Ring of Fire

Part Three

The Grapes of Wrath

Tom Joad: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...

Ma Joad: Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casey.

Tom Joad: They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then... Well, maybe it's like Casey says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then...

Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?

Tom Joad: Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.

Gotham East End

Selina had made it to her friend and fence, Marcy's apartment with the diamonds. Marcy got busy figuring out if they were all genuine, what the resell value was, her cut, the middleman's cut, overall depreciation and finally what Selina would net from the heist. 2 million suddenly became much less as more fingers got involved in the pie. Selina knew this going in; it was the cost of being in the business she was in. That didn't mean she liked it, just accepted it.

It had been both a good and bad night so far for Selina. She'd successfully scratched her itch, but had let herself become distracted and thus sloppy. The guards had seen her. While her hood and goggles had obscured her face so there wouldn't be any identification, it didn't take a genius to figure which female jewel thief in Gotham had pulled the job. She didn't have to worry about cops. That was the good part of stealing from criminals. The bad part was that criminals didn't have to play by the rules. They didn't need warrants or proof beyond a reasonable doubt to try and punish the person they thought was responsible. There was no Miranda right either against incriminating yourself. If necessary they were more than willing to beat the truth out of you or go one step further to torture and killing you to get what they wanted. That was both the upside and the downside of being a criminal, you didn't have to play by the rules and neither did anyone else.

Selina began pacing, working things out in her mind. She thought she should lay low for a while and perhaps call in some favors. Marcy needed to work, so she gently ushered Selina into the next room and turned on the television while she went back to the kitchen. Selina glanced at the muted television and saw it had picture in picture going. Her attention immediately went to the events transpiring. On the one side of the screen was the battle going on down at the docks and on the other was the high-speed chase/fight happening downtown. She was shocked to see Batman and the Joker fighting, having heard nothing of it before now.

"How long as this been going on?" Selina asked. 'Batman and the Joker?"

"A while, some reporter is sending a live feed from her cell phone. It looks like all hell has broken loose tonight in Gotham and the city is ready to tear itself apart. Best to stay in on night like this,' Marcy replied.

Selina turned back to the screen and looked at the shaky video of Batman and the Joker. Her eyes shifted to the other screen of the battle down at the docks. Vicki Vale was still broadcasting, but it seemed things had only gotten worse since the last time Selina had watched. Both screens had her full attention. Selina stood in front of the monitor too nervous to sit down, mesmerized by the action unfolding. She had a connection with both men, Batman and Clark and felt anxious as she watched. She felt helpless and hated it. It was such a strange, unfamiliar feeling to her to have to just watch and not be able to do something.

"This is going to take awhile, Selina, you might as well make yourself comfortable,' Marcy offered.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Selina replied, not taking her eyes of the screen. "How do you turn the sound on this thing?"

"There's a remote on the couch, just press audio one or two depending on which you want to hear,' Marcy explained.

Selina slipped her goggles off and picked up the remote. She pressed audio 2 and Lois Lane's voice came up.

"The battle has shifted to the top of a city bus between Batman and the Joker! Several of the villain's henchmen are barreling along side the bus in pickup trucks, firing their plasma rifles at Batman, but he's managed to dodge them so far! The police are now in full pursuit, but are being held at bay but the criminals! They may be able to help the Batman with stragglers but he seems like he's on his own with the main force! This is Lois Lane, again reporting live from downtown Gotham on this unfolding story!"

Gotham – Downtown

The bus had to be doing 80 and footing was precarious on top of it. Batman watched as the Joker climbed up to face him and then pulled two swords from underneath his coat. The blades shimmered in the passing streetlights. The Joker smiled his insane smile and then laughed loudly. Batman started for him, but out of his peripheral vision saw the two pickup trucks racing up on either side of the bus. Instinctively he dropped into a push up position as blasts from the pulse rifles crisscrossed over his head. He knew even a lucky shot from one of those weapons would be too much to take.

As if doing a push up, Batman nearly touched his nose to the steel roof of the bus and then pushed off. At the point in the push up where some people clap their hands together before descending into the next, Batman changed it up by reaching for his utility belt and grabbing two small Bat Shurikens. As he descended he fired them at the pick up trucks, taking out the closest front tire of each. He didn't have time to watch the results. Catching himself again before he hit the roof, Batman quickly rolled to the side just as the Joker brought one of the swords down hard against the steel roof. He barely missed by inches, but it gave Batman time to swing around and take his legs out, sending him crashing onto his back.

An explosion behind them caused Batman to turn and see one of the drivers of pickup trucks had lost control and crashed into the parked cars that lined the street. The other truck swerved violently, but the driver managed to keep control. The front tire was flat, but they paid it no mind and continued on after the bus. This gave him a momentary respite from the pulse rifles and allowed him to fully concentrate on the Joker.

'You can't fight the revolution, Batman!" The Joker cackled as he made it back to his feet. 'You represent the old guard, the owners that have grown wealthy of the sweat and tears of the workers! There's a reckoning coming for you all!"

"I see you read a book while you were locked up,' Batman coldly replied.

"More than one!" The Joker laughed.

"Give it up, Joker, you don't give a shit about anyone but yourself, including the oppressed middle as you claim,' Batman stated. "It's all just a means to an end for you, chaos."

"So you do understand,' the Joker replied.

"It won't work."

"It already is, Batman. Revolutions don't start with the bottom, they never have,' the Joker ranted. "It's always the middle that lights the match! The rich always squeeze too hard and even after they realize their mistake they continue to try and hold on! The harder they fight to keep people down the more extreme the situation gets! Protests turn to violence and the more extreme elements take over. France in Algeria is the perfect example! Viva la Revolution!"

"Thanks for the history lesson, but this ends now,' Batman replied and then moved towards the Joker.

While the Batman far out distanced the Joker in fighting skills, the Joker had madness on his side. He was too far down the rabbit hole to care about things a sane man would care about, like pain, injury or even death. There's a special kind of intensity that comes with madness. Even the most harden; vicious killers and psychopathic criminals fear the truly mad. The world doesn't work for them the way it does for everyone else. It's a hermetically seal place where the normal rules don't apply. There's no negotiation, no compromise, no threat or punishment that can reach them.

The Joker launched himself at the Batman, swing both swords wildly. The Batman dodged them both and pulled out his truncheon. He let it extend and the blocked the Joker's next strike and countered with a kick to his chest. The Joker went down hard on the roof of the bus, losing one of the swords. He laughed as he scrambled back to his feet and attacked again.

Gotham East End

Selina bit her fingernails absently as she watched all of this. She certainly had faith in the Batman and his abilities, but the Joker made it a different matter. Frankly he frightened her, though she would never admit it to anyone. As she nervously watched them go back and forth high atop the city bus, she knew the Joker wouldn't beat the Batman in hand-to-hand combat. She also knew that wouldn't stop him. There was just no telling what he would do from one moment to the next and that's what made him so dangerous. Her eyes moved back and forth between the two screens and suddenly something on the other one caught her attention. The camera seemed to swing wildly and then focus on a motorcycle and it's rider leaping over the police lines and into the all out war going on at the docks. Selina pressed audio one and Vicki Vale's came on.

"I think, yes, that's Black Canary, the wanted fugitive that has just arrived and entered the fight!"

"What the hell?' Selina grumbled. "First that chick in all black appears out of nowhere and now Blondie? What the hell is going on down there?"

Gotham – The Docks

Dinah didn't have it all worked out by any stretch of the imagination. It was just a gut feeling she had that she needed to be here. Clark had saved her life. Yes others had done most of the work, but he stopped Deadshot from making all the rest of it moot. Seeing him being attacked and struggling as she had on the television, Dinah knew it was time to repay that debt. She didn't know what or if there was anything between them, but that really didn't matter.

She wanted to step out of her past, out of the lies and shadows. What better way then by helping just because it was the right thing to do? Repaying Clark was the right thing to do. Dinah knew it in her bones. Everything else seemed to slip away as she raced down to his aid. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing this time. As her motorcycle launched over the police lines it seemed as if everything slowed down, almost as if the world was moving in slow motion. All her training and experience kicked in as she saw the whole layout of the battle at once in perfect clarity.

The remaining members of the Maroni and Falcone crime families were still waging their own part of the larger fight. The faction with the pulse rifles, another Gotham crime gang Dinah suspected, were dividing their focus between killing Maroni and Falcone's men, Superman and the police. Harley's team was concentrating on the Superman, but Harley had gone off the rails and was fighting everyone. The police were outgunned, but they had the largest force and were trying to gain some form of control over the out of control situation. Dinah instinctively knew the tall woman in black was the most dangerous. The woman in black was in a different class then the rest. She moved too fast and seemed too strong for just about everyone else. The way she attacked was skilled and precise like someone that had trained for this kind of work. Dinah has seen others that moved and attacked like the woman in black and they were always from that world of the shadows.

Then at the center of it all was Clark.

He was struggling against the constant barrage of light and sound almost as if it were overwhelming him on a different level than everyone else. Killer Croc and King Shark were attacking, biting and slashing him with their teeth and claws over and over. He tried fighting them off, but his blows were slow and sluggish. Dinah saw all of this at once and knew what to do. She squeezed the triggers on her guns, firing shots at King Shark, the closest man with a pulse rifle and the woman in black.

Her results were mixed. The man with the pulse rifle went down, King Shark turned from his relentless attack on Superman, but the woman in black retaliated. Dinah's bullet didn't even slow her down as she spun and flicked out her wrist. He electrified whip lashed around the space between them with pinpoint accuracy and wrapped around the handlebars of Dinah's cycle. A quick jerk and it was redirected towards the nearest wall. Dinah reacted at the last second and flipped backwards off the bike and continued firing.

Gotham – Downtown

Lois continued to report on the battle between Batman and the Joker. Carl was screaming at her that she was taking too many chances, but Lois didn't stop what she was doing for a moment.

"Lois! Jesus, you're going to get killed hanging out the door like that,' Clark shouted. "Come on, you don't have to earn your nickname tonight, Mad Dog!"

Mad Dog, Lois knew some of her colleagues called her that behind her back. Secretly she liked it, as it described her style of getting the story and taking any chance to do it. Many had called her an adrenaline junkie, but it was more than that. They didn't understand and probably wouldn't even if she explained it to them. If she had tried it would have started when Lois was 10 years old.

Her father being in the military they had moved constantly when she was a kid. That year they hadn't and were sent to a small picture postcard town in the middle of nowhere. She hadn't fully understood why at the time, but later she put it together. Her father had always been aggressive, but had pushed to hard once too often. This was his punishment, to have to sit on the sidelines far away from everything he wanted. To a young Lois it hadn't seemed like a punishment at all. For once she got to settle down and unpack all of her boxes.

She remembered that winter. It was like something out of a Currier and Ives scene, with kids making snowmen, snow angels, snowball fights and sled riding. No one spent their after school time sitting inside playing video games or surfing the web, they were outside enjoying the winter. Sledding had been Lois' favorite. She had time to make friends and after school they would all meet up and trudge along the local ridge to the perfect hill for sledding. It was a long smooth slope that seemed to go on forever. The wind rushing by as you slid down and then glided out into the open field felt magical and made up for the long haul back up the hill to do it again.

Day after day as she walked along that ridge with her new found friends, Lois would watch some of the older kids attempt another hill. It was much steeper and at the bottom was a lake. It was dangerous, because as you went down you picked up speed. If you weren't careful you would get going too fast and once you were out on the frozen lake there was a real chance the ice would break and you would go under. Local stories said that every couple of years someone did go too far and fall through. Some had even died.

Everyday as Lois passed the more dangerous hill she would watch the teenagers challenge each other on to make the run. They always used old lunch trays or garbage can lids and over the years a ready supply had accumulated. It seemed the idea behind the challenge was to see how far down the hill you could get before you jumped off and avoided the lake. The cold dark water always seemed to loom, waiting for someone that waited too long. Lois wanted to try it but her friends always talked her out of it.

A day when temptation couldn't be denied any longer finally came. School had been canceled because of the weather and everyone was heading for the hill to sled. Lois had been at home and her father was arguing with someone on the phone. She remembered he'd been so angry, shouting at the person on the other end. He demanded to know when his penitence in this place would finally be over. He was quiet for several moments and then smiled. Somehow Lois knew that meant they would be moving again soon.

She'd grabbed her sled and headed out. Her friends were already at the hill so she walked alone dragging her sled behind her. Everything seemed so clean in the new snow, as if untouched by the world. This tiny piece of the world would soon just be another memory for her. As she walked along the ridge, she stopped and watched the teenagers. She noticed they were all talk at the top of the hill but the further down they went the quieter they got. Some would scream just before they abandoned their runs, desperately diving off and trying to slow their progress so they wouldn't reach the lake. Most that tried once, didn't try again in the same day.

Lois stopped and stood as another one gave up well before the lake. Jeers from his friends greeted him as he trudged back up, but he just smiled nervously and kept glancing over his shoulder. The rope from her sled dropped from Lois's hand and she reached for one of the lunch trays. She could fit her whole body on it. It only took a small shove to get her started.

"Chickens!" She excitedly shouted as she past the teenagers and started down the hill. They laughed and jeered at her at first, but the further down she went the shouts turned to warnings. Several started to run down after her screaming for her to jump off.

Lois kept her eyes forward, watching as the lake grew closer by the moment. The speed was different from the other hill. It picked up quicker than you realized and soon you were moving much faster than you should. The snow seemed to have mixed with ice and this only added to the speed. Lois realized she was out of control, going much too fast towards the lake, yet she didn't jump off. At the time her young mind couldn't put the feelings into words, but later she would be able to. She had felt alive, on the edge between exhilaration and disaster. Every part of her wanted to go right to the edge before she jumped off. An older Lois knew this was dangerous, that one miscalculation, one misjudgment and it would all end in tragedy. That was the thrill of it though. She'd learned that on the hill when she was 10 years old.

She rode the tray beyond where everyone else had and somehow at the last minute knew when to jump off. The tray rocketed out onto the lake as Lois slid to a stop. The ice cracked but didn't give. She lay there for a minute, breathing hard but smiling the whole time. The exhilaration was beyond anything she'd ever imagined. She'd guessed right and made it.

Some of that attitude had stayed with her ever since. Maybe there was a little more of her father in her than she wanted to admit. Just like him she always pushed hard, some times too hard, always right to the edge. That's what made her a great reporter, for like that hill, a story was just something she had to do. So as the fight between Batman and the Joker seemed to be reaching its climax Lois went the extra mile. Unbuckling her seat belt, she wrapped her left arm in it and moved out onto the helicopter's landing rail to get the perfect shot at the finish of the battle.

"Lois!" Carl screamed, but then his attention was drawn elsewhere.

Gotham – Downtown

The Joker laid on his back, battered and bloody. He still had the maniacal look in his eyes, but his swords were gone.

"It's over." Batman said.

"Not until the last vote is counted,' the Joker replied. He banged his fist on the steel roof of the bus and one of his last henchmen leaned out with a pulse rifle and fired at the Batman. He dodged it and flicked another Shuriken in return, knocking the gun out of he man's hands. The Joker started to laugh as if he'd won. Batman heard another sound and turned to see the helicopter that had been chasing them swerve wildly as the pulse blast had hit one of the rotors. The pilot was forced to pull up or crash into the buildings that lined both sides of the street. Unfortunately his passenger hadn't been prepared for the maneuver and lost her footing on the rail. She screamed as she tumbled away from the copter and fell towards the street.

Batman's line fired and he swung into action, catching the woman before she fell to her death.

"Thank you, thank you,' she gushed, holding onto him with all she had.

As he landed them both safely on the street, he glanced behind him to see the bus disappear around a corner.

"I think I owe you my life, Batman,' the woman said.

'What the hell were you doing up there?' He growled.

"Covering the story," she replied. "I'm Lois Lane. Thank you again."

"You're welcome."

He fired a line and was again on the trail of the Joker in the next moment.

Gotham – The Docks

Clark was not handling all of this well. He was still so new at this crime-fighting thing, that even though bullets apparently didn't hurt him, his instincts were to flinch. Just when he was started to adjust, the blasts from the pulse rifles started. Those he felt. It was like absorbing body blows, too many to count. He kept trying to get to his feet, to use his speed, but the blasts kept coming. They seemed to hit him everywhere at once. His legs would take an impact and he'd be down again. It started to get too much so he used a wide blast of the beams from his eyes to try and get a respite.

It had been short lived, as the light and sound hit him like a wave. He'd been learning how to block out the noise as his hearing got better, but this was beyond what he'd experienced before. It seemed to do something to his inner ear and mess with his equilibrium. The blinding lights only added to his disorientation. He felt like Lars Thorwald at the end of Rear Window. Each time he started to adjust another blast of light would throw him off again.

He would get brief glimpses of what was happening around him, but the light acted like a strobe and made everything seem unreal. He was having trouble distinguishing between what was happening and what was imagined. The light and sound seemed to set off a stream of images in his mind, a chaotic, disjointed mash-up of his life and only added to his confusion.

Things out of nightmares, crocodile human hybrids and mutant sharks, crazy women in clown outfits and screaming ghouls were attacking him. He tried to fight them off, but he couldn't see or hear and his movements were sluggish. Clark wondered if he was going crazy when during one of brief moments he could see, a woman appeared from seemingly out of the sky. She was tall, taller than he was, and dressed all in skintight black. She was wielding whips and the screams she caused with them mixed into the overwhelming din. He wondered if she was actually helping him or whether he was just imagining her. The light and sound came again and the next time he could focus she wasn't where she'd been.

Then he was sure he was crazy, as he got a brief glimpse of Dinah flying through the air firing her guns. It had to be a mirage or a delusion, she couldn't be here she was still injured. He tried to rally once again, closing his eyes and covering his ears but something or someone crashed into him and drove him back down to the pavement. Ravenous teeth and claws attacked him, ripping through the remains of his tee shirt and gouging at this skin. It had to be the mutant shark and crocodile human hybrid. He tried to toss them off, but when he did another blast of the sound and light sent his senses spiraling again. He heard a scream of pain close to his ear and felt and electrical current sizzle in the air around him. From his knees he opened his eyes and looked up.

The woman in black was standing right in front of him staring down into his overtaxed eyes.

"I expect more from you,' she said coldly. "Fight Kryptonian!"

Another blast of light and sound washed away everything once more. Kryptonian, she'd said Kryptonian, flashed through his disoriented mind. She knows who I am! As if some hidden door inside Clark's mind had finally been opened images began to bombard him. Strange, fantastical images of things he'd never seen or imagined. They were of an alien world yet somehow so familiar. Faces and places began to pulse though his consciousness. Jor-El, Lara, those names and faces repeated over and over. Somehow he knew this was his past, where and more importantly whom he was from. They had always been just names before, but now somehow he seemed to be remembering things he couldn't possibly know.

Smallville

22 years ago a meteor shower hit this community hard. Jonathan and Martha Kent had been returning from another failed visit to the doctor. The prospects of them ever having children seemed to be drifting further and further away. They weren't rich people and the sums being discussed were well beyond their means. They weren't any more special than a million other people that night, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Their lives would never be the same.

They found the baby in the wreckage of what they assumed was an alien spacecraft. They made a choice, they would tell no one about it. Martha held the baby in her arms and Jonathan managed to get the wreckage on to the back of his truck. They drove home and began working on their story. Jonathan had buried the wreckage beneath the barn. When he was older, they told Clark about it. He'd looked through it but it just seemed like wreckage to him so they reburied it. He hadn't thought much about it since.

The night was quiet, as the farmhouse was empty. The people Clark rented to didn't live here, but did keep up the place. So there was no one to see the suddenly strange glow that came from the barn. 22 years had past, but the ship hadn't been completely destroyed. It had been mending itself and waiting for a sign. Clark's dormant powers hadn't been strong enough when he lived her to draw the damage ships attention, but now after all these years it had repair itself enough to begin monitoring this alien's worlds communications. Tonight one word had brought it back to operational, Kryptonian. The ship did its job and sent out a beacon in hope that its former passenger would return.

Gotham – The Docks

The information was pouring into Clark's mind, another steam of input to overwhelm his senses.

"No, too much, too much,' he whispered. His hands curled into fists and began to pound against the street, harder and harder each time. The pavement began to crack as something began to build inside Clark. With a wave of his arm he tossed Killer Shark and Killer Croc away from him, like someone tossing tissue out a moving car window. His legs tensed and then in one astonishing move he pushed off and rocketed up into the air. This time he didn't come back down, but hung 100 feet above the ground. His eyes turned red and two beams lashed out, sweeping across the scene below him taking out most of the combatants in one blinding sweep. He heard the unconscious call and instinctively began to rise further into the night. He disappeared in he next moment.

Below him the battle seemed to have been on pause, as he had taken out most of the combatants. Those that still stood were Dinah, Lashina, the police and the Suicide Squad. The police started to advance, but Atomic Skull blasted their cars and the buildings all around them. The mission was over it was time to escape. Silver Banshee turned to face the cops and let out another scream not caring if she killed them all. Dinah covered her ears, but could hear screaming all around her. She saw Ev down on her knees clutching at her ears trying to shut out the noise. People were dying and Dinah knew what she had to do. Facing Silver Banshee Dinah let her Canary Cry loose. The ground shook beneath them as the sound waves met head on. Silver Banshee was powerful, but not as powerful as Dinah's Cry, at least tonight.

It took a moment, but slowly everyone realized the noise was gone. What had been an all out battlefield had taken on a eerie calm. Commissioner Gordon slowly got to his feet and surveyed the scene. Falcone and Maroni's men littered the street along with what he suspected were Thorne's. The tall woman in black was gone. Silver Banshee, Killer Croc and Atomic Skull were unconscious. Black Canary was nowhere to be seen.

Gotham – East End

Selina had changed her clothes and finally made it back to her building. She slowly walked up the stairs, ready for any ambushes that might happen. Nothing, so she continued on. When she reached the sixth floor she stopped in front of Clark's door. She'd watched what had happened on the docks and was as astonished as everyone else. She knocked and waited, but there was no answer. She let herself in again but saw he wasn't home. She had so many questions, but realized she wasn't going to get any answers tonight.

Locking his place up again, Selina made the final two flights up to her apartment. She was exhausted both physically and emotionally. She just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until tomorrow night. She turned the key and stepped inside, but immediately knew something was wrong. She didn't like guns but since the episode with Zsasz she'd started carrying one in her purse.

"Whoever you are, come out now. I've got a gun and I'll use it if I have to," she announced as she closed the door. There was a long pause and then the bathroom door opened. A young woman stepped out. She was covered in bruises and blood, but still smiling.

"Hey Selina, long time no see! Nice Gun!"

Selina groaned and lowered the gun.

"Harley, what the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Selina groaned.