Chapter Three: Phantom in a Haystack.
Phantoms were an accurate description in most cases. You can no sooner grasp them as much as you can grasp the air. Raya had reservations about leading Kal-El towards that backdoor out of the Phantom Zone. It may have been created for his use and his use alone. That didn't really make her at ease if at all.
The humans had an expression about what was done was done. And now several Phantoms were on Earth. Some were a physical threat, others were a threat of the mind, and others just wanted to see the universe burn one world at a time. Regardless of the reasons, there was one thing that every single prisoner in the Phantom Zone had in common.
They were all danger.
"The Phantom Zone can turn the worst of the worst even worse," Raya said more to herself.
"How did you keep your sanity after all of those yearS?"
Raya turned around and saw Kara standing next to her.
"I'm not sure I did, if I'm willing to fight them after all that," Raya said and Kara stepped towards her.
"Well, you're in some pretty good company," Kara said and she sat down across from the woman. She invited Raya to take a seat and she did in good grace. "They could be anywhere, even right under our nose. Kal-El thought that I was a phantom at first, and attacked me until I proved otherwise."
"Well, that proves that he's properly paranoid, but after what I feel that he's been through, I couldn't blame him," Raya said. "His training didn't go as planned."
"Things might have been a bit better if I was there, as Lara had planned," Kara said and she wasn't about to deny one fact. She felt bad. "And he can't fly and he's not as strong as he should be."
"That doesn't make any sense, at this point, he should be really strong," Raya replied with a frown. "He shouldn't…."
"I don't know," Kara said, she had her ideas and absolutely none of them was something that she considered to be a favorable one.
Speaking of the young man, Clark returned. Kara was glad to see him there.
"Well, that was a fun conversation, and…she kind of made me promise to meet both of you, because she wants to help, if she can," Clark told her.
"Who?" Kara asked.
"Chloe…..she's helped me out before, and I think that…"
"Do you think that it's wise to put any of the humans in danger?" Raya asked her.
She didn't mean to sound like she did through her tone.
"I'm not going to throw her directly in the line of fire," Clark said, thinking that Chloe was capable enough of throwing herself into the line of fire herself. "And she's capable enough to know what she's getting herself into."
"Maybe, if it was a question of her capabilities," Raya said and her voice was more gentle. "I know that you have walked in both worlds, as how they wanted. But…..they're as fragile as we are underneath the red sun."
Raya didn't want to bring up the point that some of these phantoms could have also been more empowered underneath a yellow sun. She didn't want to make Kal-El feel any guiltier as her.
"Maybe she can help, within reason," Kara said quietly. "I mean, we're not throwing her out there in the line of fire, and I know that Clark won't do anything like that."
"No, I wouldn't do that," Clark said.
"He wouldn't, but I'm sure that she might if she jumped to help you in any way despite their being too much danger," Raya said. "Unless humans got more territorial about their planet than I thought that they did."
"Wouldn't Kryptonians?" Clark asked her.
Kara frowned and she looked like she swallowed rancid milk. "We…..might, but we shouldn't worry about such emotions that distract us from our goals. We all have a purpose of our life and it is not to worry about that."
Kara said this statement with so much sarcasm that it could not be mistaken at all.
"I'm beginning to see why Krypton blew up," Clark said calmly.
"It's because of that, yes, we could have listened to the warning signs sooner, we might have been able to save the planet," Raya said, but she wondered sometimes if Krypton was doomed to explode on that day.
Jor-El wouldn't give up such a thing, neither would Lara, and neither would Alura. Most worried about the moment in front of them, as opposed to the great and glorious future that the planet could have.
Clark refused to let this planet be destroyed.
"Chloe, this situation might be more dangerous than I thought," Clark told her without any preamble.
"Hi, Clark, I'm doing fine as well," Chloe said to her.
"I was being serious," Clark told her.
"Yeah, I can tell, you look about ready to punch someone," Chloe said and she took half of a step back. "And you haven't found any of them, have you?"
"No, I haven't," Clark answered her and he saw Kara and Raya walk into the picture, regarding the other blonde through shifted eyes.
"And this must be your super powered back up," Chloe said, Clark didn't give too many details, other than he found help.
"Raya, this is Chloe, Chloe is Raya, Kara this is Chloe, Chloe this is Kara," Clark said making the introductions.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kara said in a voice and she grabbed her hand firmly to shake it. "And thank you for keeping an eye out for…..Clark when he got in trouble."
"So wait, you knew him….on…..oooh," Chloe said. She was happy for Clark.
Hopefully now that he had someone that could keep up with him, two people at least, that would keep his mind off of the relationship drama that plagued him for years. Something that he didn't need to think about at all when people of the Earth is in danger.
"Oh, what do you mean, oh?" Clark asked her.
"Well it's just that….it's good to have someone around like you that's not of the detached artificial intelligence variety," Chloe said to her.
Raya smiled at that, she really wished that Kal-El knew his father when he was alive and real. She had been sworn not to bring that fact up because that would clash with what he needed to do.
"But, you need to find these phantoms and they could be anywhere," Chloe said, sensing the tension in the situation.
"We've already got a lead on one, but they were gone the moment that we got there," Clark told her and Chloe opened her mouth and nodded.
"Which means they haven't quite found their place here on Earth," Kara chimed in.
"I don't know, I wouldn't poke a dangerous animal with a stick," Chloe said and Clark raised his eyebrow. "I wouldn't poke a dangerous animal with a stick when I didn't have a good reason to poke a dangerous animal with a stick."
Clark realized that some of the phantoms could be hiding in plane sight. They might have taken on the form of normal people.
"I'd say get a full list of all of the occupants of the Phantom Zone, and cross-reference that, but that would be too much to hope for, wouldn't it?" Chloe asked.
"Given that there were numerous planets who used the Phantom Zone as their dumping ground and didn't cross reference each other's notes, you're right," Kara said and Chloe sighed.
"Of course I'm right," Chloe said and she gave a pained sigh. "How many are we dealing with?"
"There could be dozens here on Earth right now," Raya said and Clark turned to her not.
"Only just about a dozen, thankfully," Clark said and he placed his arm around her, wrapping her in tight to him. "Not that's much better."
"No, it's not," Raya agreed and suddenly, Clark could hear something in his ear.
"And behold, the most obnoxious noise in the entire world," Chloe said but Clark rushed outside.
Kara and Raya followed behind him and Clark made his way to the edge of a field to stand next to him.
"Chloe, sorry to leave you hanging, but that's my Phantom early warning system," Clark told her.
"Since when did you…"
"Since yesterday when I figured out a way to reconfigure a part of the Fortress to track the similar kind of energy that came from me after I came out of the Phantom Zone," Clark said and he sneezed once again.
"Wait, you're sick?" Chloe asked.
"Nothing but a cold," Clark commented and he sneezed again, causing a large chunk of the ground to fly into the air.
"Or a new power," Kara whispered out of the corner of her eye. Enhanced breath, that could be useful, if he didn't bring up half of Smallville when he huffed and he puffed.
"Yes, or a new power," Clark agreed but he shook his head. "Anyway, any strange activity that might be a Phantom, it goes off…..only in proximity to me, I guess I need to reconfigure it so the wrong person doesn't hear it."
"Yeah that'd be wise, I thought it almost melted my eardrum," Chloe said, rubbing the side of her neck. "So anything?"
"We're looking, but it's been another duck and run from one of the Phantoms," Clark said and he tilted his head.
"These things would be a lot easier to pinpoint when…..when there is a blood soaked trail of carnage," Raya said and that sounded far grimmer coming out of her mouth than it did in her head.
"We'd like to avoid that if at all possible," Clark said.
"Not saying that I'd want it easier, but it would be easier," Raya said.
Kara tried to tap into her enhanced senses. It was quite a trip to try and use them. There was a difference between using them in a simulator and using them on Earth. The blonde's frown deepened when she started to scan every single inch of the ground.
"If you're going to try and hear something, try and just focus on one sound," Clark told her.
"Otherwise you'll hear every single piece of petty gossip that you couldn't even pretend to care about, I know," Kara said and her hearing reached.
The blonde picked up a seed that had been dropped on the ground.
"That's what you found?" Clark asked.
"Someone's either getting sloppy or they're leading us a trail," Raya whispered. "They want to kill the remaining Kryptonians."
"Oh, that's it?" Clark asked, and he flipped the seed over in his hand when Kara handed to it. "It sounds like its alive."
"That's because it is alive," Kara commented grimly. "The person behind this was exiled to the Phantom Zone when she tried to replace everyone on her home planet with plants."
"She preferred them more to people, said that she understood them," Raya explained.
"So, she's just your usual eco-terrorist turned up to about twenty," Chloe chimed in over the phone.
"And she knows that we're around somewhere, she hates Kryptonians," Raya whispered underneath her breath.
"Well if she puts innocent people in danger, I'm not too fond of her either," Kara said, folding her arms.
Clark smiled, she said pretty much what he was thinking.
"She has complete mastery over plants," Raya explained. "And much like you underneath the yellow sun, she has similar strength and abilities."
"Great," Clark said and he eyed the vines on the ground quite nervously.
Kara and Raya saw what he was doing and he could see that they moved.
"She'd get along with that one plant lady from Gotham," Chloe muttered underneath her breath. She shook her head. "I'll see what I can dig up….wow, inadvertent plant pun."
Clark spun around and saw one of the vines try to impale him. His heat vision sliced it and caused it's ashened remains to go to the ground.
"Don't let it touch you!" Kara yelled, and the superfast vine tried to impale her.
She was just a little bit faster than the vines and she dodged them when they slammed down onto each other.
"Figured that much out!" Clark grunted and he rolled underneath the attack.
Raya was about ready to be entangled in the vines. Clark manipulated his heat vision to burn them.
"It doesn't seem to be doing that well," Raya said, and Kara grabbed both of them, and hoisted them up.
"I don't suppose a really strong weed killer would do any good?" Clark asked both of the girls.
"I doubt it very much," Kara said in a complete dead pan.
She managed to keep herself complete at ease.
"Maybe if the three of us do it together, we can take them out," Raya said, frowning in response.
"Maybe," Kara suggested, that was easier said than done to time something like that. There was something about that made her doubt that they could accomplish their goals.
They had to try. The three of them had their eyes glow in synergy and there were a set of blasts from the heat vision.
"We're off time!" Raya yelled at them.
Clark could feel a twitching in his nose and he took a deep breath. He rarely had a cold so this was…..
He sneezed, and suddenly a jet of cold ice went out of his mouth. Kara watched and the plants wilted underneath his breath.
"Super ice breath?" Kara asked. "You didn't mention that you had that power before."
"First I knew of it," Clark said and the three of them touched down to the ground.
Kara took the frozen vine and lifted it up. Her mother knew all about the most exotic plants whatsoever so she would be taking a nice and long look at it.
"Clark, are you okay, is everyone okay?" Chloe asked.
"Super ice breath saved us," Clark said.
Chloe was caught dumbstruck by this. "Um, that wasn't in your power set this morning, was it?"
"No, Chlo, it wasn't, and I'm pretty sure that I'd have regular super breath as well," Clark said, deciding to defer to the experts. The experts shrugged.
"Powers vary depending on the person," Kara admitted, her eyes turning around and almost expecting the vines to come back around and stab them.
"She's correct, and given your unique biology, both of you have more potential than other Kryptonians do," Raya said, and she left the statement hanging. She included herself in this group. The frown crossed over her face and she gave an extremely long sigh.
"Both of you did well as well, and we'll find her, and bring her in," Clark said.
"I just hope that none of these Zoners team up," Kara whispered.
"I doubt it, some of them wouldn't want to share the glory and some of them are too…..unbalanced to work together with anyone," Raya said. That might have been the same small favor that they had, but they took it.
"Right, it's back to the Fortress with us then," Clark said and he listened to the early warning alarm.
So far he heard nothing, no alarm that would hint that the Phantom was on the move.
"Now that we got a hint of her DNA, we should be able to track her more easily," Kara said, carefully holding the seed that she had.
"It shouldn't be too hard," Raya admitted to them. "She might be hanging around an area of a green house or somewhere along those lines."
"Hmmm," Clark commented, he didn't say anything, but that would narrow things down. "Chloe, could you check on something for me? While I check on something from our end…..and don't open the door for anyone."
"There's something you should know Clark, it's regarding L….."
"It can wait, Chloe," Clark said, cutting her off. He had far important things to deal with.
"Right," Chloe said, surprised about the firmness that he took on this issue.
He was focused, some might say obsessed about bringing the Zoners down. You couldn't deny that.
"This is the place," Clark said when they reached outside of where they wanted to go. "Now, this looks like a trap."
"But we're still going to go inside anyway, aren't we?" Raya asked, she was almost afraid of this.
There were many things that she enjoyed about Kal-El having a human upbringing. It gave him another perspective that most Kryptonians didn't have. They followed their own narrowed minded path. There was one path that would go down the entire world. If people didn't follow the path, well they were radicals that could and should be punished.
That being said, Raya didn't necessarily see that to be a good path.
"Do we have any choice?" Kara asked, and she was confident that this plan would work.
She was gaining more confidence in her own abilities.
"We always have a choice," Raya commented.
"But, it's a matter of making the right choice," Clark said and he placed his hand on the edge of the green house.
It looked like a calm and friendly area. It was extremely tranquil and there shouldn't be a care in the world. There was one thing that Clark could take to the bank and that was appearances could and would be deceiving.
His finger brushed against the side of the green house and he could see some rather beautiful looking plants.
"Beauty doesn't mean that it isn't dangerous," Raya muttered underneath her breath.
"The more beautiful it is, the more dangerous it can be," Clark said, catching her works and he turned around to both of the girls. "You two should be the greatest proof to that fact, you know."
"Oh yes, we know," Kara agreed and she could hear something off in the distance. "If we're lucky, we'll be able to take her by surprise."
Clark was not going to say anything, but he knew for a fact that they weren't going to be that lucky. There was a rustling of leaves underneath him when he approached his adversary.
"So, the last Kryptonians, cold and sterile as usual."
"You've done some terrible things, so you need to be punished," Clark said.
"I was trying to make the world, the universe a better place, and look around you, you've entered a place where you're not going to be able to escape alive," the voice said, and a fairly attractive woman with reddish brown hair stepped forward. She had a kind and sweet looking demeanor, but there was something dancing in her eyes that proved to be unsettling. "Just think, the world will be perfect, if you just stand aside. But Kryptonians have to interfere in everything and interfere in all my plans."
"When those plans put innocent people in danger, we have a right," Kara said and she prepared to shut it down.
It would be a good time to super ice breath these things, only she couldn't consciously use that power. She didn't know if Raya could and she wasn't sure if Clark could do so as well.
"People yes, innocents, hardly, given how they rolled over the beauty of their world just to build more extravagant buildings to sate their ego," the woman said and she waved her hand and the vines shot out.
The Kryptonians dodged them and used their heat vision to cut on through. The attacks very nearly overwhelmed them.
"The heat vision won't work anymore," Clark said and he wanted to throw his hands into the air in abject frustration and rip through the vines. Somehow he managed to calm himself in.
"Listen, you should just accept this, and soon humans will be replaced by something more beautiful," the girl said in a soft spoken voice, but the most soft spoken of voices held the greatest hints of malice between her eyes.
"She's out of her mind," Kara said and she tried to attack. A wall of spiky vines popped up. "We could use some added help right about now."
"Yeah, I know, but I haven't had time to perfect…..perfect…..perfect…." Clark said and he sneezed, causing the super breath to blow out and rip through the vines.
The Zoner's eyes narrowed.
"You destroyed them, you're nothing more than the butchers who tried to take me away from my world after I made it a better place," she whispered and her hands became completely numb.
"She felt that one, didn't she?" Clark asked.
"We got to get her into the Zone, otherwise we have no chance!" Raya yelled and she nearly was impaled by one of the vines.
Clark blocked the vines and wrenched it back at the woman in an attempt to catch her off guard.
"I'm going to take you all down," the woman whispered. "I see your lying eyes, you're the son of Jor-El, and his father was even worse than the son."
"That's nice, I'm paying for something that my father and grandfather did when they were alive," Clark said and Kara pushed him down.
"And Alura's daughter…..did you really think that I would leave without saying goodbye to you?"
"My mother told you what you were doing would destroy the ecosystem more than help it, Gloria," Kara said, recognizing this piece of work right now.
She started out meaning well and then the best intentions often went awry.
The woman, Gloria, rushed Kara, in an attempt to take her out. Clark blocked her attack for a moment.
That allowed Kara to jump up and kick her in the face.
"So, where did you learn that one?" Clark asked her and Kara turned towards him with a grin.
"I'm not completely useless…" Kara said and she watched and saw several razor sharp vines shoot towards Clark.
He used his body to block the attacks and the vines spiked in his back. It looked like it hurt like hell, because it did.
Clark turned around and the gashes went down his back. He turned to face Gloria and his eyes lit up.
"You'll be the perfect person for me to seed," she whispered and a malicious smile spread over her face. The woman waved her hands into the air and she launched the vines directly at Kal-El.
Kal dodged the vines before they could impale into him a second time. Kara shot heat vision.
It was a good effort and it caused everything to burst into flames around them.
"NO!" Gloria yelled at the top of her lungs.
Raya swooped in from behind her, and slammed her fist into Gloria's back, and then Kara caught her in mid air with her shoulder.
"You're going home, now, to a place that's as barren as your soul," Clark said, blood dripping down from his mouth.
"No, you're going to have to kill me before I go back to the Phantom Zone," she said and she tried to attack him.
He jabbed the crystal into her chest and caused a miniature portal to open. Kal held his hand on the crystal and it vibrated.
It kept vibrating until the moment where he collapsed down onto the ground. The wind was knocked out of him and blood poured disgustingly from his mouth. He spat it down onto the ground and shivered.
"Kal," Raya murmured underneath her breath.
That was one down, but at what price?
"Help me get these panels open," Kara said, despite her super speed, she wasn't working fast enough.
These plants were tainted with Kryptonite, small trace amounts of it, but Kal had it stabbed right into his blood stream.
"This is taking too long," Kara said, and she grabbed Kal, cradling him in her arms.
She brought him closer to the sun and caused the sun's healing rays to invigorate his body. She clutched him close into her chest and waited.
"Kara, I'm fine," Clark said and he held his head up.
"You weren't a minute ago," Kara said and she wanted to get him checked out.
Lara was a doctor and she would have a fit and a half if she caught sight of what Kal-El did. Kara trembled when she held the young man in her arms.
"We better head to the Fortress, make sure he's nursed back to health," Raya said and Kara nodded.
"You know if you're going to nurse me, you're going to need the proper uniform," Clark said, wondering if he got hit harder in the head than he thought.
"Yeah, I know what you mean, and you better hope that I don't accidentally drop you," Kara said, grinning back at him. "And only if you cooperate, do exactly as we say, and don't put yourself into situations that will get you killed."
"I can't make that promise," Clark said and Kara gave a prominent sigh, and she took him to the Fortress.
One Phantom down, a few more to go, and things were only going to get even more dangerous from here.
Especially when word got to their enemies that they were on this Phantom hunting spree. They would have to deal with this when the time came though.
To Be Continued.