Hello, one and all. Sorry about the delay – you'd think that with Covid-19 running around, everyone working from home, I'd have more time to write. Not so much, since I am currently working from home in a new internship, which is going better than you might think. I am, thankfully, currently well and hope you are all well too (and if you aren't, that you become so soon).
Also, I've been getting some odd new ideas, and revamping one or two old ones, as a fic I have posted on AO3, a (so far) one-shot Dresden Files/Sherlock fic called No Matter How Improbable. It's a popular title, so perhaps it's easier to search for my name there (NimbusLlewelyn, all one word) if you want a look.
Anyway, here we are again, at the chapter that was meant to round off this arc. Unfortunately, it got a little long again, because not only were there lights and camera, there was enough action that there would have been an overload if I stuck it all in one chapter, which would have diminished everything else I was sticking in there. As a result, it's a bit light on Clark, though he still gets a couple of scenes near the start of the chapter, but fear not – he's the focus for the final chapter of the arc.
So, not quite the last chapter of this arc, but damn near, with that mixture of investigative shenanigans, extreme violence, psychotic villains, thoughtful discussions, and mood whiplash that made Smallville (and Buffy, which it unapologetically copied the format of) such a wonderful family show.
The ghouls rolled forward a step or two, before stopping, eyes dropping downwards. Harry had stepped forward, cutting across Clark, a single-edged sword appearing from nowhere to settle in his right hand, gleaming a strange and ominous reddish-gold in the bar's low lights. Clark would be the first to admit that he didn't know much about swordsmanship, or weapons in general. However, he knew something about tools, especially dangerous ones, and above all else, a sword was a tool. With that in mind, it didn't take much for him to see that this was no ordinary sword, carrying a sharper edge than any knife, axe, or saw Clark had ever seen. Moreover, Harry was handling it with the casual confidence of a master craftsman, familiar with his tools and perfectly comfortable with the prospect of using them. It was that, Clark suspected, more than the blade itself that gave the monsters before them pause.
"I will give you this one chance," Harry said quietly. "Walk away. So far, you have come in peace. Leave the same way and you will live to see another dawn. Leave this place, leave this town, and for safety's sake, the state as well. Do not ask questions. Just turn, and go. I repeat: this is your one and only chance."
The leading ghoul sneered, an expression taken up by the rest. "Give us a chance? You should be the one begging for the chance to leave, boy," he said, words mangled by jutting fangs. "We have fed well today, and we might have let you. But now… you have sealed your fate. You will serve as an adequate reminder to the wizardlings here of the importance of silence. I look forward to it wizard meat tastes so much better than ordinary mortals. It has that juicy flavour of –"
Harry didn't blink. In fact, from what little Clark could see of his face, he didn't even change expression. Instead, his following movements were barely visible to Clark himself, a flickering blur to anyone else. His left hand shot forward, hand extended palm up, before his fingers snapped shut and his hand jerked back towards his chest. As he did, a dozen bolts of flame leapt from the ghouls, surrounding his fist like a white-hot torch. The ghouls, meanwhile, seemed to do… nothing. It was as if they'd just frozen in place.
"What…" Clark began, confused. Then, he took a closer look and did a double-take at the pale glimmer in the firelight. As it turned out, the ghouls had frozen in more than just a metaphorical sense.
"Pyromancy," Harry said calmly. "Fire magic. If you know what you're doing, you can use it for a lot more than just setting things on fire. That, you see, is just adding energy to whatever you want to burn. If you do the opposite – if you take that energy away – then you achieve the opposite result."
"You froze them," Clark said.
"Easiest way to make them stay still," Harry said. "So I can do this." He gestured sharply, and a lash of energy, semi-visible as a ripple in the air, whipped across the room, scything through the ghouls, smashing them to powder.
Clark stared at the shimmering remains, shining glass-like fragments with hints of reddish-black that he uneasily thought might be blood, and found his gorge rising. He retched, hard. Harry's head whipped around, expression one of concern, before softening.
"The bathroom is that way," he said, nodding at a door in the corner. "Leave a door open."
Clark departed as rapidly as he could without shifting into super-speed, noticing as he did the expressions of mingled fear and awe on the faces of everyone else in the bar, save only Coulson. He couldn't blame them, and while even consciously restricting himself he was still pretty damn quick, it was nearly not fast enough for him to reach a toilet bowl before throwing up. This continued for several minutes, until he managed to stand up without his stomach feeling more than a little sour. He washed his face mechanically, and swilled his mouth out to clear the bitter taste, before looking at his reflection in the mirror. His face looked paler, though no longer green, and… haunted. He'd just seen someone who was in many ways so like him – even if he didn't look it right now – casually kill a baker's dozen of people without blinking twice. Okay, maybe they were monsters that just looked like people, and they certainly weren't the first people he'd seen die. But they were the first he'd seen killed. The first he'd seen killed in anything like that kind of way. And more than that, Harry had done it in cold blood. It hadn't even been a fight – he'd more or less just snapped his fingers twice, and in a mere moment thirteen nasty looking monsters had been reduced to little more than frost and crushed ice.
"I'm sorry."
Clark jumped and whirled around to see Harry, still wearing his enchanted disguise. "Sorry?" he echoed.
"That you had to see that," Harry said. "But it was the only way I could do it even close to cleanly: ghouls are tough and they die hard. Other than that, I'd have had to burn them down to the bone, or hack them to pieces to kill them. Not only would that have been messy, it would have risked them hurting everyone else here. Still. It's not a nice thing to see."
"Did you have to kill them?" Clark asked, in a half-whisper.
"Yes," Harry said quietly. "Ghouls…" He sighed. "I don't like saying that anything or anyone is born evil, and they're not exactly my area of expertise. But from what I do know, they're born predators, with insane appetites – they have to eat something like 20 kilos of meat daily. And for whatever reason, they have a particular taste for humans, living or dead. So the inevitable tends to happen."
"They kill people."
"Hunt, kill, and eat," Harry said. "Yes. They tend to hire out as mercenaries for that reason: they kill their enemies, then they dispose of the evidence." He sighed. "Not all of them are necessarily like that. I've heard that some ghouls have arrangements with butchers and slaughterhouses, sometimes even with morgues, to ensure they get what they need without hurting people. Most, though? They don't bother. They don't care." He glanced out the door. "I'm almost certain that these were like that."
"Almost?"
"They could have been driven to it," Harry said. "Or compelled. But I don't see the point. There's not exactly a shortage of the damn things running around." He met Clark's gaze. "In the end, it doesn't matter, Clark. Not in terms of what I had to do. Even if they started out innocent, they'd got a taste for people, became man-eaters, I could see it in their eyes. If I had to guess, I'd say that they were disposing of any corpses this Doctor Reynolds had to deal with. It's probably how he was paying them. Regardless, they were man-eaters. And like all man-eating creatures, they were a danger to everyone around them. They had to be put down."
Clark nodded unhappily, and Harry put a hand on his shoulder.
"It was quick," he said gently. "And painless, painless as I could make it. I doubt they'd have felt a thing."
Clark nodded again. "I just wish," he began, then shook his head.
"Clark?"
"It's silly."
"Let me be the judge of that."
Clark looked up and sighed. "I just wish it didn't have to be that way," he said. "I wish there was another way."
Harry nodded. "I do too," he said. "I really do. I won't deny that I enjoy a good fight, because I do. But I don't enjoy killing, and I hope I never do. There's a few I've wanted to kill, but…" He shook his head. "That's another matter. Anyway, Coulson is doing what he does best, which is organising everyone – mostly to go home, then get out of town for a few days, at least. I doubt that our probable culprit, Doctor Reynolds, has more ghouls on his payroll, but if he's powerful enough to control that many, he could have more tricks up his sleeve. After all, he's managed to cow this lot, trapping and controlling a fair few magically talented and meteor mutated people, some of whom gave you trouble." He smiled a brief, sharp smile. "But if we act now, we have an advantage: surprise."
Clark nodded grimly. "Next stop, Belle Reve," he agreed.
That, naturally, was the point where everything went wrong.
OoOoO
Coulson was not having the best of evenings. In fact, he had not been having the best couple of weeks.
First of all, he'd been having to conduct an investigation that had been hamstrung from the start – no direct support from SHIELD, no way to conveniently contact or investigate the primary victim without drawing unwanted attention to him, and no way to overcome the fears of the only group who might be able to provide some information that only enhanced their natural reticence.
All he'd had to work with was Deputy Director Carter's support and Agent May's assistance in covering for him in his new capacity as Regional Director for the Midwestern United States. While both were deeply formidable women, and in the know (or at least, Carter was, while May had long suspected his involvement in the matter of the so-called 'Lost Omega' and opted to trust his judgement rather than investigating further), they were limited in what they could do without arousing suspicion: Carter had provided every bit of information she could find on those who might be involved and/or might want a piece of Clark Kent (it was a scarily long list), while May had been employing her most effective deflection tactics to hold off importunate politicians, public officials, military personnel, and SHIELD colleagues, allowing him to get to work.
This still meant, however, that he was working without accustomed back-up and resources, and more or less flying blind, while his investigation went nowhere and his risk of discovery increased every day.
Then, he'd had a nasty double surprise. Not only had Clark Kent himself come stumbling into the bar Coulson had been staking out, hoping to pick something up, unaware of the danger he'd been putting himself in, he hadn't come alone. Oh no, he'd brought company, and it wasn't the eternally nosy and deceptively capable Miss Sullivan. While that company had been in disguise, it hadn't been a hard one to pierce. Extremely distinctive emerald green eyes that had swept the room like an experienced SHIELD Agent had aroused his suspicions – there weren't many people that Clark wouldn't know well but would nevertheless trust, and only one had eyes that colour. The choice of equally distinctive dark red hair had confirmed those suspicions. After that, the murmured threats to the bartender that invoked the White Council, and the slightly unsettling and probably accidental resemblance to Natasha had merely been the icing on the cake.
True, Harry's playing bad cop had neatly pried a lot of information out of the bartender, which had been both useful and, he had to admit, rather impressive. He was also a very good hand in a fight, and particularly useful against a mystical threat. Unfortunately, he had also accelerated everyone's timetable, upping the stakes. Equally unfortunately, despite black ops training from the Avengers and Bucky Barnes, and Winter Soldier programming from the Red Room, he had his namesake's proclivity for mass destruction – and on a much grander scale.
However, Coulson had begun to entertain hopes that that training had taken, in terms of things like not turning small towns into craters or, indeed, giant volcanoes. Despite having only arrived in town the previous evening, Harry had earned the trust of the Kent family, stopped an attack on Clark, partially healed him, sketched out a strong theory on how it was being down, along with a stronger perpetrator profile, had extracted a name and a location, and now dealt with thirteen ghouls with the kind of speed and efficiency that would have credited Alan Scott himself, minimising collateral damage.
All in all, Coulson was genuinely impressed. True, the timetable had been accelerated, but the ghouls had been dealt with without getting a chance to warn their boss, who had been smoked out of hiding, and Harry had adapted to the changing situation excellently – and with rather more finesse than his previous ploys. Indeed, Coulson had allowed himself to hope that, as soon as the civilians were removed from the area (and preferably from Smallville, for the time being at least), Doctor Reynolds could be cornered and dealt with.
Unfortunately, as he now realised, one thing about Harry remained entirely unchanged: where he went, chaos followed.
In this case, he had made clear to the uncertain and milling crowd that he was a senior Agent of SHIELD and that they should return home, get their families and essentials, and get out of town for a few days. Some had objected, on the grounds that they had friends and relatives in Belle Reve, though those objections had faded somewhat when Coulson had pointed out that there wasn't really anything they could do to help. More to the point, the Director of Belle Reve was about to have some much bigger problems to worry about, a comment punctuated a pointed look at the melting remains of the ghouls. That would have been the end of it, if the ghouls' remains had, in fact, remained.
Unfortunately, they hadn't. Instead, they had now reformed into six gestalt monsters that were, naturally, at least twice the size of each ghoul. Each was apparently blind, but had no problem picking out targets, baring huge fangs and a second layer of smaller, sharper triangular teeth like those of a shark, long, serpentine tongues tasting the air in anticipation.
The rest was just as horrible: a hunched body with bony protrusions emerging from disturbingly fluid leathery reddish-black flesh, huge claws like serrated kitchen knives in eight-fingered circular hands that tipped six prehensile limbs, all of which quickly demonstrated the ability to rotate in what seemed to be any direction as they tore through the walls of the bar to get at the evacuating (and now panicking). And to make matters worse, each was minimally the size of a silverback gorilla, while one notably larger than the others – that one, Coulson assumed, was a merger of three ghouls rather than two. Even Coulson had to admit that it wasn't something you saw every day.
Even more unfortunately, he hadn't expected serious hostility, so had only brought an ordinary sidearm, rather than one of the prototype Deity class models. In hindsight, that had been a mistake.
There was an upside, however: the creatures – or rather, whoever was now in direct control of them – didn't have access to ghouls' usual pack-hunting instincts, hadn't got used to their new form of locomotion, and, he suspected, hadn't mastered multitasking. Also, bullets stung them enough to distract them. Combined, these factors didn't buy him much more than ten seconds, and normally, those ten seconds would have been a more postponement of the inevitable.
This was not normally.
As one of the ex-ghouls leapt towards a cowering group of slightly magically aware goths, something white-hot and circular shot out through the hole in Spellmans' wall and across the carpark in a blazing streak of light, slicing through the creature's neck like melted butter. A few feet beyond, it stopped in mid-air, a shining bar of energy, before shooting back the way it had come. As it did, a figure dressed in dark clothing, clothing that was rapidly shifting to silvery-white, emerged from the building, pausing for a split-second before sprinting across the carpark in little more than blur, snatching spinning bar of energy – a sword – out of the air with his left hand as he went.
Then, without missing a beat and leading with his right shoulder, he smashed into another ex-ghoul, one of two that was menacing a people-carrier stuffed with customers, with a brutal crunch of impact that was promptly drowned out by the horrendous metallic screech as the charge took the combatants into the side of an empty SUV that crumpled around them like paper. Or rather, it crumpled around the ex-ghoul, as the now-silvery figure spun away, sword slicing up from left ankle to right shoulder in a strike that sounded as if it had not only bisected the monster and the ruined car door behind it, but also burned straight through both of them.
At the same time, as part of the same movement, his right hand snapped up like gun turret, targeting the other the ex-ghoul pair an instant before a coruscating blast of fire leapt from his raised hand. The flames enveloped it entirely with a glass-cracking, deafening roar, lasting for a few long moments, before fading to leave behind nothing more than a small cloud of disturbingly greasy ash.
Three magically amalgamated and enhanced versions of some of the most disgustingly durable magical creatures on Earth, things that had shrugged off heavy calibre pistol bullets like hailstones and which he wouldn't have wanted to face individually without a heavily armed, experienced, and very well-briefed SHIELD tactical team, had been killed right before his eyes. More than that, they had been destroyed: two split in cauterised pieces, the third vaporised, all in the space of five seconds.
And then there was their destroyer. A sleek figure clad in gleaming armour that shone like moonlight and polished bone, with a smooth emerald eyed mask that looked like the skull of an angel. A teenager, armed with nothing but a sword, effectively fighting with one hand tied behind his back. And he didn't have a scratch on him.
It wasn't widely known that Coulson was a Squib, and he preferred it that way. For one thing, it granted him insights and the element of surprise. One of those insights was on just what a properly trained magic user was capable of. The likes of the Death Eaters were demonstration enough of that. Sure, half of them were incompetent thugs, most were effectively amateurs specialising in single combat, and they had had an increasingly ruthless magical government and a powerful counter-terrorist organisation to contend with, as well as occasional interventions from White Council Wardens. Almost all of them, Lucius Malfoy being a notable exception, had arrogantly and spectacularly underestimated the capacity of non-magical people and their technology.
Yet despite those limitations, they had still successfully waged a decade long terrorist campaign, killing and maiming almost at will. And their power had only been growing, until it was broken by the events at Godric's Hollow. Now that technology (and, Coulson suspected, a vengeful Loki) had caught up, they were a limited concern. They were, after all, vastly decreased in number, discarded by their original leader and his second-in-command, and the remainder were mostly detained and demoralised. But as Coulson, thanks to his personal and professional backgrounds knew better than most, it was like dealing with a caged tiger. You might have it locked up, it might not have two brain cells to rub together, and in many respects, it might be at your mercy. But you couldn't for a single moment let your guard down, because if you did, it could very easily be the last mistake you would ever make.
Watching Harry was not like that. Even the metaphorical tiger would have balked or fallen to these creatures. Nor was it, to expand on his previous tiger-in-a-cage metaphor, even like watching a dragon, a basilisk, a kraken, or some other magical apex predator disposing of an arrogant and foolish challenger. It wasn't even like watching a trained super-agent, which Harry had up to this point resembled. But he wasn't. He was an Asgardian demigod of blood royal, a psychic with few peers, and even contained and controlled, his wrath was like watching a natural disaster unfold before Coulson's eyes. A hurricane, or a firestorm perhaps, something vast and inexorable that tore through anything in its way and left devastation in its wake, and the most you could hope for was to hunker down and pray that it would spare you as it passed by.
It was beautiful. It was extraordinary. And on a very fundamental level, it was absolutely terrifying.
However, Coulson had not got as far as he had (or survived as long as he had, for that matter) by getting so easily distracted. He had a job to do.
"Harry!" he said, pitching his voice to carry. The silver masked head turned to him, and Coulson added, "Three more!" and raised three fingers for emphasis, before settling back into a guard position, checking his phone. Most of the civilian vehicles were going or gone, and Lola's scanners were picking up two abnormal heat signatures nearby.
Harry nodded, gaze sweeping across the snowy vista, before stopping with predatory focus. Then, instead of the swift, vicious, head-on attack Coulson was expecting, he levelled his sword and sighted down it. For an instant, nothing happened, before suddenly a beam of white light roughly as wide as a beer bottle shot out from the tip of the blade, slicing straight through two stationary cars, a pay-phone, and, it transpired, the forehead of one of the three remaining ex-ghouls. A slight flick of the wrist downwards, and the monster was neatly sliced in half.
At the moment, the other creature – the biggest of them all – seemed to have realised that it wasn't safe hiding in the darkness. Instead, it opted to try and overwhelm Harry with speed and ferocity, bursting out of the woods in a four-legged simian gait like some monstrous gorilla, moving fast enough to break most speed limits, smashing through one of the cars in its way like it was made of paper. Harry, though, was not fazed. Instead, with another light twitch of the wrist, he switched his sword to his left hand, before palming and flicking something small and shiny into the air.
As it went up, his right arm extended, straight as an arrow, and bluish-white energy crackled around it, like lightning, and every hair on Coulson's body stood on end as the entire carpark began to hum with power. Very sensibly, Coulson closed his eyes and covered his ears. Just as he did, he saw the object, a coin, fall into the embrace of the crackling lightning. What happened next was… spectacular. Even with those precautions, the resultant flash was almost blinding, the thunderclap near deafening.
When he opened his eyes again, Harry was sitting on his backside, in an attitude that could best be described as dazed surprise – he clearly hadn't expected that big a reaction – the car alarms on every vehicle within half a mile were wailing, and there was very little left of the giant former ghoul.
After a moment, Harry shook himself, then flipped himself to his feet as if he was wearing silk rather than what looked like an Asgard influenced version of one of Tony Stark's suits of armour. "You okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," Coulson said, and quickly consulted his phone. No abnormal heat-signature. "There's one left, but I don't know where it is."
Harry's gaze visibly swept the area in a full three hundred and sixty degree arc, before he swore viciously in Russian. "It's gone," he said, sounding furious – at the ghoul and more worryingly, at himself. "And so is Clark."
Coulson checked his phone and grimaced – still no other heat signatures. He briefly considered the possibility that Clark had gone chasing after it, but dismissed it as unlikely. The other possibility seemed, on the face of it, equally unlikely. "I can't see one of the smaller ones overwhelming him," he said. "Not by a long shot. Giving him a few bruises, maybe, but nothing more. Worst came to the worst, he could easily outrun it. How did it bring him down?"
That got him a look that, even though it came through a blank mask, both asked questions of exactly how he knew that and communicated awareness of (and displeasure at) the likely means. It also – Harry, it seemed, was a very expressive person, even silent and wearing a suit of armour – communicated that this was a waste of time.
Coulson ignored the first two parts, and shot Harry a stern look regarding the third. "The means matter," he said. "It'll shape your rescue plan. If there are hostages, or reinforcements, you'll have to account for them too."
That got a sour sounding noise, then a terse comment of, "there weren't any reinforcements."
Coulson nodded, trusting the combination of Harry's widely attested array of senses and the Stark-tech in the suit, and thought the scenario through. "Hostages are unlikely – I kept track of everyone in the bar and they all got out," he said. "In large part, thanks to you. That suggests he was subdued either with magic or meteor rock, or some combination of the two."
That earned him a definite look, before Harry looked down, arms folded, as if thinking furiously. He also seemed to be muttering imprecations at Doctor Strange for restricting his telepathy – which, incidentally, explained a few things that Coulson had been wondering about.
"Those things were near-mindless," Harry said after a moment. "No tactical ability. They were being controlled by the wizard behind this. Who –" He slid a look after at Coulson and cut himself off. Clearly, Coulson thought, he had picked up Natasha's reticence, if not quite her deftness and forethought. Not yet, anyway. "Magic's most likely," he concluded, and half crouched, the way Thor and either Iron Man or War Machine often did when they were about to take off.
"Wait," Coulson said, looking at the new message on his phone. He typed out a brief reply, ending in a request, as Harry stopped, glanced down the road at oncoming police vehicles, and levelled a look at him that, despite the lack of expression, was definitely a glare. Coulson could actually feel the air between them heating up.
"I am not leaving Clark in trouble to waste my time repeatedly explaining what happened here, or making up plausible lies," he said ominously.
"I wasn't suggesting that," Coulson said. "I'll handle the cops. Find Clark, but follow from a distance. Don't tip your hand until you have to." He held up his phone. "A source just tipped me off: Miss Sullivan and the younger Mr Luthor must have put it together on their own, because they bluffed their way into Belle Reve. Other forces tried to kidnap the Kent family, and were thwarted." At the unspoken question, he added, "I'm not the only SHIELD Agent in town, and we've been keeping an eye on the Kents for a while. Anyway, Miss Sullivan and Mr Luthor are now prisoners – alive, but if you kill this last creature –"
Harry nodded curtly. "He'll use them as leverage," he said. "Or worse. I understand." He crouched again, then paused, and added a little more softly, "thank you, Agent Coulson."
"You're –" Coulson began, before Harry immediately took off, a silver streak that vanished into the snowy night skies. Intriguingly, he had decided to forego the use of repulsors. "Welcome," he finished, a little lamely.
"Mister Coulson?" a new voice said, and while Coulson couldn't see who it was, and hadn't met its owner, he could put together a profile in an instant. It was the voice of an irritable middle-aged female law enforcement officer with a Kansas accent who is having a bad evening and doesn't anticipate it getting any better. It was technically a question, but the tone said otherwise.
Coulson turned, putting on his best talking-to-irritated-civilian-authority-figures smile as he did, to see a woman who fit that profile quite neatly and was doing her best to glare a hole straight through him. His memory flipped a card. "Agent Coulson, actually, Sheriff Adams," he said. "Technically it's Regional Director Coulson, but that's a bit clunky. How can I help you?"
"By explaining all of this," she said, sweeping an arm out, including the carpark, Spellmans' bar, and the associated destruction. "Including why a small convoy of cars and trucks was getting out of here like their asses were on fire, how Spellmans' bar got blown up, and just what the hell was that thing you were just talking to?!"
At this last, she jabbed a finger upwards, roughly in the direction Harry had gone. Coulson politely followed her finger, considered the 'thing? What thing?' approach for a moment, before deciding it was implausible. Instead, he settled on a much edited version of the truth.
"That was an Agent of SHIELD, Sheriff," he said smoothly. "On loan from our Special Agent Division. My department is a little short staffed at the moment, so I was personally running an investigation into certain events going on in Smallville. I suspected the situation was about to escalate, so I called in a favour." He gestured. "As you can see, the situation has escalated. It is set to escalate further, so I've called in back-up, while my colleague has gone to scout ahead."
Adams raised the cynical eyebrow of a veteran cop who knew the smell of bullshit. Coulson didn't particular care. What he cared about was resolving this as quickly as possible, so as to get on with more important matters.
"And your colleague's name?" she asked.
"Classified," Coulson lied blandly. "For the sake of convenience, you can use his official callsign."
"Which would be?"
Coulson smiled a bland, official smile, concealing the grin that was threatening to spread across his face. It was a little inappropriate, perhaps, but on nights like this, you had to take your amusement where you could.
"Galahad," he said.
OoOoO
To say that Harry was in a bad mood would be incorrect. Rather, he had been in a bad mood, had swiftly progressed to foul, and was now well into foul and showed no signs of slowing down. With his flight now second nature and the suit's inbuilt scanners following the transmuted ghoul and Clark, his mind bubbled and boiled as he sliced through the upper skies like a razor through silk.
Unfortunately, his immediate conclusions were not that useful. Namely, that this was how it must have felt for his family and friends whenever he'd run off without back-up or been snatched by some villain or another, and that he probably owed some apologies as a result. They certainly didn't improve his mood.
What did, however, was the fact that his armour's scanners had picked up the former ghoul and the unconscious Clark, the view zooming in a mere instant after he thought it, close enough that he could just about pick out the fact that Clark was breathing in the slow rhythm of the utterly dead to the world. To say that Tony's technology was intuitive wouldn't be doing it justice, not by a long shot. It also mapped the route that creature was taking as it bounded through the snow, going over obstacles rather than around them at any given opportunity – straight to Belle Reve.
Harry checked the strand of Clark's hair he'd snagged from a hairbrush earlier – a 'just in case' method of tracking if the two got separated. Not only was it still where he'd left it, it confirmed that what he was seeing was accurate (because no technology was perfect, especially when magic was involved): Clark was about four thousand feet below him, and he was alive, if not particularly well.
This left Harry with a not-so-small conundrum. Did he stay and make sure Clark was brought in, then go and rescue Lex and Chloe Sullivan, or did he go on ahead, do that, get them out, then wait for (an unconscious and likely immobile for the time being) Clark to be brought in? Stick or twist?
Harry mulled this over, made up his mind, and cursed as he swooped up towards the clouds, angling his flight path over the unsettlingly innocuous looking Belle Reve and reaching for something he hadn't expected to have to use, but which Bucky had made very clear he should have on him in future. Yes. He definitely owed some apologies.
OoOoO
"So. How screwed are we?" Chloe asked glumly. Standing – or rather, pacing nervously – in an anaemically designed grey cell that would be small for one person, in an even more anemically designed (and ominously empty) grey detention wing, had done a lot to contribute to her mood. The bruises and spots of blood on her scalp where hair had been torn out by main force also didn't help.
"Depends," Lex said, with almost disturbing calmness, despite his own significantly more comprehensive bruising, standing out against unhealthily pale skin, and the rough bandage on his arm where a significant amount blood had been taken. "On the one hand, Doctor Reynolds and his merry men and women can't just let us go. We know too much. On the other hand, they also can't just keep us or dispose of us – even if I haven't put in place any contingency measures for this precise circumstance, my disappearance, at least, will be noticed. It'll draw the attention of far too many powerful people, ones who can make Reynolds' life very difficult."
"But mine can't," Chloe said, almost perversely irritated.
Lex eyed her from where he was leaning against the wall of their cell, and she sighed.
"No, it can't," she said. "Like everything else, hostage value isn't so much down to what you know, but who you know. Or who knows you."
"Well, that is what makes hostages valuable in the first place," Lex pointed out.
Chloe sighed again. "True," she said, and smiled a tentative half-smile. "I was hoping that my investigative journalism would mean I was more appreciated."
"No one appreciates hard work any more," Lex agreed philosophically.
There was a moment of silence, then the two met each other's eyes and burst into slightly hysterical laughter.
"God, we're going to die, aren't we?" Chloe said, tone carrying a despairing edge. "Maybe not you, but I am."
"If you're lucky," Lex said darkly. "They've definitely got something worse than death lined up for me." When Chloe shot him a puzzled look, he smiled a crooked smile. "Come on, Chloe: why waste a potentially valuable asset, when you can control them instead?"
Chloe thought back to some of the things she'd learned about thaumaturgy, what it could be used for – what Doctor Reynolds could, and had, used it for. She shivered. "Good point," she said, and shook her head. "Why did we come here, Lex?"
"Because you're idiots."
Both of them started violently as the irritable, British accented voice emanated from five feet in from the cell, apparently coming from empty air. Any remaining doubts vanished as two silver-white gauntleted hands emerged and reached up, flipping down a hood, to reveal a scowling figure with red hair and altered features, but Harry's unmistakable emerald green eyes. He gestured sharply, and the glass door vanished.
"Come on," he said. "We don't have much time."
"Harry?" Chloe asked carefully, as she cautiously stepped out of the cell, as if expecting an attack at any moment.
"Nice disguise," Lex said, unfazed, standing up with only a couple of winces. "Magic?"
"Yes," Harry said curtly.
"And you used Jean's hair as a basis."
"Obviously."
"Nice," Lex said, cracking his back and grimacing. "I'm guessing you hacked security?"
"Yes," Harry said, whirling on the spot, the cloak flickering to reveal glimpses of shining armour, which remarkably didn't make any sound against the floor as he strode away. Sensibly, Chloe and Lex followed him, both having to scurry to match his pace – these days, Harry had increasingly long legs, and he moved fast, especially when he was in a bad mood.
"Wait," Chloe said, in a low voice just above a whisper. "Won't anybody notice us? I mean, see us? Even if you've hacked the camera, there are still people. And the building…"
She shivered. There was something decidedly creepy about Belle Reve. The upper layers weren't too bad, the ones viewable by the public, which Lex had bluffed the two of them into. But as you got further down, it got stranger, more disturbing. Doors and corridors that appeared and disappeared the moment you looked away from them, lights that flickered, casting shadows that seemed deeper than any should naturally be, and sometimes… well, she wasn't one to jump at shadows, so to speak, but when she looked at the walls, in the moments between the blink of an eye. Any one, under any different circumstance, she could have dismissed. But taken together? Something was definitely off.
Harry shot her a look that was initially searching, then moderately sympathetic. "You noticed," he said. It wasn't a question.
Chloe nodded, subdued.
"Noticed what?" Lex asked, a little wary.
"You were a little out of it when they brought us down here," Chloe explained. "But…"
"Buildings develop a residue," Harry said. "Depending on what goes on inside them. Everyone can sense it, even if they don't realise it. You go to a good place, where happy things have happened, it's more comforting than the opposite, and somewhere that's just empty, just dead, that's disturbing. It's the difference between a house and a home, why homes have thresholds that keep things like vampires out. And that's just with ordinary people, doing ordinary things."
"So if you use magic in a specific place," Lex began.
"It'll get fairly magical itself, yes," Harry said grimly, taking a sharp left turn. "This is one of the less pleasant examples. There's been a lot of magic used here, used to cause pain, suffering, and death. Dark magic, in other words, and a lot of the time, it's been used on people who had some talent to begin with. That'll increase the impact. It's also got a fair few enchantments, wards, ones sunk into the very stones of this place. Most are just designed to obscure any attempts at getting a good look at the place, dull the minds of anyone unprotected, keep them docile, that sort of thing, but it's cumulative. I wouldn't be surprised if this place had generated a few ghosts, too. Not very strong ones, of course, but sunk into the very foundations of the buildings. Enough to have a certain effect. That's why this place is… hostile."
"Wait, it's sentient?" Chloe squeaked, then her eyes widened as the doors at both ends of the corridor they had just entered vanished, before and behind them. The ones on either side of them vanished as well, slowly, deliberately, one after the other. Then, the corridor started shrinking, shapes pressing up against grey concrete like faces against a sheet. "Harry?"
"Relax," Harry said, and rolled his eyes. "Really," he said, pitching his voice to carry, as if he was talking to the building itself, tone contemptuous. "Am I actually supposed to be impressed? I was dealing with scarier than you when I was eleven." With that, he twisted his wrist, baring his right hand, and slammed it into the wall where a door had been, reaching in and twisting.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, for another second, everything happened.
As Chloe would later recall, it was like they were simultaneously in the shrinking corridor, and outside it, in a newer corridor several floors up, surrounded by six very surprised security staff, having stepped out of what looked very much like a supply cupboard.
Each member of security looked like a defensive tackle who'd recently been fired from an NFL team of your choice for steroid abuse, was armed with weighted batons that also delivered a powerful electrical charge, and were capable of working as a team to subdue even fairly powerful meteor mutants. They had Harry, Lex, and Chloe – the latter two of whom were injured, unarmed, and untrained – surrounded, with no real room for manoeuvre.
It wasn't a fair fight.
Within two and a half seconds, an unscathed Harry was inspecting the last guard's baton with an expression of mild curiosity, before tossing it over his shoulder. This would be remarkable enough, if it wasn't for the fact that with a few conductor-like gestures of his other hand, he was levitating the bound, gagged, and thoroughly unconscious goons to the ceiling, which they promptly stuck to like they'd been glued there.
"I'm beginning to see how you got in and got us, all by yourself," Lex managed, before his gaze settled on the cloak around Harry's shoulders. "Even without considering that invisibility cloak."
"It comes in useful from time to time," Harry agreed. "Though I was breaking into places more challenging than this when I was eleven."
"Such as?" Chloe asked, casting wary looks at the supply cupboard, which they'd emerged from, as if expecting to see the corridor/some eldritch horror emerge from it.
"My school basement," Harry said casually. "Well, part of it." He then added, without turning around. "Don't worry, this place won't cause any trouble." He patted the wall. Chloe could have sworn that for an instant, it seemed to shiver like a nervous and recently tamed horse. "I showed it who was boss. It'll do as it's told."
"Right," Chloe said slowly. "God, this is weird."
"Trust me," Lex said dryly. "If half the stories I've heard from his girlfriend are true, this is nothing."
"I wouldn't say that it's nothing," Harry disagreed absently, slowly spinning on the spot, as if orienting himself. His helmet had come back up, expression now masked. "Tuesday, possibly. But not nothing."
Chloe stared at him, and shook her head. "Well it might be Tuesday for you, but it isn't for us," she said, a bit of steel in her voice. "And speaking of 'us', where's Clark?"
"About to arrive," Harry said, still slowly revolving on the spot. "We found out about Doctor Reynolds and this place, were attacked at the bar, I disposed of our attackers – twice – except for one who kidnapped Clark, and is bringing him here. I was following him, picking my moment." He shot the two of them a pointed look. "Until I got side-tracked by you two. Who went in. Without back-up." His gaze shifted solely to Lex, and got decidedly less amused. "One of whom, naming no names, Lex, should know better."
"It was what journalists call a hot lead, and you were occupied," Lex said, unrepentant. "It was also a calculated risk – I put contingency measures in place, including an automatic message to Avengers Mansion and certain informed SHIELD operatives with what we already knew if I did not cancel it in time. We had no way of knowing anyone at the bar would talk, and if we timed it right, we could get important information without your cover being blown."
"But you didn't," Harry said pointedly, and stopped suddenly, looking down the corridor.
"Actually, we did," Chloe said. "Also, what are you doing?"
"Finding you a way out," Harry said, as if half-listening. "Which is down that way, last door on the right, up two flights of stairs, and out. Lex, I know you can hotwire a car, Carol told me. Take one of the biggest ones, and go, straight through the gate. Agent Coulson of SHIELD will meet you on the way out, I've told him you're coming. You should –" He paused. "What information?"
"Lex distracted 'Doctor Reynolds' – which isn't his real name, by the way – and I managed to get into his office," Chloe said, and took a deep breath. "I saw… a lot. Like, what he did to Clark, how he did it, and what he's up to. Maybe who's supporting him, too, but I didn't really get a clear idea of that – his notes were pretty obscure and I got caught."
Harry opened his mouth, then stopped, expression one of someone thinking very hard. "Chloe, I need this information quickly, and completely, every little bit could be crucial," he said in a low voice. "The best way would be if you shared the memory with me – my psychic powers still work on contact. I wouldn't look at anything else, I swear by everything and everyone I hold dear. But it's your mind, and I won't do anything without your consent. Even a summary could be incredibly valuable, something I could work with."
Chloe hesitated for a long, long moment. "How long will it take?" she asked.
"It might seem like a while, but only a second, if that."
Chloe nodded. "I'll do it. For Clark."
Harry met her gaze. "Thank you," he said quietly.
"Is there anything I need to do?"
"Focus on the memory," Harry said. "Then relax."
Chloe took a deep breath and nodded again. "Right. Relax," she said, as Harry raised his bared hands, pressing his index and middle fingers to her temples.
"Contact," he said.
OoOoO
Approximately two hours ago
Chloe slipped into the office and carefully shut the door behind her, looking around as she did. While Harry and Clark had gone back to the Kent farm to prepare for their undercover mission at Spellmans' bar, she had continued researching with Lex. At the same time, she'd maintained a chat window with Mr Knight – who, following Harry's explanation of just how he'd have to have acquired his extensive knowledge of certain kinds of magic, presented an intriguing mystery – and Oracle, who had smelled a rat after her latest questions and correctly deduced that she was Up To Something.
Between the three of them and Lex, they'd managed to discover a number of things.
Firstly, Belle Reve was owned by Luthorcorp, through several dummy corporations.
Secondly, there was a significant discrepancy between the official blueprints and the Google Earth satellite images, the latter showing a much larger and more fortified complex.
Thirdly, it was drawing on far more power than a sanitarium of its supposed size should need, but far less than one of its actual size that was also serving as a de facto prison for multiple powerful superhumans should require (going by a mixture of government superhuman containment proposals Oracle had found, and estimates provided by Mr Knight for the kind of power-requirements to maintain containment).
Fourth and finally, there was a significant irregularity in personnel. Specifically, its Director, Doctor Robert Reynolds: while he might have had a doctorate (several, in fact), his real name was not Robert Reynolds. It was just one of several pseudonyms he'd used: Raymond Jensen, Alexander Allston, Cornelius Worth, and Rudolph Jones. This last seemed to be his real name, though someone, probably answering to the name of Lionel Luthor (or paid by someone answering to Lionel Luthor) had gone to some trouble to obscure this and Reynolds' past.
Surprisingly, the reasons for this were not some dark past in the sense of, say, rampant human experimentation or the usual signs of dark magic. Rather, they were persistent attempts to continue working in academia after he'd published some controversial theories about the intersection of science and magic – with, of course, the fundamental assumption that magic was real and quantifiable – in a modernised form of alchemy. The primary application of those theories had been in the medical sphere, with 'booster shots' of magic being used to help patients overcome serious, even potentially terminal, viral and bacterial infections, and to improve or accelerate the healing process.
Put it the right way and that might fly today, Mr Knight had said. But this was twenty years ago: he was laughed out of academia, the same way Daniel Jackson was. He lost his job, even lost his medical license – he's still a PhD, but he's no longer an MD. He kept repeating the same pattern until around five years ago, under different names, trying to get funding. He wasn't very good at concealing who he was, though, because just changing your name isn't enough.
That's probably why SHIELD or someone like that didn't recruit him, Oracle observed. Couldn't keep his head down. He doesn't just want to know he's right, he wants it to be known that he was right. Also, the history of alcoholism probably didn't help.
Torch, if Reynolds/whoever really is into dark magic, steer clear, Mr Knight had then added. It's out of your league.
Chloe had glared at the screen for several moments, then shook her head. "Yeah, like every other meteor f – crazy meteor mutant Smallville," she'd said, and tapped out a reply.
Relax, guys. I can handle myself.
Not against this.
Chloe had ignored him, with thoughts to the effect of 'what does he know?' Instead, she'd quickly googled Daniel Jackson (who, unlike Reynolds, had apparently accepted his academic exile, being sober, sane, and currently quietly working as a translator for the UN) and marked his theories about a real Tower of Babel and at least two ancient global empires, one ruled from an obscure Ancient Egyptian site called Akkaba, for later perusal. She had then followed everything else up and confirmed it. Doctor Reynolds was their man, and Belle Reve was their place.
Unfortunately, as both of them were acutely aware, Doctor Reynolds had a magical connection to Clark, and Mr Knight and Harry had both been fairly graphic in what could be done with such a connection. While Harry could stop an attack on Clark if he caught it while it was in progress, Chloe could see what these attacks had been doing to Clark – he was fine, mostly, during the day, but the key word was 'mostly'. For starters, that 'fine' would only last so long as Reynolds didn't get too greedy and/or desperate, and going by Harry's descriptions of the effects of dark magic on the mind, she wasn't too hopeful of that lasting.
Lex had concurred, and suggested a strategy that was both bold and possibly kind of crazy: namely, they stroll right up to the front gate, and Lex would bluff their way in by saying that he was acting on his father's behalf and performing a discreet inspection.
"That was part of why my father sent to Smallville, specifically, in the first place," he'd explained smoothly when they'd met Reynolds, a tall, vigorous man with long features and long blond hair who most certainly did not look like he was in his late forties.
"To stand and look over my shoulder?" Reynolds had demanded, suspicious and resentful.
"If he wanted me to do that, I'd have been in and out of this place from the start," Lex had said soothingly, shaking his head. "All dad wants is a quick inspection and progress update, that's all. This is very important to him – I'm the only person he trusts other than himself to do this. However, if he came down here all of a sudden, it would draw… unwanted attention, shall we say. But since I'm already in Smallville and have been for some time, and I have a history with meteor mutants, then it's perfectly reasonable that I might want to, oh, pay a visit. If anyone asks, you can honestly say that I was indulging a personal interest giving the heroic efforts of Belle Reve and its staff in containing and rehabilitating these unstable and unwillingly enhanced individuals the recognition that they deserve."
Reynolds had stared at him for a long moment, dark eyes unreadable, before he'd smiled slightly. "And who's this?" he'd asked.
"An intern," Lex had said casually. "I took her on as a favour to her father, an employee of mine. Mostly she's around for taking notes and coffee orders, though she might have potential as a researcher. She's got enough interest in these freaks." He shrugged. "Plus, a lot of these incidents have taken place around Smallville High, so an account of what's been going on, along with an on the ground insight into current reactions to the situation is useful."
Reynolds had apparently accepted this and thereafter ignored her, hardly even seeming to notice when she'd begged off for a bathroom visit. Lex had helped by rolling his eyes a little theatrically at Reynolds, as if a little irritated at both the interruption and the fact that this was happening again.
As it happened, she'd found Reynolds' office with minimal difficulty – the blueprints were broadly accurate for the core of the sanitarium, which included the administration levels. Looking around, initially, they weren't anything out of the ordinary. The oddities, though, soon became apparent.
The pleasantly bland blue carpet, which she flicked up to check for alarms or hidden storage, turned out to be concealing an intricately designed multi-layered circle made of braided steel, copper, and what might well have been silver and gold, with a whole arrangement of symbols that were variously vaguely familiar to Chloe from some of the more occult things her correspondents shared with her, and esoteric gibberish, though she figured that they had to mean something.
The desk initially seemed to be fairly normal, a large and well-made mahogany contruction with deep green leather, with a curiously underused looking computer on top of it. While her normal instinct would have been to hack away and have at it, she was acutely aware that she didn't have much time to work with. Besides, if what everyone had said about magic was right, Reynolds would be keeping the important stuff low tech. Accordingly, she searched the desk itself.
The half-empty bottle of Scotch in the middle left-hand drawer, placed for ease of access, wasn't much of a surprise either. However, there was a very faint smell of burnt… well, she wasn't sure, but it smelled familiar. It was hanging around the desk. Some furtive searching first turned up a large ringbinder file, full of plastic sleeves.
Each plastic sleeve contained a picture of an individual, a brief profile giving their name, their date of birth, their abilities, and a few locks of hair, carefully contained in a taped down Ziploc bag. Next to the bag was a note, stating one of two things: 'Independent' or 'Contained'. Or rather, she thought as a chill ran down her spine, three. Because under a smiling picture of her best friend were the cold, bloodless words 'Still In Use'.
As she saw them, a million things fell into place at once; why Clark had always been cautious, why he was so wary about his secret, why he'd been frightened about it being found out... and what it must have taken for him to have summoned up the courage to admit them to her when they were trapped in the burning school on Red Sky Day. Well, okay, he hadn't actually gone through with it, but that was only because someone else – someone who both Clark and Harry had been somewhat circumspect about, but had indicated was a mutual friend – had intervened. Now, she really, truly understood why.
Putting this aside, she hesitated, inwardly debating what to do. Then, as quickly as she could, she clicked open the binder, swept the sheets out and into her bag, before slipping it back in. For a moment, she thought she saw something gleam in the drawer, but after a moment of waiting, dismissed it and resumed her search.
After another three nerve-wracking minutes, she found a small recess under the front of the desk, where the middle front drawer would be. Carefully feeling her way around it, she managed to loosen it, then press. As she did, the leather covered top of the desk slid away to reveal a notebook and… well, honestly, she wasn't sure what it was, as the smooth hydraulics raised it from perfectly horizontal to perfectly vertical in a matter of moments.
The base seemed to be technological, with what Chloe's Torch derived experience of electronics told her was some seriously heavy-duty top of the line wiring, the sort designed to carry mains power to large public buildings, like hospitals – the sort of places where you couldn't afford to have a fuse blow.
What was on top, though, was a little more nebulous were connected to a line of intricate, crystalline bottles. Storage, maybe? But that didn't tally with the wiring. Or maybe it did. Maybe it was temporary storage, with the relevant energy set to be channelled into the wiring once they were filled up.
Or at least, she thought, they had until recently: several of the bottles were little more than tips of broken glass at the top and bottom, while the others were all cracked in several places. Moreover, she'd found the source of the smell – some of the wire, the parts connecting to the heavy-duty power cords had burnt out.
And, as it happened, so had the centre-piece; small portrait pictures of Reynolds (looking rather more middle aged than he did now) and a smiling Clark, presumably in a yearbook photo, both with the burnt remains of silvery-grey cord that had connected them, and sad tufts of what Chloe recognised as burnt hair. Below it glimmered fragments of green dust that had almost certainly been inset meteor rock. Clearly this was the centre-piece of whatever ritual he'd been using against Clark. It was just as clear that when Harry had intervened on Clark's behalf last night, he had done a good deal more than just stop Reynolds' attack.
Chloe then opened the notebook, and skimmed the first few pages. A diary, by the looks of it, albeit interspersed with what looked like either scientific or magical formulae (or perhaps some warped combination of the two, like the shrine thing it had been next to). A few phrases leapt out at her. The first was optimistic, even triumphant:
'This is the answer to my prayers, I am sure of it: a proper facility, discretion to pursue my studies, and a backer who believes, truly believes, in my work. All he asks is to use my talents and my theories to bolster security here, to contain those who have already misused their powers. I am hesitant, but his logic is sound – his employees are already risking a lot and all those incarcerated are here for good reason. It allows me to make the workplace safer and immediately prove my utility to Lionel. Perhaps it will even help cure these poor creatures of their afflictions. This my reward, I certain. All I have endured has come to this.'
A few pages later, the tone was downright exultant, neat writing occasionally spiking with tangible excitement:
'The magic is coming more easily now. Before, my talent was a minor one, but now, having rectified a flaw in the process…' There was something unclear here, scribbled out. 'With my spirit and body reinforced, I can bear more, far more. Its hunger is easily sated, its will is subordinate to my own. Now, laying down binding and draining spells on new prisoners is easier than ever before. Once, I could improve two cells a day, if that. Now, I can do a dozen in a morning, easily! Every day, I feel stronger, more vital – why, I think I'm even starting to look younger!
The spells are more efficient, too, more controlled. One or two failures… well, regrettable, and I wish it had been another way. But what's done is done, and their sacrifice has taught me much. White Council wouldn't like my work, I dare say, but what do they know? When have they ever turned their hands to anything truly useful? I am the equal of any of them for power, while the knowledge I have, the uses I put it to, go far beyond anything any of them ever imagined. They have squandered their talents – if I can do this alone, then surely they could have done the same, on a far grander scale. Why, they could have bound the gods themselves! Belle Reve will be the forerunner of great things, a model for the future, and I will be there to see them come to be.'
A few more pages later, though, the writing was slower, more ragged, matching the tone:
'Lionel is demanding his price. I should have realised this was coming. I thought he was a patron, a fellow visionary, but he is a businessman, nothing more. He sees Belle Reve, he sees me, as an investment. He wants soldiers, power, or both – controlled soldiers to sell, or power, powers even, to make a new kind of super soldier. Belle Reve is a model; a prison for empowered criminals, for anyone with power, draining them into submission and selling the power to the highest bidder. As if power, true power, can be traded. He does not know what he is dealing with, who he is dealing with. He thinks I am stupid, a blind fool who will stumble to his doom, who he can destroy or discard. He doesn't know me, or understand my work, or understand anything! Least of all this power… this power I have found. It is a source unlike any other, like a living ley line convergence, a fountain of raw power! And hardly touched. So what if it comes from another? It is being wasted, the same way Lionel would waste my work, my power, because it is MINE! I have worked for it, I understand it, I NEED IT! And I shall have no matter who stands in my way!'
"Harry wasn't kidding about black magic," she muttered. "The lunatic's running the asylum." Still, it was potentially useful, as evidence if nothing else… but it would be noticed if it went missing. That was a problem that could be solved fairly easily.
It was, after all, quite small and only partly used (Reynolds had very small, very precise printed handwriting), making it easy for her to rip out the couple of dozen pages that had been used so far and stuffing them away for safe keeping, before putting it back exactly as she had found it, carefully folding it and the ritual thing – shrine, maybe? She'd have to ask about the precise term – down again until it clicked back into place, sliding the top of the desk over it.
All done in less than ten minutes; easy to pass off as a bathroom break she thought as she strode towards the door, nervous excitement peaking into triumph.
That, naturally, was when everything went wrong, the door opening so fast it would have knocked her flat if it had made contact rather than hissing past her face in a blur, slamming into the wall. Or done worse, a small part of her thought, noticing the sudden cracks in plaster following the impact. The force behind that was in no way human.
The person behind that force, Doctor Reynolds, the man with more names than sanity, owner of the office, and wearer of a downright murderous expression was standing in the doorway. A mere instant later, he'd stormed into the office, snatching her up by the throat before hurling her to the ground.
"Another Luthor," he spat, eyes bulging with unhinged fury, skin pulled taut on his face as it contorted with rage. "Another thief with creeping, crawling servants, trying to steal what is mine! Mine, mine, mine!" His head snapped round, just a little bit too far beyond normal, and Chloe, still on the floor as she tried to catch her breath, saw a battered and wincing Lex being held by two burly, stone-faced guards.
"I got lost, that's all, I swear," Chloe managed, gasping for air. "I couldn't find the bathroom… so I thought I'd try to find you guys… but I got lost again… so I asked around for you office, because I –"
All the breath was knocked out of her again, this time in a wheezy scream as Reynolds brutally kicked her in the side, around her kidneys.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" he screamed, sounding utterly crazed, as Chloe curled in on herself, weeping with pain. The façade of sanity he'd worn when he'd met them was long gone. Or at least, fragmented, as he visibly drew himself together. But what replaced the unhinged screams was not sanity, as such. Instead, it was a colder form of insanity, hard as ice in the depths of winter and shot through with cracks like a broken mirror. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vaguely humanoid doll of pale clay. "You see this?" he asked, sounding almost sane, almost reasonable.
Chloe looked up through watering eyes, and reasoning that a 'no' would lead to more pain, nodded. As she did, she noticed a reddish smear on the doll.
"This is your master," he said. He pressed his thumb against its stomach, nail digging in. As he did, Lex doubled over and groaned in a fashion that suggested a suppressed scream. "Whatever I do to it, I do to him," Reynolds continued. His free hand dipped into his pocket. "This one –" He stopped, frowning, hand jerking around in his pocket as he searched it in vain. Eventually, he removed it, looking half puzzled, half angry, expression see-sawing between the two for a moment, before ultimately settling on puzzled. Then, he shrugged. "I must have misplaced it," he said. "No matter. You're just a tool, and the time has come. Even if you'd destroyed…" His gaze fell on her bag, sharpening. "Or stolen everything of mine, it wouldn't matter. I have extracted all I can from here. I know all I need to. Your meddling has accelerated my timetable, but it doesn't matter. Whatever guardian you summoned up last night won't matter, because I have the power now. And after tonight, I will always have it."
Dark energy, dark enough that it seemed to absorb light rather than contrast with it, with only a thin rim of white around its edge, crackled around his doll holding hand, drawing a muffled scream from Lex. Reynolds either hadn't intended this or didn't care, ignoring it as he hunkered down in front of Chloe, his eyes now solid black from iris to sclera. Chloe saw her expression of fear and horror reflected in those eyes, but it wasn't from what he assumed, from what might happen to her – it was what she thought, no, what she knew, was going to happen to Clark.
"I could kill you," he said softly. "I should. You and your Luthor master. But I won't. Not just because I doubt you'll survive what follows, but because you, and him, are like everyone else: unworthy. Unworthy of me, of my time and of my effort." He paused. "Well. I think you're worthy of this."
He dropped the doll as his hand began to crackle with power again. Then, he lashed out. Chloe didn't even have time to scream.
OoOoO
Now
The memory ended. Two seconds had passed, if that.
"I am sorry," Harry said quietly. "I am so, so sorry. For what happened to you, and for making you relive it. If I had known…" He trailed off. "I wouldn't have done it. I've relived those kinds of memories, and I would never ask anyone else to do the same."
Chloe nodded, eyes damp from crying. "For Clark," she said, repeating what she'd said before. Then, she reached down her front and pulled out two dozen small, crumpled, torn and rather warm pages, before smiling at Harry and Lex's identical dumbstruck expressions.
"Are these…" Harry began, eyes darting over them.
"His notes?" Chloe asked, and nodded. "Yup." She sniffed, and grinned. It was a little wobbly, but it was real. "Turns out that if you're 'unworthy', no one puts all that much effort into searching you." Her smile faded and she nodded at the pages. "I'm not sure how much they'll help, but I figure that they're better than nothing."
Harry stared at her for a long moment, then let out a soft chuckle as he slipped the notes into a small compartment in the armour.
"Chloe Sullivan, you are an absolute bloody marvel," he said. "These are much, much better than nothing." He turned, looking down the corridor, expression turning grim as he whipped off his cloak, slipping it away into another compartment – this one sized so that it shouldn't possibly have been able to fit. As he did, the newly revealed suit of sleek silvery-white armour, complete with tree and stars on the breastplate, began to hum with power. "Now, you two get to Agent Coulson," he said. "You've more than done your part."
His eyes began to burn with golden fury, as his voice took on a quality of cold, simmering rage.
"Now," he said, in a deadly, echoing voice. "Now, it's my turn."
And there we have it, all primed for the final confrontation with Reynolds, and for Clark to take centre stage. Ta-ta for now!
