When I was a kid, once a year, my Pa used to take train rides from Smallville to Keystone City for work. He was a wheat farmer- well, he still is- as were our four closest neighbors and about a third of the entire population of my hometown. Keystone City has an annual convention held by one of the state's unofficial committees on wheat farming. Pa is a co-chair on that committee. That's life in Kansas, I guess. Son of a wheat-farming committee co-chair.

Farm work has always bored the hell out of me, even though I'm damn good at it. Pa says I don't have the right mindset for it- that you need to be able to clear your head. I've never been good at doing that, that much is for goddamn sure.

I came with him on the trip to Keystone City, but only once. I was ten years old. Ma was visiting family, so I got out of school for a week and a half. It was my first time going anywhere with a population density larger than a hundred people per square mile, and boy was that ever an experience.

More noise than I'd ever heard before. Ears rang like church bells. I cried for eight hours straight the first day. It had been difficult enough tuning out pins dropping and the beating of houseflies' wings… so inner city traffic was like hell on Earth. By the end of the trip, I'd managed to dull myself to it a little, but even still I really believed that that experience would traumatize me for life.

The funny thing is, it's a good memory, in hindsight. Pa ended up skipping the whole convention to take care of me, and we left four days early. He bought me ice cream. Took me on the train on the way back rather than the bus, which he usually made for the return trip, just because I enjoyed it so much. I'd only felt pain once or twice in my entire life before then- it was one of the few times I felt really, truly vulnerable. And he was there for me. Love ya, Pa.

The train was the really remarkable thing. I'd never felt so small, riding on a passenger train. The whole countryside just blurred past, to the point where you couldn't make anything out. Before then, the fastest thing I'd ever ridden in was a pickup truck. So I was awestruck. The day we got home, I went out in the field behind our house to play and took off running, like a train, trying to recapture it, or something.

It didn't end well. I sped through the house by mistake and tore through the whole living room, ending up a half-mile away. Did ten thousand dollars' worth of damage. Ma called me a "little ball of fire" for that, and laughed about it. Ten thousand dollars' of damage, and I got "little ball of fire". She didn't even punish me. I was so upset with myself for afterwards that I thought about running away from home, before I realized that I wouldn't have anywhere to go. I don't know if my parents ever knew how upset I was then. God knows I never tried anything like that again; I would refuse to even go outside to play for months after the incident.

I've been compared to a train before. Stronger, faster. Nobody knows for sure; I've certainly never done anything impressive enough to warrant it. So I've never understood that comparison.

Until maybe now.

Barreling down the Kansas countryside at just under the speed of sound.

The train made me feel small the first time, and it turns out I can do this. Who knew?

So, yeah, I think I get the train thing now. I can feel the wind in my face this time, but it looks the same as it did back then. The countryside blurring past. Everything loses its shape; it's all just colors. Just orange and yellow, and a little brown patch right in front of me.

No, scratch that. Big brown patch. Getting bigger. A lot bigger, and fast.

…No, wait; it's gone now.

Dust in my face. Hang on.

I dig my feet into the ground and they immediately bore into it, throwing up dirt like a rototiller. I look behind me. The brown patch was a forest. I just sprinted through a forest without noticing.

Oops. Sorry, nature.

Must have knocked down two dozen trees by accident. I hope someone replants them before long; that kind of damage could really mess with the ecosystem. Smallville isn't so good to the environment as it is, what with the hundreds of gallons of pesticides it dumps into its rivers every year and all.

Something smells- smoke, trailing from the tracks I left in the dirt. Looking down, it's hard not to cringe. My clothes are totally wrecked. Soles of my shoes are long gone, so I rip them off entirely. It doesn't really make a difference going barefoot anyway. Shirt and pants are torn to hell, too, but I'm not keen on ripping those off. Maybe I should have worn a vest or something.

A baggier shirt may have made a difference. I really need to stop buying such tight clothes. I've just been in the habit since I got out of high school and started to muscle up out of nowhere. First time I wore a shirt that didn't fit, Lana told me I looked like a sexy cowboy out of a men's clothes magazine. So, naturally, I haven't worn a loose-fitting shirt since then. I am a real mess sometimes. I wonder what Lana will have to say about this.

Can't believe I'm getting distracted like this. As though I have even a minute to spare.

I take off again, even though I only have the roughest idea of where to stop. I have a good eye for distance, but it's so hard to gauge where I'm going at this speed. The wind cutting across my face makes it hard to even keep my eyes open.

Wouldn't you know it, I'm running after a freight train. Or, more accurately, I'm running perpendicular to a freight train, trying to cut it off while it's still out in the countryside and a few hundred miles out from any heavily populated areas. It was all on the news- stuck brakes and some kind of routing issue. A computational error. The whole rail system based out of Metropolis is automated now. Another technological innovation that makes our lives so much safer… God bless LexCorp, I guess.

All that's left for them to do is evacuate the station where it's expected to derail, which is well into the metropolitan area. Estimated death toll, optimistically, is in the high hundreds. Not to mention the property damage. Hundreds more would lose their homes. It'll be in the news for a couple of years and then everyone will forget about it. Shit like this always happens in Metropolis.

Can't be too much farther now. I shut my eyes and take a breath for a moment, trying to take in the sounds around me. Even in the country, there's a lot of background noise to tune out, which makes it hard to focus on one thing in particular. There are so many slight changes in the air, but they're all distinct somehow. If I really concentrate…

…There it is. Like rattling metal. Distant, but loud and mechanical. And moving fast. It can't be more than 50 or 60 miles away now.

I dig my feet into the ground again and take off into a brief sprint. Moving fast is easy. The hard part is not moving too fast. So I brake after a few seconds.

I stop just short of the train tracks, and my momentum carries me straight into them, sending me hurdling face-first a few dozen feet into the dirt. It takes me a moment to recover from that, and I shake my hair out like a dog to get out the loose chunks of dirt. Really going to need a shower now.

The train comes sooner than I expected, and I'm forced to take off running to keep up. There's at least one person still inside in the front compartment- maybe more in the back. Not sure about that. But they're the first priority.

It's slower than I was going before, so it's not hard to keep up with the train near the front. There's a door on the front compartment, so if I can just reach it I can get in and get to the people inside without having to get inside anywhere else. The only problem is how to get in. If I tried to run along the side I would have to climb it, which I'm not sure I could do without damaging the compartment, at least as long as the train is still in motion. But if I stopped the train first, the people inside would be killed for sure, since the front of the train would be hit the hardest.

My only option seems to be leaping straight into the door. Not fun, seeing as I if I overshoot it I could derail the entire train by accident.

…Well, you only live once.

I suck in my breath, which doesn't really do much to help me relax considering the wind blasting in my face. I stop for a split second to bend down and then pounce full-force, hopefully with enough speed to ram the train from the side.

And it works, sort of- I collide gracelessly with the wall, leaving a head-sized dent in the side of the compartment. The entire train car rocks to the side a little, barely managing to stay on the rails- shit, too close.

No time to dwell on it. I rest my foot on the stair just underneath the doorway and tug on the door, but it won't budge an inch. Locked, I guess. Maybe there's a safety lock in case the engineer wants to participate in bring-your-daughter-to-work day. It won't give easily.

I dig my hand into the side of the door. Haven't had to squeeze this tightly on anything in a long time, but it crumples like tinfoil when I do. So far, so good. The rest of the door gives easily, and I rip it off with my free hand, sending scraps of metal flying off into the countryside. The engineer inside screams as I climb in through the newly-formed entrance.

"Holy Christ!" he shouts at me, shuffling back to the other end of the car.

Yeah, not exactly.

I lift a hand, doing my best to look unthreatening. Hard to do, considering my clothes are ripped to shreds and I'm covered head-to-toe in dirt, but… "Calm down, calm down, I'm-"

"Are you a superhero?" He looks less surprised than you'd expect.

"Sure. Just calm down."

"Holy Christ, I'm being rescued by a superhero!"

"Alright, now please just relax and-"

"-Hey! Hey!"

"What? Is something wrong?"

"I know you!"

"No, you don't."

"You're Captain Marvel!"

Dammit.

I narrow my eyes. "No, I'm not."

"I thought you were Egyptian?"

"Do you see a lightning bolt on my chest? Captain Marvel is Egyptian. I'm not Captain Marvel."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I su-? Yes, I'm sure! Obviously!"

The force of the air being sucked out of the train is hard to fight. I glance over my shoulder through the gaping hole in the wall, and am once again stricken by exactly how dangerous this is.

"Who else is on board the train?" I shout, over the wind.

He looks at me with disbelief for a moment. "N- nobody!"

"Nobody? Really? You're the only one on board?"

"Just me until the stop at Metropolis. It's all cargo!"

"What about stowaways?"

"You can't get into any of the compartments! It's all locked with magnets now!"

Well, that makes my life a lot easier. I'll call it karma.

I extend a hand to him, grimacing. "Hold on to me!"

He doesn't loosen his grip on his seat. "What are you doing?"

"What the hell do you think? I'm getting you out of here!"

"You came here just to get me out?"

"No, not just you. Hold onto me!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to- stop… the train."

"Stop the train? Can you really do that?"

"Not sure."

I glance out the window. Sure is moving fast. Damn, this really is the stupidest thing I've ever done.

But it's a little late for cold feet now.

I shoot him an impatient glare. "Hold on to me, damn it!"

"Fine! Fine!"

Moving uncertainly, the man loosens his grip and climbs the seat to wrap his arm around my waist. He seems pretty scared, not that it surprises me. I rest a hand behind his head to protect him from whiplash.

"Hold your breath!" I shout.

This is the worst part, and the part I planned most ahead for. This is the part where he might die. But… at least if he does, it's better than certain death in a train crash, at least. That's what I'll tell myself anyway.

Oh, God; please don't die, man.

I take a moment to gauge my surroundings. If I just get him a couple hundred feet away, I won't have to worry at all- that's quite a jump to make. Not that I haven't made worse.

Kneeling just inside the compartment, I pounce again, causing the entire compartment to recoil behind me from the force of the jump. I spend just a few moments in the air, and then crash directly into the dirt, feet first. Thank God for that, too. Anything else would have killed him for sure.

I let go of the engineer, who stumbles out of my arms and falls to his knees, wheezing hysterically. That's still a lot better than dead.

"Are you going to be okay?" I ask hurriedly.

He coughs once and lifts a finger to indicate for me to give him a moment, then gets to his feet and straightens himself out. "I… I'm alright…"

"Alright. I'm going."

"Good luck…"

I swear he whispers 'Shazam!' just before I bolt. Goddammit. Now this guy is going to tell everyone Captain Marvel did this and make the guy seem like an amateur. I am way out of my depth.

I wish I was Captain Marvel. A lightning strike would probably be enough to shut the damn thing down. Unfortunately I don't have lightning to throw, so I'm gonna have to do it the old fashioned way. I just hope it doesn't kill me.

It doesn't take me long to catch up with the front of the train again. The train car in front, despite being dented and ripped up almost beyond recognition, continues to putt along precariously toward its destination. I really think I might be able to do this.

I sprint ahead of it again, putting another quarter mile between myself and the front of the train, and then position myself on the tracks.

…Yes, definitely the stupidest thing I've ever done. Definitely.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but… I'm actually kind of afraid. I might die. I've never even thought about the possibility before. They say everyone is like that in their youth, but not like me. Definitely not like me. Usually that expression is talking about, like, drugs. Or skydiving.

Now, stopping a train… I don't know if anyone's ever done that before. Even Wonder Woman doesn't usually do shit this crazy. Maybe I have something to prove.

Maybe not.

I don't have a lot of time to dwell on it, because seconds later the train hits me. Collides head-on. The moment it does, the metal plating on the front bends forward around my fists, and my arms shoot through it, allowing the rest of the train to slam into me like- well, like a speeding train.

It hurts. It hurts a lot. More than anything I've ever felt- but then, given how little I have to compare it to, that may not be saying much. It buckles my knees and forces my shoulders back, and they burn like I'm going to lose them. Everything burns, actually. I shut my eyes as tears well up in them.

My bare feet dig into the ground again as my body is forced backward by the train, digging into the tracks and ripping them to complete shreds. Sparks fly from the wheels in front of the train, and it screeches relentlessly, the noise pounding in my ears. Scraps of metal fly from the front of my train and scrape against my face. For what feels like an eternity, the blazing hot metal presses into my forearms, threatening to pinch them in half.

And then, finally, as abruptly as it started, it ends, and the train finally slows enough to skid to a halt. A few compartments behind the front one tip over and crash into the ground, erupting with noise. All the way down the train, the wheels are torn to pieces, strained from the pressure I exerted on the train.

The wreckage extends back along the tracks as far as the eye can see. A completely destroyed- and mostly derailed- train. This has got to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. And hundreds of lives saved.

At least I did something.

With a grunt, I rip my arms out of the front of the train and examine them- not a scratch. Not a scratch anywhere on my body. I'm going to be feeling sore in the morning, but that's all. I can hardly believe it myself. I knew I was strong, but this is really something else.

I take a long sigh. Squinting, I can see the engineer I rescued far down along the tracks, staring at the wreckage with disbelief. Laughing breathlessly, he pulls out his cell phone and starts dialing.

Sounds like my cue.

I shake the dirt off my body and crack my neck with one hand. Got to make sure I'm out of here, before people start reading about me in the news.

Stopped a goddamn train. Who knew you had it in you, Clark Joe?

With a breath, I take off running. I'm miles away in seconds.

Little ball of fire.

Damn, Ma is going to be pissed.