Journal of a Superman

By S.P. Bley

Previously…

Darkseid: You dare challenge me? Insanity!

Lex Luthor: Oh, I'm not here to challenge you, Darkseid. Quite the contrary. I've got something you want. The only thing you want.

Darkseid: [astonished The Anti-Life Equation!

- Justice League Unlimited: Destroyer

J'onn: In many ways, Lex Luthor represents the worst of what mankind has to offer.

Superman: But he died saving us all.

Batman: I doubt that either of them died.

Superman: We saw it this time.

Flash: You saw it last time too.

Green Lantern: What's the old saying? Believe half of what you see…

Hawk Girl:…And none of what you hear. They'll be back.

J'onn: And we'll be waiting for them.

- Justice League Unlimited: Destroyer

Bruce Wayne: Kent called. Says it's not important, just wanted your opinion on something.

- Justice League Unlimited: Epilogue

Superman: You'll out live us all Bruce; You're too stubborn to die.

- Batman Beyond: The Call: Part One

Journey: Part One

Terry watched as the clouds broke over Metropolis. What did Clark want that was so important at three in the morning? He pushed the throttle as the car descended. "I am really starting to dislike these flights from Metropolis to Gotham on a nightly basis." He quipped into the comm. link.

"Now you know why I only joined part time." Bruce radioed back from the Bat Cave. His back was to the view from the car. It wasn't like Terry was going to be in danger while going to the Metro Tower. And besides, the boy had proven himself without the old man's aid. "Imagine trying to get there in the first Batmobile." Terry laughed. Then suddenly, his chuckle stopped.

"Bruce, Supes said it was nothing major, right?" He asked in a serious tone.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" The old man asked.

"You better have a look at this," Terry suggested. Bruce got out of his seat and hobbled to the large computer as the second Batman continued, "he isn't there."

"Your, jumping to conclusions," The former Batman said as he flipped on the monitor, "That tower is a big place, Terry, he could..." As the screen came to life, Bruce saw what Terry was seeing.

"The tower isn't there, Bruce." The protégé said as the elder looked in horror at the flaming wreckage of the Metropolis based tower. "I'm not picking up any signs of survivors."

One year later…

Do you believe in fate? Do you believe that our lives are guided by some outside force, influencing us to do what is right according to the universe?

The ground sped towards the falling child. The five year old Calvin Lark braced his hands in front of him. He knew it would do little good to stop the fall from the Neo Metropolis apartment tower. A drop of some seventy stories would kill just about anyone. Five years old, and already he was a dead man. The boy closed his eyes as a white and black blur flashed below on the ground. He stopped. The child opened his eyes to see the low streets of the city flying away from behind him. His view was intermittently broken by a flowing white cape, caught in the wind, fluttering around like a great big flag. He looked over at the man, following the black, one piece suit to see a middle aged face with a big smile, graying black hair, and bright blue eyes. A gracefully aged Superman had once again saved the day. The man of tomorrow flew the child mid-way up the towers of the city of tomorrow, to the seventy-third floor balcony. "Is this your child, Ma'am?" He asked, extending the child to a frantic woman, standing next to a dumbstruck man holding a two year old boy. The woman took the toddler as the Man of Steel smiled, "Just be more careful, son. I might not be there to help next time." And with that, he flew off.

In this world of science, childhood notions of a guardian angle are silly, unfounded fairy tales. A true statement from anyone who has never lived in Metropolis for a month. I lived here all my life, and the guardian angle has always been Superman. And science would once again offer its explanation. He was rocketed away from a doomed planet, and the rays of our sun react differently to his alien body. Completely random spurting of gas, burning and dying over the course of eons gave his body a genetic make up that would one day traverse the carnivores and monsters of his planet to make him into what chemically he was. He then was taken in by an earth family that thought him right from wrong. Some 80 some years later, here I stand, giving a speech about the greatest guardian angle. Here I stand, my life a product of eons of evolution of two worlds, because a man went out of his way. Not just for me, but for the world. Every time I think about the universe as floating heap of gas, I always come back to that day I fell seventy stories. And some how, of all the random things that took place to put me in front of you today; they seem too random to be random. They seem like a course set in time by something. It could be a god. It could be a fundamental law of the universe. But by all medical accounts, I was a dead kid…

"…but thanks to him," A seventeen year old Calvin Lark nodded to the large statue of Superman he was standing in front of, "I had a chance at life. A chance won by a guardian angle, acting as an embodiment of what we should all be. One year after his death, we remember his actions, and how they brought an end to chaos and bringing some semblance of order. I see no random in that. Thank-you." Before him, a large gathered crowd stood, respectfully clapping at the close of his final words. The brown haired boy looked out to the sea of people. All eyes had been on him. All ears listening to him. Even when dwarfed by the colossal memorial statue, they where clapping for him, speaking about his fuzzy memory of being saved by Superman. It was overwhelming.

"Thank-you, Mr. Lark," the event coordinator said as Calvin stepped down from the podium, passing the next speaker, "Ms. Lang." the announcer finished, as the elderly woman, somewhere close to her 80s or 90s stood up and walked towards the podium.

"I knew Superman before he was Superman. We were good friends in school, and to the day he died, he always was able to talk to me…" The woman began her speech as Calvin weaved through the crowds, looking for his family. The teen was buzzing with energy as he approached the tree towards the back they said they would be near. He scanned the area until he saw the distinctive receding hair line of his father, and wispy blond hair of his mother.

"Hey," He said, approaching the couple. The woman turned and grabbed him in a tight bear hug and knocking the boy's thick framed glasses askew.

"That was amazing," She screamed in glee, forcing several other members of the on going crowd to make a disgusted shushing noise, "you looked like your father up there. Didn't he Daniel?"

"He got that from you, Sue," The man said, as he ruffled Calvin's hair, "you know I couldn't right anything like that to save my life, much less speak in front of this crowd."

"Thanks," Calvin said as he looked around his parents. Michael, his fourteen year old brother was no where to be seen. "Where's Mike?"

Daniel looked over to a tree; leaves bright read and yellow in the mid-autumn color. Underneath the golden red tree sat a boy, slightly shorter then Calvin, with equally golden hair. The family freak as he referred to himself, Michael stood out because he was actually different from his parents. The only member of the family of four to not need glasses, and, Calvin would never admit it, the only one who looked good at all. "You know how he gets," Daniel said pointing in the boy out, "be gentle."

Calvin walked over to his brother and sat beside him. Michael bore an expression of extreme distaste and gave only the faintest of glances towards the new comer. "You okay?" Calvin asked. Mike didn't answer. He stared straight at the stage, as if intent on hearing the old bat talk about how much capes where a poor fashion choice. Calvin's penetrating stares didn't make his brother flinch. Not even spare a second glance.

The ride home from the park was again silent. Calvin had always dealt best with little praise, and his parents knew that they would only make him uncomfortable on the train trip back. Instead, the brown haired boy looked down at the city below them. It was interesting after the redesign. During an invasion by the forces of Darkseid, Metropolis suffered the worst damages. And it was heavily rebuilt. The city proper now had no ground level roads. Most traffic flowed underneath in the "under-city" the remains of the original ground levels of Metropolis. Above them, pedestrians crossed with out seeing a single headlight. Above the "high-city", the new ground floor, rail ways acted as mass transit. They were another interesting feature, a system of trains run completely by magnetic propulsion. The hallmark of this system was that there was always a car in a station, allowing minimum wait times at the station and a virtually free car. Of course, to avoid the stopping of the train, one could hop the various monorails that circled the city around several key points. They made few stops around the city and connected the various magnet train lines.

The magnet train pulled into a station three stops down from the round about and the doors slide open. The car slowed to a crawl alongside a moving sidewalk, which ushered the patrons to the nearest exit. The Lark family disembarked, and made their way for the suburban home they lived in. It was a matter of principle that they now lived their. Daniel was so frightened by Calvin's meet and greet with Superman, that he began packing the apartment close to his job for a house closer to earth. He didn't actually know it would be this particular house, just a house. A sleek black car was parked in front of the garage, which housed the van. They were more show pieces then actual cars, owing to the mass transit system and lack of parking in the under-city. The front lawn was groomed perfectly by Daniel, accented with flower gardens that where kept by Susan. A few brown leaves lay on the ground, but it wasn't enough to bring out the rakes. The house was a small two story building with a patio over the garage. The downstairs was a two room floor. The large of the two rooms was cornered off into three separate sections: The living room, study, and dining room. Although no walls existed between the areas, it was still very different being in the study and in the living room (even though one could see the living room TV from the study's desk perfectly). The other room, cornered off by an actual wall was the kitchen.

Up stairs were two bed rooms, a hall and a single bath. Anything larger was out of the income of the family, and so the brothers shared a room their whole life. The boy's bed room also had an interesting way of sectioning itself. Space posters and odds and ends from different cultures hung over Michael's bed. Calvin's side had pictures of various girls and sports heroes. There was one desk in the room, which held debris from both of the brothers, and their own computer. Above it was a quark board loaded with pictures of the two boys from various vacations and events.

The family entered the house, and Michael made a bee-line for the wall mounted TV. He flipped it on just in time to catch the opening tones of the web news. A digital anchor came on and began to speak. "Our top news story for tonight, the one year anniversary of Superman's death. Last year, Superman mysteriously disappeared from a Metro-tower in downtown Metropolis after a large fight with an unknown enemy." As this began, Calvin took a seat on the couch with Michael, watching the various pictures of the Man of Steel, "his body later turned up on top of Luthor tower, discovered by Lex Luthor, who had just returned from after disappearing in the battle with Darkseid more then 60 years ago. The memorial was kicked off by a series of speeches from those most touched by Superman, followed by…" Michael got up and went up stairs quietly. Calvin turned to watch him leave, half tempted to pursue some type of comfort. But Mike probably wanted time alone right now. And Calvin was forced to respect that.

A bubbling crock-pot on the stove filled the kitchen with the smells of beef stroganoff as Susan stirred the stew. She looked over to Daniel, who was on the phone with the big boss; the guy who signed the pay checks. It was unusual for the assistant D.A. to watch. She was normally the one being called away from the family for a big meeting. Rather, it was her husband who was fighting to stay for the dinner. It was an uphill battle for sure.

"That was Luthor," he said as he hung up, "he said he heard Calvin's speech and wanted to congratulate him."

"That wasn't the only reason he called," Susan noted.

"Well, no. He says he wants me to show him something at the lab. Says it's important."

"It must be to have the gall of ruining your son's big night."

"No, Luthor has the gall of threatening my job if I didn't come."

"Well, go and bring home the bacon. I'll serve it to the boys."

Daniel gave his wife a good-bye kiss and walked out the door, passing Calvin who was waiting for the sports report. "Dad," the boy said as his father blew past, "what's up?"

"Work," Daniel said quietly as he opened the door. As the smell of the plates of stroganoff entered the den, the car outside roared to life, pulling out of the drive way, and heading off for the lab.

"Cal, you know he wouldn't do this without a good reason." Susan said as the family started eating their meal. Calvin rolled a meat ball around in the sauce as a response.

"I know." Calvin said as he took a bite of the noodles.

"He really is proud of you," Susan said as she looked across the table to her eldest son. The brown hair boy was, "he never could have done what you did up there when he was your age."

"C-can I b-be ex-excused?" Michael asked quietly.

"Calvin," Susan began, not hearing Mike, "he just wants you boys to be able to live a good life. He cares about you two, and if his boss is a pain in the ass, then we just need to deal with it.

"But he knew how important that speech was," Cal added, "He could have hung around for dinner or at least told me more then that he was going to work."

"CAN I BE EXCUSED?!" Michael yelled. The rest of the table looked at him in a stunned silence. He didn't wait for an answer. Calvin just got up and walked up the stairs towards his room, leaving the rest of the table in a state of shock.

Calvin opened the door to the shared bedroom, and walked in. Michael sat on the bed listening to music on his Ipod. The older brother took a seat in a swivel chair at the desk and booted up the laptop on it. "You want to talk about it?" Calvin asked.

Michael looked away from his brother, out the window towards the neighbor's house. "N-nothing to t-talk ab-about."

"I know you're lying," Calvin said as he began typing at the computer, "You always get like this…"

"…I SAID NO!" Mike bellowed. An awkward silence followed, broken only by the clicking of the keys on the computer. Calvin didn't bother to look back. He knew that Mike needed to let things out on his own terms, and pushing him to speak would only make things worse. True to his nature, the younger brother broke the silence, "Sh-she just l-la-laughed. I-I asked K-Kayla to ho-homecoming, and sh-she j-just la-laughed."

"And you didn't tell me? Dude, bros before hoes," Calvin said, rolling his chair closer to Mike's bed, "And we're real bros, so it counts for double or something."

"I-I tried to pl-plan it o-out, but I just st-started st-tu-tuttering."

"You didn't do anything wrong, man," Calvin said as his brother turned to face him, "so if she wants to miss out on you, it's her problem." Michael turned away again, looking out the window. Calvin took this as a sign that he wasn't helping and rolled back towards the computer. After another silent bout of wallowing, the elder brother again spoke, "I was about to ask Cree, almost did, and then her date came up and started making out with her. If it helps." He looked over to the mournful Michael, who did not move at this revelation. Calvin turned back to his computer and read the page he needed for his homework assignment.

"Sh-she's o-out of y-your l-le-league." A much more cheerful sounding Mike said.

West Metropolis High School was just like any other high school in the city. It had its fair share of good kids and bad kids in the building along with teachers, faculty and other usual characters. It was a large; three story building, currently in a modern renaissance after several wealthy alumni gave a generous amount of money to refurbish the school. Behind it was a football field, and attached to the building was a pool for the swim team.

The halls where decked with lockers in the green and gold school colors, and matching banners flew from the ceiling. Calvin stood at one of the green lockers, and began twisting the lock in combination. 6-19-38. Click! He flung open the door and began loading his book bag with necessary stuff for the classes up to his lunch break. As he pulled out a chem. book, a tall girl with long black hair, tied in a single pony tail, slammed her back against the lockers next to him. Linda had been a friend since childhood, and aside from Mike, was probably the only person Calvin ever discussed things in secret with.

"Caught you on the web news last night," She said as Calvin looked at the books in his locker, "you were good."

"Thanks." Calvin said as he shut the locker.

"You're getting tired of hearing that, aren't you?" Linda asked, looking towards her friend. Calvin only grinned, "I swear to God, you are too modest for your own good."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Change the subject to how badly Cree shot you down?"

"I thought you weren't going to bring it up?"

"And let Mike have all the fun of picking on you?"

"So, do you have a date?"

"Robert asked, but I'm not sure I want to go with him again." She answered, changing to the tone of voice to more serious once her own love life was brought up. Linda knew where this was going. She expected it as much as she expected the sickened face Calvin made at the mention of Robert's name. She smiled "I knew you would say that."

"Robert is just so critical…"

"He's the co-editor of the school news paper. It's his job to be critical." Linda interrupted.

"…of me." Calvin finished. His friend looked a little upset by the notion of where the conversation was leading. Calvin didn't like pursuing the subject, but Linda did need to be honest with herself. Robert wasn't who she wanted to go with. "So who are you holding out for?"

"Someone else." Linda vaguely answered.

"And does this person have a name?"

"Some… one… else." She answered in a low hushed whisper.

"Oh."

"Trouble in paradise, huh Calvin?" Another voice rang down the hall. Calvin didn't need to turn to see who it was: William "Shark" Carlson. Will and Calvin used to be buds, but will started running with a different crowd, a group that associated with the Splicers, a gang that used recombinant genetic technology to alter their physical powers and give them animal like features. As Will's nickname implied, Will had taken a dose of Great White Shark splicing serum. This wouldn't have bothered Calvin much, but Will mad a point of taking it the day before a big swim meet, forcing Calvin and his teammates to lose. Shark wasn't liked by many members of the team for this, but Calvin held the biggest grudge.

And of course, accompanying the fishy man was Sean "Arch" Towson. Even before the change, Sean was a weird loner. He enjoyed watching odd looking bugs and being different for different's sake. He has some major inferiority complexes and worshiped the ground Will walked on. His blonde Mohawk was a distinguishing feature long before the blood read scorpion's tail, and now served as bright contrast. The other character was one Haley "Stripes" Roads, Will's current girlfriend. Calvin did admit that she had a more tasteful appearance then the other splicers, which seemed the trend. Her tiger genes brought a nice shade of white and black to the girls face, and the metabolism had helped her weight problem.

"I thought I smelled a fish that couldn't swim." Calvin said, turning to face the threesome.

"Can't help it if I want to be in touch with my true self, dog," Shark said as he approached his fellow swimmer, "School just ain't down with me."

"Your true self looks like a cheap horror movie monster?" Linda interjected. Her wit was often times a source of problems, and this would not be an exception, "And to think I thought better of you."

"Watch it, norm," Haley taunted in a low growling voice. To her side, Sean curled his tail menacingly. She continued, "You wouldn't want my friend to sting ya."

"Come on, Lin," Calvin said in a slow hushed voice. The world would like to believe that splicers were not as violent as they were 15 years ago. But everyone knew otherwise, "We have a class."

"No, Cal," Linda said, putting her hands on her hips in a defiant pose. With the exception of Shark, she was easily the tallest person in the crowd, "they want you to run away scared. It gives them a very cheap high, looking uglier then most justice league baddies."

"Why don' you say that to my face, norm?" Shark said in a very loud voice.

"I would," Linda shot back, "but your breath smells worse then my father's bait bucket."

With a roar, Shark charged at the black haired girl, slamming her into the lockers and holding her in place with one forearm pressed against her chest. The shark-man drew his face close. "How's… that… again?" He questioned in a low whisper, blowing a breath of his hot air onto the girl. Linda's face turned into a repulsed expression as she tried not to look Shark in the eyes.

"Leave her alone," Stripes asked as the first bell rang, "she ain't worth it."

"Will," Calvin yelled. His words seemed to catch the ears of the fish better then Haley's, as the splicer turned to look at the boy with glasses, "let her go."

Shark removed his arm from Linda's chest, causing her to fall to the floor. He walked over to his former teammate and looked him straight in the eye. "Don't ever call me that again." He said, using the same exaggerated pauses to allow the noxious fumes of his breath to do the job of ten thugs. Will pulled up to his full height and looked back at his friends. "Come on, let's bounce."

The group of splicers left the halls for their own classes, leaving the two friends. Calvin watched as the group walked away. When he was sure they were out of sight, he finally spoke. "Lin, you really should report him to the cops for that." She gave no response. "Lin?" Calvin said, turning to see a look of horror on her face.

"My God," She slowly said, "it reeks."

"…In Gator's Soccer," the homeroom teacher read from the list of announcements. Mike sat in the back of the room looking at an empty desk and sighed, "Tommy Olten brought a victory home to West Met over visiting Sawyer High Grey Hounds."

The door opened, and a red headed girl with pig tails walked in. The teacher looked up from his list. Mike watched the girl as Mr. Walter informed her to take a seat. The hour glass figure moved to the empty chair three seats down and two over, and took her seat. She looked back. She looked at Mike. He lifted his sleepy head off the desk. She quickly turned her head away, and Mike dropped his head back to the plastic. "The West Met Times is looking for new writers for submissions for the paper. All those interested are asked to come to a meeting at 3:15 today. See Robert Long if you are unable to attend."

Twenty minutes after three. Coach was going to flip. Sure, Calvin could get a note, but Coach Shuster could be a real pain about that sort of thing. To him, the apocalypse wasn't enough to miss practice. A little make up chem. test certainly didn't cut it.

Calvin looked back down at the paper. It was a simple true or false, how could he forget it. Okay, so it needed some math behind it that Calvin didn't remember, but they had done this problem literally two days ago. He should have remembered what the answer was, even if showing work was mandatory. He scrawled what was the best number he could think of and worked his way backwards. False seemed correct. He marked the bubble and closed the stapled papers together and ran the paper up to the teacher.

"Done, Mr. Lark?" The woman asked.

"I think so, Ms. Kendelson," the boy said, a little flustered, "can I have a note? Coach Shuster will kill me for being this late."

"Sure," She pulled out a note pad and began to scrawl the note on to the yellow paper. Calvin tapped his paper impatiently as the old woman finished with a loopy signature. "You did a great job on the speech, Mr. Lark," She said as she handed the paper to him, "if you ever become a public figure, I'm sure we can expect something great from you."

"Um, Thanks." Calvin said as he grabbed his books and bolted out of the door. He was really late now. Damn Ms. Kendelson and her hard test. Damn. Damn. Damn.

WHAM. Rounding the corner of the hall, he collided dead on with someone else, spilling rolls of wrapping paper everywhere. "Sor…" He looked at the girl he had just hit. She had dark skin and brown hair. Her amber eyes stared right back at him. She was just as shocked to see him as he was to see her. "…Sorry, Cree!"

"I thought you were in practice with just about…"

"…Make up test for the, um, thing yesterday."

"Oh." She dropped to the ground and began rolling up the nearest tube of wrapping paper. Calvin followed suit, grabbing a bright blue sheet and rolling it back onto the cardboard.

"So, what's all this for?" He asked, as the paper shrunk back onto the tube.

"Brett's birthday is tomorrow. I just thought I'd do something ni…"

"Here," Calvin said, knowingly cutting her off from finishing the sentence. His roll wasn't even neatly wound, looking sloppily finished.

"I'm sorry," She said, sounding mildly exacerbated, "but he did beat you to the quest…"

"… I know. Maybe some other time?" He suggested. It wasn't a good thing to say to the quarterback's girlfriend, but he was at practice, "I gotta go. See ya?"

"Yeah." She said as Calvin rushed down the halls, leaving the rest of the mess on the ground.

They have a window! Mike said to himself as he passed the door. It wasn't like a normal window between to rooms, but a real, house window. Painted white and looking like it could slide open and closed. It had a rustic feel in the city school, and looked like something Mike was sure wasn't even in most country homes anymore. Inside, a group of people where moving around, going towards the door. The blonde haired boy rushed towards the door, as the crowd left. He looked inside, seeing a few people. Only one guy, who was reading a piece of paper with a girl looking over him.

"It just doesn't flow." The guy said, making marks on the sheet. "You need to cut out a lot of this useless fan girl stuff you have here."

"But he stared in the movie." The girl protested.

"And I want to hear about the other actor's performances as well."

"They were crap."

"And you gave me it an A+ review?" The boy turned to see Mike, "Who are you?" Before Mike had a chance to answer, the boy turned back to the girl, "If it stunk aside from this actor, give it a C- or something. Don't tell the readers it was good when you only went to drool over some guy." He turned back to Mike, "Are you lost?"

"N-no," Mike said as the guy turned to mark up the paper. "I-I wanted to jo-join the news pa-aper. Is Ro-Robert in?"

The boy gave the paper to the girl, who walked towards the door. "You're talking to him, kid." The boy said once the girl left, "So, you have a sample I can read?"

"I wro-wrote it during m-my free p-period," Mike said as he thrusted a piece of paper towards the kid, who took it and read. Robert remained quiet while he read the print out. He looked up and mouthed a few words occasionally as he looked over the text. Some five minutes later, he put the papers back and order and handed them back to Mike.

"Your name's Mike Lark, right?" He asked, as Mike shook his head, "any relation to Calvin Lark?"

"H-He's my Bro-brother."

"Cal Lark? Tell him I said hi." Robert said as he looked at a computer screen and began typing.

"Wha-What abo-about my ar-article?"

"What about it, it was good. Not great, but you know?"

"So do I-I have an a-assignment?"

"No assignments," Robert said as he turned again to look at the blond hair boy, "write about something for the community. If you need a good direction, no one takes local news. You do a good story about something local, like, a park clean up or a speech, I'll defiantly run it."

"Li-like the o-one Calvin gave yes-yesterday?"

"Why not?" Robert said in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "make the whole event seem warm and fuzzy, just make it good."

"Th-thanks" Mike stammered as he turned out of the office. This was going to be tougher then he thought. How did one make Superman's death by a shard Kryptonite to the heart 'warm and fuzzy'?

Calvin pulled out his jammer and slammed the door to his locker. He already swapped his glasses for his "lucky" goggles. They weren't really lucky, just prescription goggles that allowed him to see. He always put them on early to get them adjusted to his body temperature, so the would not fog up. Despite the empty locker room, self consciousness got the better of him, and he walked into one of the toilet stalls to change.

As he began to take his shirt off, Calvin heard the door to the room fly open with a bang. His ears listened for voices. No one would be in a locker room nearly a half hour after practices started.

"Check the stalls!" Will's voice called to the second person. Shark defiantly wouldn't be in a mood to find out Calvin was in the room. Rather then walk out and hope that no anger was felt from the early morning, Cal climbed up onto the seat of the toilet, hoping that Arch was only smart enough to check the break between the floor and the ground...

A scary shadow stopped in front of the small gap that allowed for light. Calvin could make out the red tail as it swayed above the door. He held his breath as the shadow moved. The red arachnid skin of the degenerate darted in the space between the door and the stall wall, and then back again. "All Clear," the scorpion's voice echoed, "so, you really got it?"

"I told you and Stripes I got the goods," Shark retorted, as a clicking lock was heard, "See? Ol' man gave it to me. Said we should go nuts."

"So, some dude you've never seen before…"

"…Oh, I've seen him before."

"…comes up to you and offers you splicing serum with Superman's genetic code?" Arch asked skeptically, "Sure you aren't getting conned out of good money?"

"If I'm gettin' conned, I'm getting my money's worth." Shark laughed, "Ol' fool gave it to me for free."

"Well let's do it. Let's take the stuff right now."

"Gladly," Shark said, "I'm getting tired of not being in control."

SPLASH! In a nervous state of panic, Calvin's foot fell into the bowl. Even with out the super-hearing they were about to get, Shark and Arch would have certainly heard that. "I thought you said this place was empty." Shark bellowed.

"There was no one in there. I swear."

"Well there is now. Find out who it is."

Calvin heard the foot falls of the red skinned splicer approach. BANG! The stall door nearest to the exit flew open and hit the wall. It was empty, and Arch moved on to the second. It too made a loud bang as it flew open, revealing no occupants. More footsteps and…. THUD! Arch rammed right into the door in front of Cal. A long pause followed and then….

CRASH! A red scorpion stinger, the size of a basket ball with a point as large as an ice cream cone erupted through the metal door. Calvin fell off the toilet, landing on his back and narrowly missing the stinger. Shards of metal hit his face, cutting his cheeks. A few flecks fell onto his goggles. The tail began to retract out of the door. As the large sting came to the hole, the deformed metal bent with it, trapping Sean. The tail shot out and tried to retract again.

While the Scorpion was busy with this, Calvin did a log roll under the gap in the stalls, until he was two down and out of reach of the first monster. He got up and opened the door, emerging to a hissing Arch. Calvin flicked the creature off, and rounded the corner to the lockers and right into the second one. Shark picked up the boy around the throat and looked him in the eye.

"How cute, A kid playin' hero," He laughed, slamming Calvin into the wall, "let's just see what you look like with that mask off." With his free hand, Will reached for the goggles. He put his scaly hands on one of the lenses as Arch, no free watch.

BAM! Calvin felt his fist connect with the nose of the shark. Like any survival book predicted, the fish-man howled in pain and released Calvin. He had no time to catch his breath, as Arch was already to attack. Calvin ran down the row of lockers, the scorpion closing the gap.

POW! He flew off his feet and into the bench. He hit something plastic as he skidded on the seat, slamming head long into a row of lockers and causing the item to fall to the floor somewhere down the line. Cal, dazed and confused, rolled over and fell to the floor. His hand fell on something sharp and he screamed out in pain. He looked up to see a shocked face on the Mohawk scorpion. The creature very faintly, yet very audibly uttered "Damn it."

At that moment, Calvin's head screamed with pain. Despite the goggles, everything went blurry. His ears were in pain from a sound of nails on a chalk board. He rolled over to see something like a large empty syringe sticking out of his arm. He pulled it out as he tried to stand, Arch backing away as Shark ran up to his friend, eyes in horror.

Like some kind of drunk, Calvin tumbled to the ground, once again landing on his back. The blurry vision continued as he fell to the ground. He looked over at the syringe, as the world took on a red tint, and a fire erupted at the spot he was staring

"Let's get out of here!" One of the two splicers yelled. Calvin turned over on his stomach to try and get up, but fell back to the ground. He crawled a little ways, but the smoke was making the world go dark. He could barely see. He coughed. And then the world went completely dark…

"Calvin…" A faint voice called. Calvin fluttered his eyes. He didn't want to go to school today. He felt so sick. "Calvin, can you here me?"

"Uhn!" He muttered, turning over in his bed.

"CALVIN!"

"Wha?!" The boy bolted up. Instantly he knew something was wrong. He wasn't in his room. He wasn't in a fire. Was the fire a dream? Was it real? He looked towards the source of the voice, a man with in a suit with dark black hair and a matching mustache.

"Glad you're awake," The man state in a brisk tone, "I'm agent Ryder and we need to talk…"

"…About what?" Calvin asked lazily.

"We could start with that fire you started in the locker room or..."

"I didn't start any fires in the…"

"…Or the fact that we wiped your blood off of your face, despite the fact that you don't have a scratch." The agent coldly finished, much more sternly then the first option.

"What department are you from?" Calvin asked skeptically.

"The bureau of Meta-human affairs..."

TO BE CONTINUED…