Chapter 2
"Bart?"
The younger teen nearly jumps out his skin. "Dude! Don't do that to me!" he complains.
"Sorry," Clark apologises. He was just entering his room 1st thing this morning to find his friend staring off into space. "You alright?" he asks in concern because to his eyes Bart looks troubled.
"Yeah. I just...had a weird dream last night," Bart replies and it still has him all discombobulated.
"Want to talk about it?" Clark offers.
"What? Nah," Bart refuses the offer, shaking his head. "It was just a dream," he tries and dismisses it.
"If you're sure?"
"Yeah. I'm sure. Gracias though me amigo," Bart says gratefully in his usual misspoken mixture of Spanish and English.
"Ok. Well I need to shower," Clark says.
"Yeah. I can imagine," Bart says with a lecherous grin.
Clark rolls his eyes. Gonna be a long, long day now.
"Professor?" Jean queries as she pokes her head round his study door and finds her mentor having his breakfast.
"Jean," Charles acknowledges her.
"Is this a bad time?"
"Of course not. Come in," he beckons her.
Jean steps inside.
"Please take a seat," Charles offers which Jean takes. "How are you this morning?" he asks. "Hank told me about Clark."
"I'm fine. Clark's fine. How's Kitty?" Jean asks about her friend, the usual gossip grapevine having spread around what had happened to her friend.
"Stable for now. I suppressed the symbiote but unless we can remove it..." he trails off.
Jean grows pensive. God, poor Kitty. She wishes there was something she could do. She'll have to check up on her brown-haired friend later.
"So how can I help you, Jean?" Charles wonders what brings her here.
"I know we're doing a debrief later but there is something...personal I need to take with you about."
Charles arches an eyebrow. This sounds potentially serious. "You can talk to me about anything," he assures her.
Jean nods and takes a minute to think about how to word this. "There's been a change with my powers."
"What kind of change?"
"Last night after Clark and I had been...intimate," she says, blushing furiously. She's really not the sort of person to openly discuss her sex life. She clears her throat. "Afterwards I found that I could...sense Clark's mind. Connect to it."
"In what way?" Charles asks, not quote understanding what she is meaning.
"It'll be easier to show you," she says, pointing from her head to his.
Charles nods his permission and Jean shows him. How fascinating. "You think your powers have evolved?"
Jean shrugs. "It's a guess except I don't feel any different. And last time they did..."
"You tore the mansion apart," Charles has to remind them both of that. He takes a sip of his tea as he tries and come up with some possibilities. He places his cup down. "Jean I have never hidden from you just how much potential power lies within you. You may not consider yourself as powerful as myself but potentially you are far beyond me or anyone else. The only question was when you would access this potential. It seems you have perhaps taken another step forward on your journey."
Jean's not sure how she feels about that. Conflicted is the best she can come up with at the minute. Happy at her progression but also afraid, remembering the damage she did last time when she couldn't control her evolution. "There's going to be tests isn't there," she realises morosely. That's never fun.
"Eventually, yes but not today I think. As you pointed out we have a lot to do today and unless you feel like you're losing control it can wait."
"As I said, Professor; I don't feel any different."
"Then we'll just see how things are tomorrow...as long as we're not keeping you away from your studies from too long," he tags on, not wishing to disrupt Jean's education any more than necessary.
"After all that has happened they've cancelled classes for the rest of the week," Jean relays a consequence of the Collector's attack. Course not just her college. Bayville High was shut for the rest of the week as well.
"Very well. Then I'll see you down in War Room for the debrief."
Jean nods and smiles lightly as she rises to her feet. She exits the room, not feeling as worried as she probably should about what is going on. Like something inside her is telling her it'll all work out in the end. Then again her light mood may just be due to the night she spent with Clark. After a year without...God, did it feel good just to let herself indulge her sexual side again and to have it well and truly satisfied. She's probably going to be smiling all day just thinking about it and despite everything Jean has to say that her life right now is definitely good.
A little later the senior X-Men plus Clark gather in the War Room.
Jean is the first to notice something amiss. "Where's Scott?" she asks.
Logan answers. "Don't know. He disappeared off for a drive last night. Hasn't come back," he says with a shrug as in 'I don't care'. It's not his business to keep a track on every little thing Slim does.
Jean frowns. Scott is still her friend, one of her oldest and him not attending a briefing is out of character. An arm draping across her shoulder lightens her mood as she leans into the solid form of her boyfriend.
The Professor brings the meeting to order. "Lets us begin. We no doubt have a lot to get through so lets keep the interruptions to a minimum until we have gotten all the basic facts laid out and then we'll get into questions. Any objection?"
There is none so one by one everyone present tells their version of the last couple of days. What happened at the Prom, the attack on the city, the mansion, the psychic assaults. Clark has to explain his capture, avoiding too much detail on his torture because he has no desire to relive it any more than necessary but what he does reveal has Logan threatening to gut half the army...and Jean's not far behind in that line of thinking. It's not natural for her to have such mean thoughts but it is a darkness within that will be soon be getting much stronger over the coming months.
Course the one who arguably has to explain the most as to what happened is Clark. He was the one aboard the Collector's ship. He was the one who...sorta defeated it...and finally he is the one who finally has to explain what happened after everyone was transported back down to Earth.
"So what yer saying, lad, is that th' ship is still intact?" Sean Cassidy asks.
"Of course it is. I would never destroy it," Clark states firmly. "Part of the reason I was so long was that I needed to hide it before any of the world's governments got any ideas about trying to lay claim to it. The Collector's a bit...damaged. There are...whatever Brainiac did corrupted some of its memory files. That's why I was, sadly, unable to do much to help Corporal Corben. That data is missing. It obeys me but it's really a shadow of what it was before," he tries to explain.
"Why didn't you just destroy it and be done with it kid?" Logan asks.
"Absolutely not," Clark dismisses that idea angrily.
"Why not?" Rogue asks.
"Because...it'd be easier to show you," he realises. "You'd need to get the jet ready if you want to see," he says, turning to the Professor.
"Where would we be going?" Charles wonders.
"The Arctic...so dress up warm," Clark advises.
"Isn't there anything you can do?"
Chloe knows why Lois is asking that question as the two cousins sit beside the inert Metal-Zero. Lois' boyfriend John Corben. Lois is asking it because her heart is broken. Chloe replies, softly, "I'm sorry Lois but no. This isn't solely biological. It's technological. Alien technology at that."
"And most likely the effort of healing such massive damage would kill you," Sage, who is here checking up on the fallen soldier, offers up in her usual blunt tones. She's never been one for emotional empathy.
"Yes, thanks for that," Chloe drawls with an eye-roll.
"It's simply a logical deduction. When you heal you use your own life energy in the process."
"I am aware," Chloe says, almost grinding her teeth at the woman's bluntness...no, just sheer rudeness. Not to mention insensitivity.
Sage peers down at Corben, checking for any subtle changes of any kind.
"And what about you? I thought you could interface with technology," Chloe queries.
"I can interface with technology but as you pointed out this is alien technology involved. The code is in an unknown language to me. Highly complex. I have been yet unable to decipher it."
"Convenient," Chloe mutters under breath before turning her focus back on Lois. She can't remember the last time Lois looked so openly distraught. Perhaps when Aunt Ella died. Lois must really love John is what Chloe is deducing. This is just awful.
Speaking of awful that brings us to the awful entity living inside Kitty. Though for now the Professor had managed to silence its voice.
Still Kitty was convinced she could feel it sliming its way inside her body which would be why she's down in the infirmary with Peter at her side as Beast runs some tests.
"For once I'm at a loss what to say," Peter says apologetically. He so badly wants to say something to reassure Kitty but nothing is coming to mind.
"You don't need to say anything Pete. I just need you here with me," Kitty tells him.
"Of course. I'm always here for you. I love you. No matter what," he assures her that nothing is going to change the way he feels for her.
"I love you too."
Through in Beast's office he is checking Kitty's results...and his expression is not a happy one. The symbiote within her blood is growing in mass...and he's not sure how he can inhibit it without harming Kitty in the process. Which has been the problem from day one. The two are so bonded together that any treatment to kill the symbiote is just as likely to kill Kitty.
Beast has never wanted to admit that the task is hopeless but more it would involve manipulations probably down on the molecular level to pick apart Kitty from the symbiote, if necessary one molecule at a time. It's more simply that the technology to do what is needed doesn't exist yet.
Hank rubs his eyes. He hates delivering bad news. One thing is clear though. The Professor's fix is temporary and they are running out of time.
Fortress of Solitude...
Jean Grey has never actually been to her boyfriend's Fortress of Solitude before. This last relic of his homeworld. It was breathtaking in its beauty. It was also a side of him she must admit she didn't know all that well. His alien side so to speak. If this relationship is going to last long term she's going to have to change that.
Jean was here alongside the Professor, Logan, Banshee, Rogue and Claire. The later two mostly because of their personal connections to Clark, past and present. Remember Rogue had been there when the Fortress had first come into being. It also signifies Rogue's elevation back to senior X-Men status after her time working her way back up the ranks since her return after the whole defection to Magneto stuff. Or to put it another way she's Scott's replacement since he still hasn't returned.
"This way," Clark leads the way through the ice castle, Jean levitating the Professor over the uneven surface. "I had to do some remodelling. Added a basement. You know with a rec room, game room, my own personal man cave...with a huge honking spaceship wall ornament."
"The ship is directly underneath us?" Charles seeks to confirm.
"Yep. The access is just over here," the alien teen explains as they reach a spot, almost in a hidden away corner where Clark places his hand on one of the giant crystals which lights up under his hand. He depresses his fingers and plays out the 5 tomes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
"Seriously?" Rogue asks him in a derisive tone.
Clark grins, the completely unapologetic nerd that he is. Then they are all encompassed in a green flash.
"My fingers are tingling," Jean comments.
"Sorry. Side-effect of teleportation," Clark explains the cause.
"Where are we?" Claire asks, looking around as they all stand in a metal corridor.
"...WELCOME BACK, MASTER KAL-EL..."
Everyone spins round, Logan popping his claws and they stand face to face with the giant form of the Collector.
Clark has to grab Logan's shoulder to stop the stocky man going Berzerker. "Easy Logan. It won't harm anyone."
"Ye sure about that lad," Banshee asks with a wary eye on the mechanical entity.
"Yes. It's fine. It's loyal to me now," he explains before turning to the overgrown mechanical caterpillar-like entity. "Status report," he commands.
"...ALL SYSTEMS ARE FUNCTIONING NORMALLY AND IN ENERGY PRESERVATION MODE AS PER YOUR COMMANDS..." the neutered machine reports.
Clark nods. "Why were we teleported to this location?" he asks, puzzled slightly.
"...AS NO PRIOR ORDERS WERE GIVEN IN RELATION TO ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ACCOMPANYING YOU, STANDARD PROCEDURES DICTATE TELEPORTATION TO NON-VITAL SECTOR UNTIL STATUS OF ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL CAN BE ESTABLISHED..."
Clark rubs his head. "As you can see I have barely scratched the surface of issues I need to sort out," he says apologetically to his friends. "These are my friends," he says to the Collector. "I have invited them here as my guests."
"...UNDERSTOOD. PERSONNEL WILL BE LABELLED AS NON-HOSTILES..."
"How does that not make meh feel bettah," Rogue mutters, actually feeling kinda intimated.
"You fought this?" Jean whispers in awe at her boyfriend.
"Meh. It was a Tuesday," Clark shrugs, playing light of it. "Now, take us to the Collection," he orders.
"...AS YOU COMMAND..."
Another flash of green light and the group are teleported once again.
Upon getting themselves reorientated with their surroundings they all just stare open-mouthed. They stand in a vast, cavernous space filled with giant bottles and within strange and bizarre looking cities.
"This is why I couldn't destroy the ship. To do so would have killed millions of innocent people," Clark says, his voice deep in the gravity of the consequences of what he is saying.
"What is all this?" Claire asks her brother, sounding more quiet and awed than he had ever heard her before.
"204 bottled cities. Remnants of destroyed worlds...but most importantly for me is this one," he says, walking up to one particular bottle.
"Why's that?" Banshee wonders.
"Because this is Kandor, a city from Krypton."
Jean walks over next to her boyfriend and just looks in wonder at the miniaturised city...and not just any city. A remnant of Clark's home. She can only imagine how much this must mean to him. "You're no longer alone," she whispers.
"Depends on your definition," Clark hedges actually confirming that.
"I assume they are all still alive," Charles says, his mind boggling at the sight of dozens and dozens of alien cities.
"Yes. They're in null micro-stasis," Clark answers.
"Which means what?" Rogue asks.
"Essentially a form of permanent stasis to preserve the cities and their inhabitants forever from what our host told me."
Everyone looks warily at the large mechanical caterpillar-esque machine as it scurries amongst the bottles, performing maintenance.
"Is that what would have happened to us if you hadn't stopped it?" Claire asks, sorta already knowing the answer.
"Yes," is all Clark can really say, confirming it.
"Why?"
"Because that is what it does. It collects and preserves samples of doomed worlds, to save the inhabitants from extinction. It thinks its being kind, not realising that the state it puts them in can hardly be considered living at all. There is, after all, more to life than merely survival isn't there," he says, glancing over at Jean whose lips curl upward at hearing those words, her words she had said to Clark once.
"Wise words," Charles reflects and ones he agrees with. After all what he wants for mutantkind goes way beyond mere survival. He wants acceptance and equality.
"Can ya clarify what ya mean by that?" Rogue asks him.
"They're alive but asleep essentially. Their metabolic functions slowed down to such a point they essentially don't age. Does that sound like much of a life, Rogue?"
"No," Rogue will concede.
"You learned all this from our host?" Charles queries.
Clark nods. "After our battle I had a lot of questions, naturally. Another reason I was away so long."
Their host continues its scurrying around.
"Ok, I get not destroying the ship but did ya have to keep that thing around?" Logan asks, on edge, barely holding back his instinct to tear the Collector apart.
"If I destroyed it who would maintain the ship's systems? Who would take care of the cities?" Clark asks rhetorically. "It's fine Logan. It's a shell of what it use to be. If you have questions I'll ask it but as I mentioned before I can't guarantee it has the answers any longer."
"Ask it about the psychic assault," Jean proposes, wanting that question from the night before answered.
Clark opens his mouth to call on it and then has a random thought. "I really need to give it a new name."
Claire and Rogue face-palm simultaneously. "How can you be this much of a dork?" Claire complains.
"Gawd, tell meh about it," Rogue says in agreement.
Clark smirks. "Collector!" he calls out and the AI scurries over.
"...YES, MASTER KAL-EL..."
"Why did you attack Earth's psychics?"
"...ONE MOMENT...CHECKING..."
Clark shakes his head. "See what I mean. This should be instantaneous," he tries to illustrate his point about it being a shell of itself.
"...DATA RETRIEVED...EARTH'S PSYCHICS WERE TO BE USED AS BASIS OF COLU-AN RESURRECTION..."
They all frown in confusion.
"Elaborate," Clark instructs.
"...ORIGIN PLANET YON-COLU DESTROYED BY THE MULTITUDE…
"...COLLECTED KNOWLEDGE LED TO FORMULATION OF METHOD OF RECREATION..."
"...CALCULATIONS INDICATED PSYCHIC ENTITIES POSSESSED NECESSARY BASE ELEMENTS FOR TRANSFORMATION..."
Jean feels ill. "You were going to turn us into your kind?"
"...CORRECT..."
Clark pulls his girlfriend into him and holds her around the waist. Honestly at this point he's stopped being shocked.
Charles shakes his head in disbelief at just how close he came to becoming whatever this is. "How is that even possible? You're a machine. We're biological."
This time it does not answer the Professor like it answered Jean. Odd.
Clark just guesses it doesn't have the answer due to damage. "My speculation would be that at its level of technology, biological and technological are not as different and succinct as you might think they are. I mean look at Forge," he uses as an example. Forge with his strange techno-organic right hand.
Charles concedes that is a good point. Forge's right hand was a mixture of biology and technology, being both and not quite either at the same time. Master that same threshold Forge exists on and just imagine how advanced you become.
"So I have a question, lad," Sean speaks up. "Are they all stuck like t'is forever? Ye know, in a bottle?"
Clark purses his lips. "I'm not sure about that. On one hand I was told the process is permanent but on the other, when I was facing off with the Collector, it talked about how if I could restore Kandor its inhabitants would treat me like a King as a reward."
"Which implies it isn't permanent," Charles concludes.
Clark shrugs. "All that I can say is that the Collector here doesn't know how to reverse it, I asked and I certainly don't. Even if I figure it out, what do I do then? All their homeworlds are destroyed. I don't think it would be wise to restore them all here on Earth."
"Hell no," Logan says, just imagining the reaction. Over 200 alien cities suddenly appearing...there would be chaos.
"Also some of them couldn't survive on Earth...probably," Clark guesses. "I mean it would be amazing that their biologies were all compatible with Earth's atmosphere."
Charles nods in concession. That must almost certainly be true.
"It's...lifetimes of work," Clark says, not able to quite express the scale of it all...and while, yes he will live many, many human lifetimes it's still a monumental task. "For right now my priority must be destroying Brainiac and preventing Zod's return. Zod must never get his hands on any of this, especially not Kandor."
"Why especially?" Rogue asks.
"Because if he frees them and they make him a King, he'll have a quarter of a million Kryptonian followers. All of whom will have the same powers I do."
"Christ, we'd be fucked!" Claire swears in realisation.
Charles has to pinch his nose at the stress headache that image is inducing. While he wouldn't phrase it like Claire did she is correct. Humanity wouldn't stand a chance against such a force.
"I think that this is not a problem for t'day," Banshee reckons. "Though I have t' ask what is this 'Multitude' thing that keeps getting mentioned?"
"Not sure," Clark answers. "All I could get out of the Collector was that it's some kind of...force that destroys planets...in a particular order. That's why the Collector has a list. Somehow it calculated the order and it is...was travelling from world to world ahead of the Multitude trying to preserve the inhabitants."
"So this 'force' is coming here?" Logan seeks to confirm.
"Yeah. Don't know when but yes. The Multitude is coming. Just another thing on my ever lengthening 'To Do' list," Clark jokes in morbid humour.
"Our list Clark," Charles emphasises. "We are in this together," he reminds the young man.
"Well, like the Collector here, I too have a list and right now Brainiac is at the top of it. I need to get back to figuring out a way to destroy it and each and every copy of itself it has made. The Multitude is going to have to wait until after that," Clark states his priorities.
"Uh, huh. Question, Clark. Ah thought Brainiac destroyed Krypton, not this Multitude?" Rogue queries an inconsistency in all this.
"Good point," Clark accepts. "Collector," the tall young man turns to it. "Why didn't the Multitude destroy Krypton?"
"...IT WAS STOPPED..."
"How?"
"...UNKNOWN..."
"...UPON WITNESSING KRYPTON'S SURVIVAL COURSE REVERSAL WAS INITIATED TO DISCOVER IMPROBABLE CAUSE..."
"...UPON ARRIVAL FOUND ONLY PLANETARY DEBRIS..."
"By the time you got back Zod and Brainiac had destroyed the planet," Clark assumes.
"At least we know it can be stopped," Banshee reflects the positive.
"Indeed," Charles says in agreement. "If it can be stopped once, it can be done so again."
"I'll have to look through the Kryptonian database at some point," Clark offers but not right now. Brainiac has to be stopped first.
"Yes but as you said Clark, priorities. I think that is enough for today," Charles decides. While the questions he has are endless that is also the problem. They're endless. Once he starts he won't stop for a long, long time but they learned the basics of what they needed to.
Bart is running. He is running through this endless void. Multi-coloured lightning dominates the sky.
He runs past roughly shaped holes through which he sees a guy dressed in a red hooded outfit, with a lightning bolt on his chest.
A speedster like him. Using his powers to fight bad guys.
It's kinda cool really.
And he doesn't do it alone. The guy has his own team and everything. A Latino guy with funky shades and gauntlets and a hot chick...or is that a cool chick with white hair and skin and ice powers.
But overshadowing everything...this continual dark presence plaguing this team's lives is...it's him! That man in yellow. A speedster too but different. Like an opposite...or...or…
"Flash!"
"Arh!" Bart screams as suddenly right in his path is that said man in yellow, his hand vibrating ready to strike and he does, his hand sinking deep into Bart's heart…
"Arh!" Bart screams as he shoots awake in bed, golden lightning surging over his form...which is intense enough to set the bed sheets on fire. Luckily he has a room-mate who a, doesn't actually sleep barely at all any longer and b, possesses ice breath.
"Dude!" Bart says with suddenly chattering teeth. "Cold doesn't agree with me!" he complains. It was a weakness they had discovered during Bart's time at the mansion. Whatever strange energy fuels his powers doesn't like the cold.
"Sorry but it was this or evacuate the mansion," Clark offers as he sits down next to his friend and rubs some heat back into the younger teen with his hands. When he thinks Bart is sufficiently warmed up Clark starts, "Was this like that other weird dream you said you had?"
"Kinda," Bart offers.
"Bart that's two nights in a row. If you don't want to talk about it fine but just know I'm here as your friend if you need someone to listen."
"I don't know what any of it means," Bart offers half-heatedly.
"Try me," Clark openly offers to do anything he can for his friend.
Bart takes a moment to think it over...and for Bart a moment is like an eternity before he decides. "Alright. It goes like this..."
Author's Note: So, yeah that's where the ship and the cities are. In Clark's new man cave. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; Clark tries to help Bart discover the meaning of his dreams.