Part 4
Thomas followed Chloe around for a couple of more days without incident and had almost decided to drop her and head to Metropolis when Chloe began to do some shadowing of her own.
He had followed her from her home that morning telling himself that if she didn't do anything more than go straight to the Torch office like she had on other mornings he was going to start on the Clark side of the investigation. Instead he saw her head to the Talon, pull in to a space a block down the street and simply stay in her car.
He pulled into a space two blocks away from her and waited. After a bit he saw Lana Lang leave the Talon and head for her truck. A moment after she pulled out Chloe headed out behind her and a moment after that Thomas did as well. Thomas soon found himself on the road to Metropolis in a strange kind of caravan where no one member was aware of all of the other members' existence.
When following someone over long distances on the open road you can fall back and let them ride the horizon. It was in doing this that he again spotted the kid that had appeared in front of the Sullivan's front doorstep a few days before. He was stepping out onto the shoulder looking up the road as if watching Chloe's VW or Lana's truck. When the Mustang passed Thomas saw him get a startled look in his eyes. A moment later looking in his rearview mirror Thomas saw him disappear from sight.
"I've obviously been made," Thomas told himself, but the real question here is just who is this kid watching and why. The uncomfortable answer that came to mind was that the kid was probably sent by Luthor to keep an eye on Sullivan, which implied that he didn't trust her. The big problem with this was that Thomas' experience with people like Luthor told him that when they didn't trust someone it usually meant bad news for the poor sap who was foolish enough to do business with them.
Thomas figured that Lana was going to Metropolis to post flyers like the Kents said they all had been doing on a regular basis. He decided that if this was the case and Chloe was following Lana to keep tabs on her activities then he knew how she was going to spend her day which left him with an opportunity to nose around Metropolis for a few leads on Clark. Thomas also thought that if he were to veer off in another direction from Chloe when he reached the city then it might lead the new kid to think Thomas had just been on the road by coincidence.
When he entered the city limits he took one of the downtown exits and headed for a public library. There he could look through some of the recent news archives and get up to date on the sightings of the mysterious "Urban Legend" that had begun appearing in Metropolis several weeks ago. If this was indeed Clark Kent like his parents seemed to think then he might be able to find some patterns that the police had missed and figure out a way to track him down.
**********************
After an hour of looking at the latest issues of the Daily Planet as well as what video footage and commentary were available Thomas still knew little more than he did before.
This "Urban Legend" had apparently made off with several thousand dollars from an automated teller several days ago. If this was Clark and he was affected by the red kryptonite the way the Kents said he was then Thomas figured he was probably making the party scene. No other such robberies had been reported so Clark was probably simply robbing as he needed to rather than from any particular motivation to steal and was partying it up until the money ran out.
Thomas headed to a few of the major nightclubs to ask questions and show a picture of Clark around. At this time of day they wouldn't be open for business, but the business people and probably a few of the workers would be there and Thomas figured that an uninhibited 16 year-old with a lot of cash would probably stand out in a crowd. Especially if someone tried to bar him from a place where he wanted to have fun.
After a couple of hours of asking around it became pretty obvious that Clark had been making the club scene on a regular basis, but only at a few of the high-class places. He had apparently gotten into an altercation with a few of the bouncers at one of the nightclubs because of his age. He had gained entry by slipping the doorman some money, but once inside the management had had problems with an under-aged kid being there and had not been deterred by his show of cash.
The bouncers had tried to eject him from the premises and discovered to their surprise that this particular 16 year-old was a bit tougher than their ordinary trouble maker. Three of them the bartender told Thomas had been sent to the hospital that night. Clark had left immediately though once he heard the police sirens and had not been back.
Thomas figured that with Clark's powers he had little to fear from the police so his leaving seemed to suggest that even with the red kryptonite interfering with his thinking he was still smart enough to keep a low profile. He started trying some of the out of the way nightspots and found a few that Clark sometimes frequented. He circulated a card with his cell phone number on it as well as a lot of money with several club's employees with the instructions that more would be forthcoming if he got a phone call the moment Clark showed up in one of these places.
That evening he headed back toward Smallville because he was starting to get a little worried about Chloe Sullivan. If Luthor didn't trust her or if he thought that her investigation was going nowhere he might decide to cut his losses and dispose of her. Smallville was three hours from Metropolis, but if he got a call about Clark he figured the party boy would still be in the area if not the same club by the time he got there. The impression he got from the people he talked to today wasn't of a Clark Kent that moved from bar to bar unnoticed.
***********************
A couple of days later Thomas still had not gotten a call about Clark, but he had picked up the kid again outside of the Sullivan's house. He was hidden in the bushes and appeared to listening to something through an earpiece. As he was outside the Sullivan home Thomas was pretty sure that it meant the house was wired.
This time he was able to get a few photographs though a night vision lens. With these he might be able to identify the boy and figure out what he was up to. Suddenly a light came on in one of the rooms of the house that Thomas was hiding by and the light illuminated his hiding place. He quickly moved to some shadows, but the movement must have caught the kid's eye because suddenly he heard a voice behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Alright, I don't need a watch-"
Before the kid could finish the sentence Thomas grabbed the hand on his shoulder twisted and slammed him into a tree. He immediately followed up with a knee strike to the small of the kid's back and slammed his head into the tree trunk after it snapped back. Thomas then stepped back and allowed him to fall to the ground. He'd search him while he was unconscious.
When the kid began to get up from the ground Thomas felt a momentary flicker of surprise.
"How the hell.?" He thought to himself.
Thomas quickly delivered a straight-armed punch to the young man's face that knocked him back to the ground. The kid might be stronger then he looked, but that would take the fight out of him. However, while the kid was knocked down Thomas felt like he'd just hit a brick wall. Involuntarily he let out a grunt of pain and rubbed his now sore hand.
Impossibly, the kid regained his feet again and a mean grin split his face. He reached for Thomas who, reacting instinctively, trapped the hand against his body and executed a throw designed to stun an attacker and knock the breath from his body. Once the guy was on the ground Thomas followed up by dropping to one knee onto the guy's chest and quickly delivering two blows to his face using the hills of his hands. He then back flipped to his feet where he crouched in readiness.
This was becoming annoying, Thomas thought when he realized that the kid was still conscious. He didn't have time to think things through further because suddenly the kid seemed to blur and move with incredible speed. Before Thomas could react the kid had slammed into his body.
He realized at that moment that he didn't stand a chance of defeating this kid in a fair fight. He needed to end things quickly. Again he let instinct honed by years of training take over. Grabbing the kid around the neck he swept his feet out from under him and flipped him into the tree behind them hard enough to break a normal man's ribs. Before the kid could fully recover he followed up with a knee to the face and a roundhouse kick that would provide him with some distraction.
While the kid's face was turned away he did the only thing he could think of that would make him effectively disappear. He jumped up and grabbing one of the lower branches of the tree quickly swung himself up into the limbs where he was concealed by the dense foliage.
Below him he could see the kid roll to his feet and spin around with a look of anger on his face ready to face his no longer present opponent. Thomas watched the anger turn to surprise as the kid realized he was alone. He then saw him turn full circle scanning the landscape.
"What the hell?" he heard the boy mutter.
Thomas prayed the boy wouldn't look up. He didn't know exactly who or what the boy was, but he knew he wasn't prepared to deal with him. Yet.
End Part 4
Thomas followed Chloe around for a couple of more days without incident and had almost decided to drop her and head to Metropolis when Chloe began to do some shadowing of her own.
He had followed her from her home that morning telling himself that if she didn't do anything more than go straight to the Torch office like she had on other mornings he was going to start on the Clark side of the investigation. Instead he saw her head to the Talon, pull in to a space a block down the street and simply stay in her car.
He pulled into a space two blocks away from her and waited. After a bit he saw Lana Lang leave the Talon and head for her truck. A moment after she pulled out Chloe headed out behind her and a moment after that Thomas did as well. Thomas soon found himself on the road to Metropolis in a strange kind of caravan where no one member was aware of all of the other members' existence.
When following someone over long distances on the open road you can fall back and let them ride the horizon. It was in doing this that he again spotted the kid that had appeared in front of the Sullivan's front doorstep a few days before. He was stepping out onto the shoulder looking up the road as if watching Chloe's VW or Lana's truck. When the Mustang passed Thomas saw him get a startled look in his eyes. A moment later looking in his rearview mirror Thomas saw him disappear from sight.
"I've obviously been made," Thomas told himself, but the real question here is just who is this kid watching and why. The uncomfortable answer that came to mind was that the kid was probably sent by Luthor to keep an eye on Sullivan, which implied that he didn't trust her. The big problem with this was that Thomas' experience with people like Luthor told him that when they didn't trust someone it usually meant bad news for the poor sap who was foolish enough to do business with them.
Thomas figured that Lana was going to Metropolis to post flyers like the Kents said they all had been doing on a regular basis. He decided that if this was the case and Chloe was following Lana to keep tabs on her activities then he knew how she was going to spend her day which left him with an opportunity to nose around Metropolis for a few leads on Clark. Thomas also thought that if he were to veer off in another direction from Chloe when he reached the city then it might lead the new kid to think Thomas had just been on the road by coincidence.
When he entered the city limits he took one of the downtown exits and headed for a public library. There he could look through some of the recent news archives and get up to date on the sightings of the mysterious "Urban Legend" that had begun appearing in Metropolis several weeks ago. If this was indeed Clark Kent like his parents seemed to think then he might be able to find some patterns that the police had missed and figure out a way to track him down.
**********************
After an hour of looking at the latest issues of the Daily Planet as well as what video footage and commentary were available Thomas still knew little more than he did before.
This "Urban Legend" had apparently made off with several thousand dollars from an automated teller several days ago. If this was Clark and he was affected by the red kryptonite the way the Kents said he was then Thomas figured he was probably making the party scene. No other such robberies had been reported so Clark was probably simply robbing as he needed to rather than from any particular motivation to steal and was partying it up until the money ran out.
Thomas headed to a few of the major nightclubs to ask questions and show a picture of Clark around. At this time of day they wouldn't be open for business, but the business people and probably a few of the workers would be there and Thomas figured that an uninhibited 16 year-old with a lot of cash would probably stand out in a crowd. Especially if someone tried to bar him from a place where he wanted to have fun.
After a couple of hours of asking around it became pretty obvious that Clark had been making the club scene on a regular basis, but only at a few of the high-class places. He had apparently gotten into an altercation with a few of the bouncers at one of the nightclubs because of his age. He had gained entry by slipping the doorman some money, but once inside the management had had problems with an under-aged kid being there and had not been deterred by his show of cash.
The bouncers had tried to eject him from the premises and discovered to their surprise that this particular 16 year-old was a bit tougher than their ordinary trouble maker. Three of them the bartender told Thomas had been sent to the hospital that night. Clark had left immediately though once he heard the police sirens and had not been back.
Thomas figured that with Clark's powers he had little to fear from the police so his leaving seemed to suggest that even with the red kryptonite interfering with his thinking he was still smart enough to keep a low profile. He started trying some of the out of the way nightspots and found a few that Clark sometimes frequented. He circulated a card with his cell phone number on it as well as a lot of money with several club's employees with the instructions that more would be forthcoming if he got a phone call the moment Clark showed up in one of these places.
That evening he headed back toward Smallville because he was starting to get a little worried about Chloe Sullivan. If Luthor didn't trust her or if he thought that her investigation was going nowhere he might decide to cut his losses and dispose of her. Smallville was three hours from Metropolis, but if he got a call about Clark he figured the party boy would still be in the area if not the same club by the time he got there. The impression he got from the people he talked to today wasn't of a Clark Kent that moved from bar to bar unnoticed.
***********************
A couple of days later Thomas still had not gotten a call about Clark, but he had picked up the kid again outside of the Sullivan's house. He was hidden in the bushes and appeared to listening to something through an earpiece. As he was outside the Sullivan home Thomas was pretty sure that it meant the house was wired.
This time he was able to get a few photographs though a night vision lens. With these he might be able to identify the boy and figure out what he was up to. Suddenly a light came on in one of the rooms of the house that Thomas was hiding by and the light illuminated his hiding place. He quickly moved to some shadows, but the movement must have caught the kid's eye because suddenly he heard a voice behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Alright, I don't need a watch-"
Before the kid could finish the sentence Thomas grabbed the hand on his shoulder twisted and slammed him into a tree. He immediately followed up with a knee strike to the small of the kid's back and slammed his head into the tree trunk after it snapped back. Thomas then stepped back and allowed him to fall to the ground. He'd search him while he was unconscious.
When the kid began to get up from the ground Thomas felt a momentary flicker of surprise.
"How the hell.?" He thought to himself.
Thomas quickly delivered a straight-armed punch to the young man's face that knocked him back to the ground. The kid might be stronger then he looked, but that would take the fight out of him. However, while the kid was knocked down Thomas felt like he'd just hit a brick wall. Involuntarily he let out a grunt of pain and rubbed his now sore hand.
Impossibly, the kid regained his feet again and a mean grin split his face. He reached for Thomas who, reacting instinctively, trapped the hand against his body and executed a throw designed to stun an attacker and knock the breath from his body. Once the guy was on the ground Thomas followed up by dropping to one knee onto the guy's chest and quickly delivering two blows to his face using the hills of his hands. He then back flipped to his feet where he crouched in readiness.
This was becoming annoying, Thomas thought when he realized that the kid was still conscious. He didn't have time to think things through further because suddenly the kid seemed to blur and move with incredible speed. Before Thomas could react the kid had slammed into his body.
He realized at that moment that he didn't stand a chance of defeating this kid in a fair fight. He needed to end things quickly. Again he let instinct honed by years of training take over. Grabbing the kid around the neck he swept his feet out from under him and flipped him into the tree behind them hard enough to break a normal man's ribs. Before the kid could fully recover he followed up with a knee to the face and a roundhouse kick that would provide him with some distraction.
While the kid's face was turned away he did the only thing he could think of that would make him effectively disappear. He jumped up and grabbing one of the lower branches of the tree quickly swung himself up into the limbs where he was concealed by the dense foliage.
Below him he could see the kid roll to his feet and spin around with a look of anger on his face ready to face his no longer present opponent. Thomas watched the anger turn to surprise as the kid realized he was alone. He then saw him turn full circle scanning the landscape.
"What the hell?" he heard the boy mutter.
Thomas prayed the boy wouldn't look up. He didn't know exactly who or what the boy was, but he knew he wasn't prepared to deal with him. Yet.
End Part 4