Age of Heroes
Part fourteen of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma
Warnings: Some zombie gore, because zombie fights are never really clean. Might be a little graphic.
Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, Young Justice or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs to DC, Warner Brothers, and associated parties.
"Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't. We. Just."
~Firefly
Not long after they'd escaped D.C., when Wally was first teaching Superboy how to fight zombies, he'd repeatedly lectured the clone for roaring loudly every time he ran into battle. Superboy just did it without even thinking about it—he was angry, he wanted to fight, he yelled an incoherent, wordless battle cry. "That's cool and all," Wally had told him in exasperation, "and I'm sure it'll scare the hell out of anybody alive, but zeds aren't. All that's gonna do is attract all the walking dead in the area and attention's the last thing we want." It had taken a lot of work to curb that natural, automatic response to throwing himself into the thick of a fight, but eventually Superboy had learned to resist.
He didn't now. He wanted the zeds to know he was here. And maybe they wouldn't get it, but he wanted them to know just how enraged he was, and just how badly they were about to really die. So he cut loose with a wild, furious scream as he hurled himself towards the mass of the walking dead, and didn't regret it for a second.
A few of them, the ones closest to the building, didn't even bother to turn and acknowledge the noise. They were too close to hearing Wally's ragged coughs and pained moans, and too focused on their prey to be distracted. But the ones farther out in the pack, closer to Superboy, shuffled and turned and began staggering towards their new prey as soon as they realized he was there. Superboy faced down a veritable sea of blank, sightless eyes, gnashing teeth, raised, grasping arms, and uncoordinated bodies, and his highly sensitive ears made out each and every whistle of air and raspy groan that clawed its way out of their throats.
All it did was make him angrier.
There was an old pickup truck parked halfway on the sidewalk, abandoned and rusted and glinting just slightly in the dim moonlight. Superboy leapt to it easily and hauled it up over his head. It had to weigh at least three tons, but he barely felt the strain of lifting it, and with another enraged roar he hurled the vehicle at the approaching zombies. It was a slow throw, and any sensible human would have run immediately to get out of the way and save themselves. But zeds weren't people anymore, just monsters, and these things came on relentlessly—and died. The truck smashed into the front line, knocking a number of the outlying creatures over and crushing several flat. It bounced and rolled with a screech of metal and a rumbling groan from its interior, and several more of the walking dead fell victim to Superboy's attack.
By the time the vehicle had finally rolled to a stop, dented, missing most of its undercarriage, and with every single window shattered, at least ten zombies had been removed from the fight, heads (and everything else) completely smashed in. Several more writhed and moaned hungrily, clawing out towards their prey, but the truck had ripped off their legs or shattered their spines, making it difficult if not impossible for them to continue to hunt. They were still dangerous, but as long as they were avoided, they weren't as much of a threat as the still mobile ones.
Superboy bared his teeth at the remaining horde. "Come and try it," he snarled, as the still standing zeds, unaffected by fear or the conditions of their brethren, continued to shuffle forward tirelessly. "I'll rip you all apart!"
He fully intended to, too. These things had threatened Wally, his best friend, his family—he was going to make them regret the day they had ever been reborn.
There were no more cars close at hand for him to use as convenient projectile weapons, but that was hardly Superboy's only trick. There were a number of tall metal street lamps lining the side of the road; they were completely useless for actually shedding light on the battle, but Superboy had a different purpose in mind for them. He snapped one from the concrete as easily as a child picking a flower, and with another snarl he lashed out with his new improvised weapon. The first strike caved a zombie's head in cleanly with a single blow, as well as the head of the zombie standing next to it. The second strike was equally effective, and the third, and the fourth. By the time the metal post had succumbed to his own massive strength and cracked in half, unable to withstand the sheer force of the attack, another ten zombies had been returned to regular old corpses. That was more than half the pack destroyed or disabled—and still they kept coming.
Superboy was far from ready to give up, and he wasn't even winded, but he did realize through his red haze that he was in trouble now. The pole had been effective for killing from a distance, but the zeds were tireless and unrelenting, pushing closer and closer, and when he was backed into the narrower streets he didn't have as much room to maneuver. Grabbing another lamp would be useless without the room and the distance to wield it. He settled for snatching up a dirty No Parking sign, which let him break in another four zombie heads before it snapped.
Then they were on him.
Raw fighting instinct and sheer rage, a holdover from his Cadmus origins, urged him to hurl himself forward into the fray and set about beating on as many of the creatures as he wanted with his bare hands. Wally's lessons, and his own intelligence, cautioned him against it. To enter a crowd of zombies on his own without a weapon was to die; there was just no way to keep from being bitten by at least one. Instead he backed away down the street, snatched the closest reaching zombie by one wrist, and twisting quickly, hurled it at the others. They fell over backwards, unsteady already, and writhed and moaned as they attempted to regain their feet and reach their prey.
Superboy used the space he gained to crouch low and hurl himself into the air with his super-strength. Long hours of practice and lots of running had taught him to turn his escape into a weapon in and of itself, inspired in a large part by Wally enthusiastically complimenting him on his first kill via 'goomba-stomping' (a term Connor still didn't entirely get, no matter how many times Wally tried to explain video games to him). It was hard to aim in the dark, with only a little moonlight and his superior hearing to go by, but he managed, leaping clear over the mass of walking dead and coming smashing back down on the opposite side of the horde and a pair of dead stragglers. His weight, and the super-powered impact, crushed their heads completely and cracked the pavement beneath his boots.
The zeds turned almost ponderously at the noise, and the hunting moans continued relentlessly as they shuffled towards him once again, reaching arms raised. Superboy ducked underneath the cold, dead fingers of one or two of the closer zeds at the back—now front—of the pack, and hurled another zed at its fellows to buy himself some time. The tables had turned, and with his position change the situation favored him now again. He'd leapt straight into the intersection, giving him more room to maneuver and make use of his massive strength, and putting more improvised weapons at his disposal.
The first thing he snatched up was another abandoned car. This one was smaller than the truck, and weighed far less, but it was still a useful weapon against a horde of zombies when gifted with super strength. The moon slipped behind a cloud as he shifted the vehicle to hurl it, and in the pitch blackness his aim would be off; but he compensated by focusing on the moans he could hear in front of him, and threw the makeshift weapon as hard as he could. There was another screech of metal and several loud bangs, and the zed moaning diminished significantly, so he knew he'd gotten at least a few.
Then there was a resounding crunch of wood and stone and the chime of shattering glass, and more distantly Superboy heard Wally's ragged gasp of surprise and what he was sure was pain. It took him a moment to put two and two together, but when he did his eyes widened in horror. He'd thrown the car hard enough to damage the shop currently functioning as Wally's shelter.
He could have kicked himself. Stupid, to let his anger get the better of him! He should have been careful, waited for the moon to drift back out from behind the clouds, something! Instead he'd let his battle lust consume him and could very well have hurt Wally's chances as a result. Or Wally himself.
God, he hoped he hadn't just opened the door for those things to get at his friend.
New fury and strength boiled up in him, but this time he focused it, channelled it, made it work for him. His life wasn't the only one at stake; he couldn't afford to lose control of this battle. As far as he could hear there were maybe six or seven of the zeds left moving, and probably half a dozen that were still potentially deadly but less of a threat when they couldn't move. He had to approach carefully—with the moon still behind the clouds there was almost no light to see by, meaning he had to hunt by sound alone. And he had to do it fast, because he could hear the groaning by the shop increasing, and knew that if those monsters hadn't already gotten through yet, they were sure to do so soon, with his inadvertent assistance.
He moved in for the kill.
His final weapon of choice ended up being one of the thick metal poles the traffic lights for the intersection had once been mounted on. The lights and the wires they were attached to had been brought down a long time ago, from storms and lack of attention most likely, but the metal poles were still standing strong. Superboy ripped one from its post, snapped the far end off to make it easier to wield by slamming it into the ground, and charged.
Killing zeds at night was not easy, he discovered—but it was doable. He had to put supreme focus into everything he did, make each and every movement calculated and ensure every one counted, and it was difficult when he was so used to simply lashing out with his immense strength and bull-rushing his way through everything from sheer power. He wondered if this was how humans, pure humans, felt when going up against dangerous opponents. It took all his concentration, but he found that if he focused, he could manage, and be mostly successful.
Superboy zeroed in on a single zed moan, trying to separate it from the others, and figure out how far away it was from him and the ground. Then he'd swing the pole, smashing out hard at the source of the vile noise in the distance. Sometimes he missed, and the metal swung through empty air, useless, and he had to take a second to recover. But more often than not he felt the barely resisting thud of once-human skull and flesh at the far end of the traffic pole, and heardthe wet crunch and the profound silence when the creature suddenly stopped making noise. One, two, three and four at the same time, five and six, resisting and groaning and dropping and falling silent, well and truly and finally dead. The seventh was faster, closer, inside his guard before he realized it, gripping his arm with unrelenting determination and a strength that would have been dangerously powerful up against anything other than a partial Kryptonian. Superboy snarled, wrenched his arm away from the cold, dead fingers, and lifted his leg to kick it savagely with a move Dick had taught him back at New Batcave before he even realized he was doing it. The moan turned into a gurgle and it fell backwards onto the ground. Connor smashed its face in with the broken end of the pole, and it, too, fell silent and still.
And suddenly the horde was gone.
Connor stood, panting hard, as he glared around into the darkness and strained his hearing for any signs of further attackers. He wasn't winded physically—the fight had only been five minutes, ten at most, and he'd barely pushed his abilities, much less to their limit. But mentally, emotionally, it was exhausting to have taken on so many walking corpses while running on pure fury, and—now that he thought about it—more than a little fear too, though for himself or for his friend he couldn't say.
And when the moon slowly peeked out from behind the storm clouds again, shedding a little more dim light on the dark streets than before, Connor added shock to the list as well, when he saw what he'd done. There were bodies strewn everywhere, broken and twisted unnaturally, with old congealed blood and brain matter spattered cross the pavement and already draining away with the rest of the rainwater down into the old, unused sewers. Some of the bodies crushed by the vehicles were barely identifiable as formerly human, and the ragged moans of the surviving but immobile zeds almost sounded pitiful, even though Connor knew they felt no pain. The pole still in his hand was coated with gore as well, at the end, and he dropped the remains of it in disgust. The entire picture together in the darkness looked twisted, wrong. It was like a massacre had happened, and they'd never stood a chance. No wonder Cadmus had wanted to make him as a weapon. Over forty zeds, and he'd torn them all apart, and he wasn't even sorry. It would have been so easy to do it to real people, too. It was so dirty, vile, wrong.
Everything about this world was wrong.
Still grimacing, he turned towards the shop, ignoring the way the wet streets glistened white and red in the moonlight, and casting his attention towards the interior of the building. That was when he realized that Wally's breathing had grown harsher, more frantic, and that not all the zombie moans he heard belonged to the immobile ones in the streets. Eyes widening, he hurled himself across the street in the span of a second and smashed through the remains of the door, what was left of it. He barely felt the impact as he crashed into the room and heard more than saw the two lumbering, groaning shapes that were shuffling towards the huddled form in the corner, the one that was coughing and barely breathing.
Connor could have sworn he'd burned himself out with his furious assault outside, but he found he still had it in him to be angry. He was across the room in a heartbeat, and as the two zeds reached out with grasping, dead hands for their helpless prey he snarled and snatched them both by the backs of their necks. They weighed nothing at all as he threw them into the far wall. The first stopped moaning abruptly as its head smashed open against the concrete from the force of the throw. Connor heard a sharp snap-crack from the second's neck as it thudded against the wall and fell to the floor, and although the rest of its body stopped moving, its jaw continued to gnash as it tried to feed. Connor ended its hollow existence under his boot heel. He listened hard, but there were no further monster moans close at hand—the threats were officially gone.
For the moment, anyway.
A harsh coughing from the back of the room drew his attention away from his surveillance, and Superboy was across the room again in another heartbeat, crouching next to his friend and looking him over frantically. Wally had collapsed against a locked door at the back of the room, one that Connor realized led up to the second level. With a pang of horror the clone realized Wally had been trying to escape to a safer, higher location, but had been too weak to get the door open before he'd fallen, effectively leaving him at the mercy of the walking dead. If Connor hadn't shown up when he did, Wally almost certainly would have joined their ranks.
Wally himself was barely aware now—his eyes were half open, but they looked hazy and unfocused. Part of him must have known the danger he was in, though, because although he was curled on his side against the door, he clung to his weapon of choice, his crowbar, like it was a lifeline. Connor was surprised at just how much force he need to use to pry the weapon out of Wally's hands and sling it through his belt.
"No," the teenager gasped, and then began coughing hard as he scrabbled feebly for his weapon. His expression was one of sheer exhaustion, and it shifted to desperation and fear as he tried to shove his perceived attacker away. "Not gonna...no...can't...no!"
"Wally, it's me," Superboy snapped at him. It was harsher than intended, but seeing Wally so out of it and so scared and sick actually hurt, and at the same time made him furious at his friend for doing this to himself. When Wally didn't seem to recognize his voice and his eyes flickered, wild and unfocused and unseeing in the darkness, Superboy added, "It's Connor. Superboy."
Wally still seemed uncertain, and his brows knit together in confusion. He seemed to be struggling to put Connor's words together, but the clone could tell when Wally finally recognized him, because he heard Wally's heart jump, and the sickly teenager coughed, "Supey?"
"Yeah. I'm here." Relieved that Wally was at least responding properly now, Connor set to work. Wally's pack was a few paces away; he leaned over and snatched it up, slinging it over one shoulder before crouching to scoop up Wally in his arms. His friend looked and sounded terrible, but Connor wanted to get someplace at least a little safer and with more light before giving him a full once-over. It would just be too easy for zeds to stagger in after them here. He kicked through the locked door to the second floor easily, shattering it to to splinters, and hurried upstairs into what looked like some kind of storage room or attic. It was mostly empty, other than a few broken crates and a lot of dust. But the moonlight shown through the far window well enough, and zeds wouldn't be getting up here without making a racket and being slowed down. It would do.
He set Wally down again on the dusty floor near the window so he could see as well as possible, just in time for Wally to cough and gasp, "Why're you here?"
"Are you stupid? You almost just got eaten. Why do you think I'm here?" Connor snapped. A quick glance at his friend's body told him he'd gained a few minor cuts from some shattered glass, probably from when he'd thrown that car at the building—Connor winced slightly in guilt. But there were no major injuries or broken bones, and—most importantly—no savage bite marks or shredded flesh, meaning Wally had escaped that end at least. He blinked once and forced the transition from regular to infrared vision, frowning at how burning hot Wally appeared now. He'd felt that his friend's clothes were soaked through when he'd picked him up, and his cough sounded worse than before, that wet crackling noise in his chest more obvious. He was doing bad. Real bad. Any hope Connor had of his friend making it a full week was dashed.
"Shouldn't have..." Wally muttered under his breath. The words were barely audible and slurred, but Connor at least could make them out. "Not s'posed to..."
"I'm not supposed to what? Save your life? Care when you run off without a word when you're sick? Get worried?" Connor grit his teeth in frustration. "Too bad. Did anyway."
"No." Wally seemed to be struggling very hard to form his thoughts into coherent sentences, and lifted his head just enough to look Connor in the eye. Even in the limited lighting the moon offered, Connor could see they were glassy and unfocused. But there was still a little life burning in them, and he knew whatever he wasn't supposed to do, Wally felt very strongly about it—enough to crawl off to his own death. "Not that...not s'posed to...owe me...ruin your life...goals...'caus've me..." He coughed, hard, hacking violent coughs that caused him to wince in pain and curl over on his side, pressing his head back to the ground. Connor put a hand on his back and rubbed it as gently as he could, mindful of how easily he could break the sick teenager's spine right now, and grimaced both in sympathy and frustration. When the coughing fit subsided, Wally finished tiredly, "Gotta be...you, Supey..."
Connor's eyes widened at the revelation, and suddenly he understood why Wally had been willing to pull this ridiculous stunt. Crazy as it seemed, Wally thought he'd been helping, looking out for his friend with the twisted, bitter sort of logic that blossomed in the apocalypse. He'd been certain he was holding Connor back, and when he became too much of a perceived burden, he'd removed himself from the equation.
It was also the stupidest thing he'd ever heard in his life, all four years and four months of it.
"You're an idiot, Wally," he growled. "You think I'm just putting up with you 'cause I owe you? 'Cause I have to keep some promise I made to Dick? You're wrong. I'm doing this because I want to, and because you're a friend. It's not a pointless risk. Your goal is finding your family. My goal is making sure you do find them, got it? And if you think I'm going to let you choose to just roll over and die before you see them again, after four years of trying, you'd better think again!"
Even through his sickly haze, Wally looked stunned at the declaration. For a moment his eyes were so wide and lifeless that Superboy found himself irrationally afraid that Wally had died and turned on him in the span of a single heartbeat. But another heartbeat followed, and another, and another, Wally was toeing the line but he was still alive, for the moment at least. Then his exhausted, pain-filled expression shifted to a weak, watery smile, and he rasped low under his breath, "I...sorry, Supey...I didn't..."
"I know you didn't," Connor said, a little less harshly this time. "I know you didn't think it through, and I know you didn't mean it. Don't try this crap again, got it? Makes it a lot harder for me to reach my goal, and now we know you hate screwing that up."
There was nothing more he could do here—he had to get Wally back to their camp and the fire, try to warm him up in a safer place, get him ready for travel. He crouched to scoop Wally up again, cradling him as protectively close as possible as he made for the window. Wally's head flopped limply against his chest, and the teen let out a ragged breath before saying softly, " 'm already dead, Supey."
Connor froze.
"Glad you helped me," Wally added, in between painful sounding breaths. His eyes were closed, like he was too tired to keep them open anymore, and his entire body was limp and unresponsive as Connor carried him. It seemed a chore for him even to speak, but he put all his efforts into it anyway. "Really. Never woulda got this far 'thout you. We tried. Just...not gonna reach th'base in time. Not fast enough." To Connor's horror, a weak smile slid into place on his friend's face for a moment, as if he found the whole thing morbidly funny. "Sucks, right? Should be. Uncle Barry...he'd be there in a flash." He snickered, as if this was a hilarious joke, until the snickers turned into another harsh cough. When it subsided he finished tiredly with, "Not me, though. No...no 'kid' Flash here...jus' me...oh well."
Connor grit his teeth. His every instinct told him to move, but he had to pause for just a bit longer, sort this out. "Superman's fast too."
"Yer...not Superman...Supey."
That hurt, inexplicably, like a knife to the heart, but Connor ignored it. Wally didn't mean anything by it, after all. "No. I'm part human, remember? Best of both worlds. Tenacious, enduring, adaptable, and innovative," he paraphrased New Batcave's leader. "And you're all that."
"Only s'much we can do, Supey," Wally breathed tiredly. His voice was getting fainter, and the way his heart was slowing, Connor suspected he was drifting towards unconsciousness.
Superboy had enough. He grimaced, then snarled, "It's enough. Listen to me, Wally—listen!"
"Mmmph?"
"You are not already dead. You didn't get bit, which means you're still alive. And I don't care how impossible you think it sounds, I am getting you to that base, and you are going to survive, got it? You're not allowed to give up and die. If you stop fighting, you don't deserve to be a part of that hero team with the rest of us!"
Wally's brows drew together in another frown, and for just a bare fraction of a second, he looked angry. His head twitched against Connor's chest for a moment, and he finally rasped with the rest of his strength, "I...try." And then he was gone, sinking into himself completely as exhaustion finally forced him under. If Connor hadn't been able to hear his heartbeat, or listen to his harsh breathing, he would have sworn he was holding just another dead body.
But he'd gotten it. He'd gotten Wally to commit himself to the fight, one last time. And now he had a promise of his own to keep.
Connor barely remembered the trip back to their shelter; he'd been on autopilot, instinctively keeping an eye and an ear out for zeds while the rest of him retreated into his own head to plan. When he finally jumped them back up to the second floor of the factory half an hour later, he barely had to think at all as he leapt into action, moving as quickly as he could to prepare everything for the journey.
The first step was Wally, who was shivering badly in his soaked clothing. Connor built up the fire again for his sake, shook him awake just long enough to help him change into drier things from their supplies, and wrapped him up in every single jacket and blanket they owned. When he was taken care of and resting as well as he could by the fire, out cold once more, Connor shifted to their supplies.
He could carry all of it, if he had to, but he noticed that the more weight he was forced to carry the slower the speed he could reach from his enhanced strength. At this point speed was far more important than supplies, so he dumped almost everything they owned, keeping only the most vital things: food, water, first aid kit, map, and the crowbar, which had proved to be a serviceable weapon and might still come in handy. After a moment's hesitation he decided to keep a few of the lighter—but potentially expensive—supplies as trade goods as well, like the compass, matches, knives, batteries, flashlight, and some of the hunting and fishing gear. He wasn't sure if he'd have to barter for Wally's care once they got to the base, but he'd rather have something of value on hand to guarantee his friend's safety. He'd also found a tarp in the factory earlier, dirty and a bit tattered but serviceable, which he set aside as well in case it rained again—then he'd be able to wrap Wally in it and keep the wet off while still running. At this point they couldn't afford to try and wait out the storms, not when every second counted for keeping Wally alive.
Everything else, he set aside in a neat pile in one corner. It was a veritable fortune of survival and trade goods, and if another traveler ever came past here hunting for shelter or scavenging they were going to be filthy rich. Superboy hardly cared. As long as Wally pulled through this, Connor would be willing to start over with absolutely nothing.
Soon everything was ready to go. Connor gave himself a single hour to rest; he could feel the first edges of fatigue creeping up on him, just barely, and did his best to ignore it. He wasn't going to be resting for a long time now, so he'd have to both get used to the feeling, and take the opportunity to rest while he could. The hour was good for Wally too, who desperately needed the chance to try and claw back even a few bare scraps of his rapidly dwindling strength. And he needed every scrap he could get, because if this next part of the trip was going to be difficult for Connor, it was going to be close to murder on Wally.
Connor just hoped that didn't turn out to be literal.
The single hour passed with obnoxious quickness and painful slowness. It was quick because he knew he needed the rest, and there just wasn't enough time for it; it was slow because he couldn't stop his mind from insisting that they had to move, now, Wally doesn't have much time, so stop wasting it! But finally go time came, and gritting his teeth with grim determination, Superboy stomped out the fire, shouldered his pack, and gathered the unconscious Wally up in his arms.
And he ran.
It was the middle of the night, and even with the storm clouds finally fully past and the moon shedding a little light on the dead world beneath it, it was hard to see. Under normal circumstances Connor never would have even attempted to try traveling at night, not when he was at such a disadvantage compared to the zeds, and not with that death run he and Wally had endured just a few weeks ago still fresh in his memories. Even for him, with all his powers and abilities and survival skills, it was a dangerous endeavor and far more scary then he'd care to admit, even to himself.
But Wally didn't really have the luxury of wasting ten hours at a time waiting for the sun to come out again, not anymore. The rest barely did him any good, and all it did was cut a vast hunk of time out of their traveling. Night travel would be dangerous, but playing it safe would be fatal, and that wasn't a risk Connor was willing to take. Besides, after that massive battle he'd had with the zeds in the dark, he was feeling at least a little more confident about his chances to keep them safe. And this time at least he'd have the option of running away instead of standing and fighting, because the person he was shielding didn't need additional saving.
So he forced himself to run, and he pushed himself to his limits. And with his Kryptonian strength, his limits were far beyond anything any human or zombie could manage without powers. He doubted he clocked in at the speeds that the Flash or Superman could have managed, but his speed was still impressive, and once he made it back to the freeways without as many obstructions he figured he was making good time. And truthfully, despite the urgency and desperation of the situation, he found it almost...exhilarating...to cut loose like this. He'd never pushed himself fully to his limits before. Even in that zed run a few weeks back he'd been holding himself back to stay with Wally and make sure his friend made it through okay, and his exhaustion then had been born just as much of stress as it was from exertion. He'd had plenty of practice subduing his powers, but he'd never unleashed them fully, and it felt almost good to realize he was, at that moment, one of the most powerful things in the world.
The whole world dead or getting there, his best friend slowly dying in his arms, and he actually had the nerve to feel almost happy. If that wasn't messed up he didn't know what was.
Maybe he did belong to the apocalypse after all.
Still, that power had its benefits, and by the time dawn hit hours later he was miles away from the town where Wally had nearly died. Superboy hadn't stopped moving for a moment, and only once the light of the sun was fully bathing the world again did he slow down to a fast walk, giving himself a chance to rest a little. He was breathing hard from the exertion, and he felt a little tired, but it was easy enough to push away and ignore as long as he eased up a little on himself. And it was probably good for Wally too, who looked exhausted even in his sleep, and could probably stand an hour of not being jostled around so much.
He kept to that pattern, walking for an hour to keep moving while letting himself and Wally rest, and then pushing himself for three or four hours at the fastest speed he could manage. The super jump might have been faster, but he reserved that only for dangerous run-ins with zombies and getting across otherwise impassable obstacles; besides the danger of it being loud enough to attract more zeds, it was difficult to really cushion Wally when he jumped, and the impact of landing was hard on him. But he still kept up a wicked pace with just regular running, eating up the miles in a way Wally probably would have found impressive if he'd been more aware of his surroundings.
Wally was becoming even more of a concern for Superboy than before, and by mid-afternoon he finally forced himself to stop completely for a couple of hours, for his friend's sake more than himself. Connor was starting to slow, and feel the ache in his muscles from trying to push himself for hours at a time, so the rest was probably good for him—but Wally was doing far worse. Most of his time was spent in unconsciousness now, and it was getting harder and harder for Superboy to wake him, even for simple things like getting him to drink. When he did surface into consciousness on his own, now, he was rarely lucid, and could barely focus long enough to answer simple questions. He was hardly aware of his own surroundings, or that he was being carried, or even of who was carrying him, and when he recognized that somebody else was there at all it was usually to address Connor by a name that wasn't his own. It was a whole new level of alarming for Connor, who had already been shocked by the degree to which a person could fall apart when seriously sick, and that had just been the body—to see it affecting his friend's mind was more than a little frightening.
The few hours of rest didn't seem to help much, but they at least helped a little, giving Wally enough time to recover bits and pieces of his strength after the run that had to be grueling on him. Superboy managed to wheedle a little water into him, and a few bites of dried rations, and managed to even get an almost lucid conversation out of him, enough to insist that he was going to be just fine and he'd better not give up yet or Superboy was going to kick his ass, which had prompted the tiniest quirk at the corner of Wally's lips before he slipped into unconsciousness again.
Then the running again, when they'd both had a chance to rest, and Superboy pushed himself well into the night until he could barely force himself to run anymore. There were no less than six harrowing zombie encounters, most of which he managed to outrun and one of which had turned into a serious fight when he'd gotten them backed into a corner by taking the wrong turn at dusk, but they'd gotten out of all of them alive. By midnight Connor was dead on his feet, and felt almost like a zed himself. He'd found an abandoned apartment building, broke his way into a sixth floor apartment, set Wally down on the old mattress in one of the bedrooms, and flopped down next to him to pass out for six hours. When the light of dawn woke him again he still felt tired, but at least refreshed enough to keep pushing himself for a whole new day.
It all ran together, after a while. Run, run, run until you can't anymore. Slow down. Walk. Then run again. Again. Again. Keep pushing yourself. Don't stop for anything. Talk when you can, keep him alive, keep him focusing, remind him that he can't give up if you aren't. More running. Stop. Rest, he needs it, but not too long; you don't have too long. Run again. Just go. Go.
It became a mantra after a while, and by the third dawn Superboy found himself moving almost entirely on autopilot. He wondered if it was because he was a clone, if it was because he was Superman's clone, if it was because he was human, or if it was just because he was crazy enough to live in this world, that he was able to keep going when he should have stopped a long time ago. But the answer didn't really matter. Neither did the question. Just. Keep. Going.
By afternoon of the third day, sixty hours after his forced run began, he began seeing the zeds less, and the packs were smaller, which he thought was a good sign. He wasn't even sure how many miles he'd covered by this point, just that it was a lot, far more than any normal human should have been capable of in two and a half days, but if the zeds were starting to clear out maybe he was getting closer to the base. New Batcave had regularly kept their docks clear and run small patrols close to their waters; they'd do the same at a land-locked base to protect their people, right? Made sense. It had to. Had to.
It had to because Wally hadn't woken up for hours now, not even when Superboy tried to shake him awake for more water, and that was bad, bad, bad. When Connor caught the signs of possible habitation, so close, so close, and Wally was so close to losing despite how hard they'd both been fighting, Superboy finally thought, to hell with it, and switched from running to the super-leaps. They were worse on Wally, and they were exhausting and attention-grabbing on Superboy, but Wally wasn't going to make it at all if he didn't push for everything he had. So he gambled it all on one last attempt, and threw himself forward with his last burst of speed.
He wasn't sure if it had been worth it, until half an hour later he heard an alarmed shout below him, amongst the abandoned cars and weeds along the freeway, as he soared ahead with another super-powered leap. Shouts, however alarmed, were not moans; they were inherently human. Glancing down he was both surprised and relieved to see people, real people, dressed in hunting uniforms and wielding hunting rifles, with heartbeats and real breaths and everything human, and staring up at him with wide-eyed shock as he shot past above them. One pointed at him, but he was already past them then, landing with a pavement-shattering crunch and lifting off again in the space of only a few seconds, and he never did hear what they said.
But he was close now, so close. After everything he'd been through it should have been hard to focus, his mind should have been hazy and dull from over-exhaustion and too much emotion and stress. But he found it all too easy to remember the details and information from the maps Dick had given them, and Wally's own instructions and descriptions from memory, and now he altered his own trajectory accordingly.
So close. So close. Almost. So close—there!
One last super-leap brought him sailing over a pair of streets and a stretch of barren, open ground that might have been a park or something, once upon a time, and he smashed down to the ground with a force that cracked the concrete around him into a small crater. Then he stood, panting, clutching Wally's still, far too subdued body protectively close, and found himself standing in front of a modified wall and gate, staring down the muzzles of no less than six firearms as the soldiers wielding them stared at him in open shock.
"Let me in," Superboy growled. His voice was harsh and ragged from too much running and hard breathing, and probably sounded more aggressive than intended, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Hurry. My friend is sick—he needs help."
The guards still looked shocked, and did not lower their weapons, apparently unsure if Connor was actually a threat or not. He grimaced angrily. It was only with supreme willpower, and a reminder that it wasn't every day somebody came launching down from the sky at their doorstep—so they were understandably wary—that kept Connor from shoving forward and taking matters into his own hands. Then, after a moment, one of them lowered his weapon just slightly and, regarding Connor with bewilderment, asked softly, "S...Superman?"
Connor blinked at that, and just like before when he had initially pushed his powers to their limits, he was at war with himself. It was both exhilarating and terrifying to be not just compared to his predecessor, but seen as him...to be so strong and powerful that humans would see him as the Man of Steel, as a hero, from the Age of Heroes itself, not this messed up, dead age of nothing. It was what he was made for. What he was supposed to be. And for a moment he was, and just like before, almost...happy. But he shouldn't be. That was wrong, all wrong. The world was dead and he hadn't been there to stop it and he shouldn't be taking happiness out of it now. He shouldn't be at peace when his best friend, his family, had pulled him out of that pod and encouraged him to make his own place for himself and had risked his own life, was dying, just to ensure he did.
It was just too much to think about. So he didn't. The guard was still watching him, a confused, but almost hopeful expression on his face, like he was desperate for a hero of old to simply fly down out of the sky and hand him a miracle, and Superboy just couldn't do it and wouldn't pretend otherwise. So all he said was, "No. Now let us in. My friend..." He shifted Wally, still wrapped up in blankets and with only his head visible, just enough so they could understand just how important this was. "He needs help. Now."
The guard that had spoken before was apparently elected to be the spokesperson for the rest of them, after a quick glance around. He was the only one to lower his weapon, while the rest of them kept them carefully trained on Superboy as he moved forward towards the gate, for all the good it would do them. "I...sorry, son, but we can't let him through like that—"
Superboy's eyes narrowed dangerously. " 'Like that'? He's sick. He needs medicine. Are you going to turn us away?"
The guard waved his hands placatingly, and looked sympathetic when he said, "Well, I can probably let you through, you look just fine. But Su—kid, we can't let anybody been bit through. It just ain't healthy for everyone inside, see?"
A feeling of dread iced over in Superboy's chest at the words. He remembered passing through New Batcave's gates after a rigorous search that he'd hated every minute of, and asking Wally that simple question: What would have happened if one of us got infected?
They wouldn't get to come in.
The subdued, haunted tone in Wally's answer had been enough to make him stop asking, and put a chill up his spine at the same time. And these people thought...
But they were wrong. "He wasn't bitten," Superboy snapped back, more defensively than intended. "He's just sick."
"Hear that a lot," one of the other guards said, less sympathetically than the first. "Still can't let you pass."
Superboy's eyes narrowed. "He wasn't bitten," he growled, more aggressively this time. If they'd been familiar with him at all, the warning tone in his voice would have been enough to make them rethink their actions. "He's just sick. You have zed dogs? Bring them out. You'll see."
"Kid, we really can't," the first guard said grimly. "I'm sorry, but—"
"But if you keep pushing this, we'll have to push back," the second guard said flatly. He gestured with his weapon. "Most of us don't like the angel shot policy, but we'll still do it to protect everyone inside."
Angel shot. They wouldn't get to come in.
They wouldn't—except, Superboy realized, they would. And it wasn't really their fault completely—they were protecting a fragile community from a very evil infection—but they were idiots, all of them, and he wasn't going to stand for it anymore.
So he shifted Wally very, very carefully to one arm, cradling him close and shifting his body so that even if these idiots did try to shoot, they'd be hitting Connor. And with his free hand he reached out and, without so much as looking at what he was doing, slammed his curled fist into the stone wall bordering the thick metal gate into the colony. He barely felt the impact on his impervious skin, but his fist burrowed deep before he withdrew it, and he heard the sharp snap of stone as spiderwebs of cracks spread out halfway up its surface, heard the fist-sized chunks of rock thumping to the ground.
The guards were all staring again, wide-eyed at his display of strength. Superboy turned to meet the first one eye to eye, his icy eyes burning with barely contained fury. "You know," he said slowly, precisely, the low rumble in his voice predatory and dangerous, "exactly what I can do to this place. You know that was nothing. And if you do not stop being idiots and help him, I will tear this place down around you brick. By. Brick."
The guards paled. The more argumentative one swallowed, but said after a moment, "We'll shoot you first."
Superboy snorted once; it was as good as a laugh to him. "It won't do you any good. You'll just waste your ammo. More importantly, you'll make me mad. And if you hurt my friend in the shootout..." He shifted Wally again, away from the muzzles of the guns as much as he could. "Well. Same promise applies, no matter how you morons kill him."
The men were silent for about thirty seconds. They still kept their weapons trained on Superboy's head out of habit, but were glancing back and forth between each other nervously. Superboy kept his gaze unrelentingly firm on the first guard, teeth bared as though ready for battle, every muscle in his body tense. If they really tried it...but no. The first guy, at least, had sense. Superboy listened to his heart patter nervously, and then after a moment the guard ordered, "Somebody go get a pair of zed dogs. If he passes we'll let'em in. Fair?"
"Hurry," was Superboy's only answer. The man nodded, sweating slightly, and looked like he wished Connor would look anywhere but at him. Probably he was fully expecting to get a blast of heat vision any moment. Well, Connor wouldn't dispel that particular lie, at least for the moment.
The dogs arrived quickly with their handlers. Connor wasn't worried about passing, and stepped between the creatures still carrying Wally without so much as a whine or a bark from either of them. The guards seemed stunned, and the more argumentative one looked a little ill when he realized just how close they'd come to serious trouble over nothing at all. Connor ignored him, stepped past without giving him so much as a look as they cracked open the metal doors to give him access to the colony. The only thing he said to any of them was, "I need a guide to whatever medical facility you have."
The guard that had sort-of recognized him escorted Superboy himself.
It was only once he'd fully stepped inside and was halfway through the colony trailing after his guide, not even paying attention to his other surroundings, that he realized it. They'd made it. It hit him suddenly, in a twisted combination of shock and exhilaration and stress and exhaustion. They'd made it. They'd done the impossible. Wally was still breathing, his heart was still beating, and they'd made it here against all odds. They'd made it and Wally had to survive, he had to, they had access to the help he needed and it would be the worst joke in the world for him to die here and now.
It was ironic really; Superboy had just run over a hundred miles in a bare two and a half days, carrying his friend the entire way to try and save him. By any definition of the term, new age or old, it was a heroic act. And now that they were there and there was nothing more that he could do he'd never felt so useless in his life.
But they'd made it. He'd done something worthy of the title of a hero and didn't even care. He'd given his friend a fighting chance.
That was all that mattered.