Chapter 10: Vulnerable
Scene: The cornfields just outside of Falcon Claw, near Terry O'Brien's bonfire.
Kara flew silently just above the tops of the corn stalks. She tried to stay out of the partygoers' line of sight. Laura zipped about, just below her, using a good amount of her hyper speed. She searched in a circular pattern which spiraled out away from the panic stricken teens at the bonfire.
The super girl spotted fresh indentations in the soil, and a zigzag trail of flattened corn stalks, from the air. Kara wrinkled her nose as she approached a larger patch of destroyed grains. Something smelled really foul nearby. "Ew! Gross!" The alien beauty exclaimed as she found the source of the aroma.
The acrid odor had led her to two dead and mutilated cows. The unfortunate animals had been literally shredded into barely recognizable pieces. "Laura!" Kara yelled, startling the others who were some distance away. Her voice pierced the otherwise quiet night air as she landed. "I found something!"
Laura trotted over at half her normal speed. She had purposely let her Loracite laced Gold Wing powers dwindle to an absolute minimum. Two days prior, the young super hero had been so stoked up on a Loracite flavored milkshake that Tim had created for her, that she hadn't slept much in three nights.
Laura prided herself, perhaps foolishly, on the fact that she could force her Gold Wing abilities to bend to her will. She insisted to Tim that she needed to cut back on the Loracite to live some semblance of a normal life. Though the mysterious mineral had reorganized her DNA, she refused to be dependent on it.
Laura nearly gagged on the recently mutilated carcasses' smell. "Yuck! Hamburger, anyone?" She quipped cynically. "Pass!" Kara returned the barb, adding: "Something was certainly hungry." Laura examined the corpses closely, as close as she dared without vomiting. "I'm not so sure."
"Its hard to tell." Laura continued. "I don't think any of the pieces are missing." Kara winced at the comment. "That paints a pretty picture." The alien beauty remarked. "So you think that the cattle were mutilated and killed for what...fun?" Kara was skeptical as Laura shrugged.
"Something could've been interrupted before it completed its meal." Laura speculated. The super powered girls exchanged glances. "Mike!" They chorused. Laura frantically gazed in every direction. "Mike? Are you okay?" She yelled into the rustling corn stalk field. No answer.
Kara focused her hearing as Clark had taught her, opening up her mind to concentrate on the local sounds and eliminating them one by one. She slowly turned around, closing her eyes. "There!" Kara pointed to a specific location. "Something's moving!" The girls bolted towards it.
They reached a damaged patch in the cornfield simultaneously. In the center of a burned and smoldering ring of stalks, roughly twelve feet in diameter, lay Mike Trent. He was curled in a fetal position, shuddering violently. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. His breathing was ragged and shallow.
Mike was covered in smelly, fresh blood, some of which had been burned into a paste. "Oh my God!" Laura exclaimed as she reached down to help her date. He bristled, groaning as his pupils went narrow and yellow. His body went rigid. "He's in shock!" Laura guessed.
She hoped that Mike hadn't been the cause of the cattle's demise, but feared the worst. It was entirely possible that he had mutilated and killed the animals, but that didn't explain the burned, circular grain pattern surrounding them. Kara helped him up into a sitting position.
Laura tearfully kept calling his name, snapping her fingers, and gently slapping Mike's face. "Mikey! Snap out of it!" She ordered to no avail. Something about the burn pattern bothered Kara, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. The pattern seemed familiar somehow.
"Geoff Carlin!" Kara muttered after a few seconds contemplation. "Geoff? What about him?" Laura was puzzled as she tried vainly to awaken Mike from his vegetative state. "Didn't it seem suspicious to you that the fire at the gym started at exactly the same time as Geoff's arrival?" Kara pressed.
She was used to this line of thinking after spending the last two years with Chloe and Clark, learning about the meteor freaks and the others. "Geoff could've started the fire at the gym, and blasted Mike somehow." Kara wondered aloud. "Not to be rude, but why isn't Mike dead?"
Laura didn't like where this was going at all. The facts were starting to add up. "What if Geoff is a meteor freak?" Kara followed up. Laura figured that was as good an explanation as anything. "What would a meteor freak be doing in Nebraska?" She fished.
"You never know if Geoff was born in or around Smallville." Kara began. "You said that no one really knew him that well." Laura sighed. The mystery would have to wait. "Anyway, we have to get Mike out of here before the others see him. We still have to explain our disappearance to the other kids."
"Come on, Mike!" Laura urged, as she stood him up. "You know what I have to do, don't you?" She hinted to Kara. The alien beauty nodded. "You'll have to reveal yourself to Mike." Laura thought about it, and decided on one last ditch effort. "Kara? Can you watch Mike? This is a job for Gold Wing!"
With that, Laura zipped away at about half her normal speed. She quickly downed a Loracite shake. Mix one part water, with two parts mineral powder, Laura thought sourly. "Yuk!" She grimaced. "This definitely needs to be improved." Laura returned shortly in full Gold Wing attire, bearing some clean wash cloths and towels.
Mike still had a zombie like expression on his face, so the girls weren't sure how much he'd seen, heard, or would retain. Laura leaned Mike against Kara, and quickly cleaned him up. The blood spattered clothing would just have to be explained some other way, Laura mused, and handed Kara the linens.
Laura turned Mike back towards the bonfire area, and Kara blasted the soiled linens with her heat vision, effectively frying the evidence. "Ready?" Laura asked as Kara nodded. Gold Wing, now at full power, carried Mike back to the cookout.
Shana gasped, and Tim and Fred helped Gold Wing steady Mike. "Wow! It's the Gold Wing!" Tim played it up. "What the hell happened to Trent?" Fred asked worriedly. "I was hoping that you could tell me." Laura responded, using the voice disguising synthesizer that Chloe had given her.
Her voice sounded deep and heavily accented. "This guy was wandering around in the cornfields." She informed them. Terry O'Brien checked Laura out. The Gold Wing outfit consisted of a black leather jacket, yellow cropped t-shirt, black leather pants, glossy leather boots, and the cheesy black mask, framed by her trademark golden strands of hair.
"Something must've tried to attack him." Laura milked her part. She seated Mike on a large boulder away from the bonfire. "You just happened to be hanging around in the cornfields?" Ted Krawley asked skeptically. "Yeah! What about that?" Tim added scornfully, also milking his part.
"I saw the school gym fire and decided to investigate." Laura lied convincingly. "I also saw your bonfire and thought that the two were connected." Terry's eyes narrowed, but he accepted her explanation at face value for now. "Oh my God!" Shana shrieked. "Laura and Kara are still out in the fields!"
"We have to start looking for them!" Fred added. Gold Wing shook her head, careful to keep her distance from the light of the fire, for fear it could reveal details about her face. "I'll look for them. You all stay here, and call the police or an ambulance." She directed.
Kara heard some rustling in the stalks behind her. She spun to face the noise. "I didn't mean to...I mean he threatened me." A young scruffy looking man said. He had sandy blonde cropped hair and appeared to have been in a fight. Kara observed some dried blood on his torn flannel shirt and blue jeans.
Geoff Carlin circled around Kara. She kept moving to face him. "Who? Who are you talking about, Geoff?" The boy froze a short distance away from her. "How do you know my name?" He growled. "The kids at the party were discussing you." Kara decided to keep him talking.
"You set the fire!" She grilled. "No!" Geoff snapped, as his eyes narrowed. "It just happens when I get mad." Kara had put herself in a difficult position. She didn't want to hurt Geoff, nor reveal her abilities to him. "Who, Geoff? Who were you after?" Kara probed. "Derrick Holden of course." The deranged boy replied. "He's a jerk. They're all jerks. I sometimes get angry."
Kara mentally steadied her resolve to deck Geoff in as lightly a manner as possible. He approached her in a more threatening way. She didn't have the pinpoint control of her powers yet, that Clark had. Kara concentrated on her fist, preparing to slam Geoff to the ground.
"I sometimes get angry!" Geoff continued, repeating it for emphasis. "You don't want me to get angry, do you?" He menaced. "You need to control your temper." Kara argued. "The people at the gym could've been injured or killed." She continued to try and talk him down.
Geoff shrugged. "I know. That's why people shouldn't make me mad." He said casually. "I can't let anyone know about me, that I started the fire." He set himself up for a charge at Kara. She steeled her resolve to dash one way or the other based on Geoff's angle of attack.
"I'm sorry!" Geoff extended his arms in front of him, and quickly separated them in a wide arcing motion. Instantly, an area of flame erupted around Kara, encircling her. She knew that the fire wouldn't really affect her, but what if there was Kryptonite around? Should she take that chance? Kara mused.
Kara back-flipped into a leap above the ever higher reaching ring of fire's edge. To Geoff, it would appear that she simply had a quick reaction time. During the upward surge of fire ring's snaking curls of smoke, Geoff had lost track of Kara. She silently came up behind him.
Kara decked him with a powerful karate chop to the neck. He crumpled at her feet. She dragged him away from the advancing flames, and then turning, proceeded to blow them all out. The smoldering blackened corn stalks crackled as the embers began to dim.