I do not own Smallville.
This is AU of Bride, Clark never defeats Brainiac.
Catalyst
The world comes into view slowly. Pain pounds inside his head and behind his eyeballs; throbbing pressure with every heartbeat. The sky above is an angry gray, dark like pencil graphite on fresh white paper, frosty and shaded. He can't tell if it's night or day, can't see the sun or the moon behind the clouds. The street is littered with rubble; shattered glass and broken concrete. Cars lie overturned, their alarms blaring, echoing loudly in the silence. Orange flames lick up from twisted metal and black rubber tires, engines long dead as gasoline leaks from the cars in rivers, running red down the pavement.
Gasoline isn't crimson, shouldn't smell like death and copper.
His hands gleam maroon in the soft, orange light that flickers from the fires. His skin is wet and sticky, crusted scarlet, torso and chest marked with droplets; as though he's taken a shower in blood, walked through a mist of it. Broken glass cuts the bottoms of his bare feet as he pads across the asphalt. The ground is a sickly warm, like it too is drenched in fresh blood. He walks naked and vulnerable through familiar city blocks, but never sees another person. He finds a mangled body in front of a department store. The bloody mass of splintered bone and torn muscle barely resembles a human. He slips red soaked jeans from partially severed thighs and slips them on, continues walking through desolate streets.
Weak cries draw him to a dark apartment; the door hangs off its hinges, swings slowly in the evening breeze. The wind carries the scent of decomposition, tastes like ash and burning. An infant lies on plush, white carpet, skin stretched tightly over its bones, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. Its mother rests on the floor beside it, flies buzzing in and out of her mouth, maggots wriggling in her eyes. The baby is a tiny thing, fragile in his hands. The child quiets in his arms, nuzzles against his bare chest. He makes a bottle in the kitchen, boils water that barely trickles from the tap. When he finally offers the formula to the baby, he realizes that it has long since died.
He carries the sad, little corpse in his arms for miles.
Smallville is in the same state as Metropolis. Everything is bent and broken; once green rows of corn are black and singed, withered and titled to the left. Clark's farm is empty. Jimmy is not in his and Chloe's apartment. Rats run through the streets, feast on piles of rotting flesh and bone. There isn't a man or woman left in sight. The small town is utterly silent except for wailing alarms and the howls of dogs.
He remembers what not-Chloe said to him about his destiny in the structure made of glittering ice and crystals as their breath rose in wispy clouds of heat.
He wonders if he is truly responsible for the end of the world.
He's heard that hope springs eternal. After three days of solitude his spring runs dry. Every city is the same, every city is empty, every street he walks has bodies that have been cold for days. He asks the sky why he is left conscious, why it does not maintain control of his skin and roam the terribly empty world. The sky doesn't answer.
The rain that splatters on his skin is hot like tears, and afterwards his flesh stings and sizzles.
He's lying on a hotel bed when he hears the patter of footsteps in the hallway. He darts to his bruised and exhausted feet, dashes through the door he locked and bolted. Not because there are people to keep out, but because he needs to keep himself in. There is a brief flash of brown hair around a corner, tan and dirty skin. He follows the sound of harsh, ragged breathing, frightened sobs and desperation.
The pursuit ends on the hotel rooftop. The person he's been chasing is a young woman, in her mid twenties. There are clean patches on her dirt smeared face from where her tears washed the skin clean. She stares at him with bright blue eyes, wide with recognition. She doesn't recognize him; she recognizes the sight of another human being. He can't be sure this isn't an illusion; it would never let anyone survive it's tsunami of destruction.
"Hi." He hasn't spoken to anyone other than himself in days. His voice is faint and raspy, hoarse with lack of use.
"Please don't hurt me." She trembles, hands covering her face, slowly backing away from him.
"I won't. I'm a paramedic, I can help you." There's a cut on her arm that smells of infection, a line of pus oozing from the wound. Her pale cheeks are full and flushed with fever, sweat forms on her skin in beads. "My name is Davis Bloom."
"I'm Carolyn Shullz." Carolyn smiles but won't approach him, steps backwards when he moves forward.
"Do you know what happened? How long has the world been this way?" He has been alone for five and a half days, doesn't know if he can take another second of it.
"Nine days. Whatever it was attacked exactly eleven days ago. It destroyed everything, every fucking thing in just forty-eight hours." Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, wash away more blood and grime. "I hid in the cellar. I wish I hadn't." Three quick steps and she's standing on the ledge, hair moving in the wind. Clothes that once must have fit are now baggy and loose around her body.
"Please." He begs, throat thick and heavy. "I don't want to be on my own again."
"I'm sorry."
She drops from sight; her body hits the street below with a thud.
His feet lead him to a military base, a stone compound with a tall metal fence. He walks in without protest. An alarm sounds but there is no one around to answer it, no one left alive. He's killed and devoured all, brought about the end of his world.
"There you are." What lives within Chloe's body beckons him. His muscles move against his volition, until he's face to face with what isn't Chloe. Her eyes are filmed over with grey, a steely metallic color, dark circles of purple beneath her eyes, sallow skin. Chloe's body moves mechanically, driven by a collection of inhuman impulses, lines of computer code rather than human thought. "You're in your human form. Interesting." Cold, steel-like hands cup his face, examine him.
"Chloe."
"Chloe Sullivan is gone. You know that."
"Who are you?" He finally asks, staring at soft, pretty features; the face he's memorized and dreamt of.
"I am Brainiac." Monotone voice, pale lips forming words.
"What did I do?" Outside a crow pulls bits of flesh from a dead soldier.
"What you were programmed to. You brought this pitiful planet and its people to extinction. Now it's time to move onto another world."
"I don't want to do it."
"Would you rather stay here?" Brainiac laughs, dry and hollow; a robotic sound emerging from Chloe's vocal chords.
"Are you giving me a choice?"
"You are not expendable. With a new body, I can build new tools when I desire." Brainiac tilts Chloe's head to the side, stares at him with dull grey irises. "You also have no control over your actions. I can use you until every planet in this universe is empty." His limbs are stiff and aching. "Or, you can come with me and I will give you time with your precious Chloe Sullivan." Brainiac smiles cool and mechanical. "Obey me and I will free her mind for an hour each day."
He stares at the smoke filled sky for a long time, then takes Chloe's hand in his, and the ground vanishes from beneath his feet, until he and Chloe surge into the abyss.
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