stalked out of the shadows into the light- a dozen trigger-fingers held in check only by their obedience to Lucas Braden.
"Superman?" the seeming leader of the crew jerked his head back in surprised amusement. "Yeah...the doc said you'd be showin' sooner or later. Nice outfit," he leered in approval. "Black looks better on ya. I guess we should be welcoming you to the cause, huh?"
He was an eerie apparition as he advanced on them. "Let me be the first to tell you... you've all outlived your usefulness." As the guard was glancing about, a balled up fist came flying at his face. Surprised to find himself on the floor, he looked up to see Superman making his stealth approach towards the cluster of men charging for him. In a blurred rush, all twelve of his men had been disarmed and knocked unconscious in one swift motion.
On instinct, their leader reached in his holster for his own gun, only to have it quickly knocked aside. Superman began unmercilessly punching away at the still-shocked guard, finally knocking him out after three solid, sickeningly vicious blows to the head. He backhanded some of the young man's splattered blood from his own cheek as he made his way into the abandoned LexCorp building, heading towards the elevators.
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A knock on his door interrupted Leviathan's few moments of peace. He stood to greet his guest, not really knowing who to expect, and his welcoming smile fell from his face as Lucas walked into his room. "I'd hoped your tactics would've produced our friend by now, but apparently-"
"Well maybe if your associates would be a little more helpful," the kid retorted, slamming the door behind him as he walked back over to his desk, only to find that his guest had already seated himself, legs propped up over his stack of magazines. Being confined to their underground labs wasn't without its benefits- namely sanctuary from incarceration. The small quarters that he'd long since made his own more than served its purposes.
"Who- Rayne??" Lucas laughed, smiling for a moment before his face hardened with determination. "You actually expected him to do something right? Wait till he starts having his little pangs of guilt- he does that occassionally, you know. Lex should've never hired him. Should've never chosen him for the treatment," he muttered to himself before returning his attentions to his young prodigy. "Just where is our dear Doctor Evans?"
"Observing," the subject of their conversation answered, his simple word laced with a coldness and determination his colleague had never experienced before. As he braced himself against the doorway, he tilted his head back toward the main corridor of their labs. "I think you should take a look at the monitors."
The hallways of the sub-basement labs were dim and quiet, though far from empty. The walls outlining the lower-level offices were humming as the darkly clad figure stepped off of the elevator. As he casually strolled down the corridor, he glanced every so often to the row of offices surrounding him on either side. He could only assume the doctor's new recruits were gearing up for whatever plan was being laid.
The thin sunlight of the slowly growing dawn did nothing to dissipate the faint chill that Lucas, Rayne, and Leviathan felt as they watched the live video feed of their guest, getting closer and closer to his destination.
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From the hall outside the office he heard the men- an assembly of his own men- shouting to one another. Through the thickness of the doors, he could not make out their words, but he didn't really need to. There was a huge thump against the door, and a sliding sound, but Lucas didn't turn around. He simply sat in his chair, listening to the loud clatter of something metal on the tiled, hallway floor, and he knew it was one of his men's guns, falling to the ground...more accurately, knocked to the ground.
There was quiet in the hall for a moment, and then the double doors were shoved open, swinging wide to reveal the familiar yet aberrant figure, standing grimly outlined by the harsh fluorescent hall lights. <This is better than I'd anticipated,> Lucas thought to himself, sitting back in great appreciation of the results of his labor. The almost-glowing eyes glaring over at him were filled with a hatred and rage unlike any that he had ever seen before. "Superman...I'm impressed."
The man of steel kept his face forward, unblinking. "I'm not here to impress you..." he said through clenched teeth, his lip drawn back in an uncharacteristic snarl, "...I'm here to do a job...and it starts with Metropolis."
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