Chp. 3.
'Indicates individual thoughts.'
[Indicates telepathic communication.]
The next morning Rogue managed to pull herself out of bed. She glanced over at the alarm clock. '6:00, are these people mad?' she asked herself. Classes back at the mansion started around nine in the morning which meant she could usually sleep in till around eight before having to get up. Sighing, she sat up and ran a hand through her hair as the previous night's occurences came back to her. Clark's question had been enough to make her break down in tears. She shook it off momentarily and decided to head for the shower when she heard a crashing noise that made her jump. Deciding to put the shower on hold for a second, she went to investigate the strange noise that had startled her.
The alarm went off. Clark groaned and pulled his head underneath his pillow. He was in no mood to get up. Seeing as how the clock's sound wasn't going to stop anytime soon, he reached out with a fist and smashed it to pieces. Satisfied with his work Clark rolled back over in his bed and went back to sleep.
'The sound came from Clark's room' Marie thought as she made her way down the hall. Stopping at his door, she hesitated. Should she knock or go straight in? What if Clark was in some kind of trouble? Not knowing what else to do, she opened the door and eased in. After a quick glance of the room she found Clark snoring in his bed and the remains of his clock in pieces. 'What the?' were her only thoughts. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened but Clark seemed to be ok. 'Maybe he had a bad dream and hit the clock by accident' she rationalized. 'Yeah, that's probably it.' Still a little curious but also some what satisfied with her idea she headed back for the bathroom, intent on getting her shower first before all the hot water was gone.
Martha Kent managed to get up before her husband. She had too, knowing that Clark wouldn't be up and she would have to get onto him. It wasn't that it was a daily thing but it was something that had to be done, otherwise the boy would sleep in and miss school all together. Slowly she knocked at his door and called out his name. Clark stirred a little but otherwise did nothing. Opening the door she saw the scattered remains of the clock. Martha frowned. She and Jonathon had already gotten onto Clark for smashing clocks before. 'Seems it didn't help all too much.' she chuckled. Silently clearing her throat, she prepared herself for what would happen next.
"Clark Joseph Kent!"
Immediately, Clark jumped out of his bed. He glared at his mother who looked back at him then to the clock. He turned to look at it then sheepishly turned back to his mother. "You broke another one, Clark." she stated matter of factly.
"Sorry." he muttered.
She couldn't keep her scowl up for long though. She smiled back at her adopted son. "Well honey, don't worry about it. I'll get one while I'm in town today."
"Okay," Clark replied back. As soon as Martha left he jumped out of bed and headed for the shower only to find the door locked. Since his mother was up and had already gone downstairs he figured that only his father or Marie could've been in there. Leaning back againist the opposite wall he waited for whoever was in ther to get out. A few minutes later he heard the water shut off. The door then swung open to reveal Marie, bound only in a red towel with another wrapped around her hair. The two teens froze when they saw each other. A swift moment of silence passed before Clark finally broke it. "Sorry," he told her. He then turned the other way, giving her a wide berth in the process. She finally broke out of it and began to head for her room. Clark was about to turn and head into the bathroom when Marie smirked, "No you weren't." Clark blushed, and then pratically ran into bathroom.
About a half hour later, the four were in the kitchen. Clark grabbed his red backpack then kissed his mother on the forehead. He told his parents good bye and was about to go outside and superspeed off to school when he remembered Marie. 'Crap, can't leave her here.' He glanced over to Marie who was finishing off the last of her breakfast. "Mrs. Kent, that was awesome!" she told her. Martha smiled at her. "Marie, I'm glad you enjoyed it. But please, you don't have to call me Mrs. Kent. You can call me Martha."
"Ok," Marie replied back. "If I can do that, then can I ask you guys to do something?"
"Sure," responded Jonathon, who'd been reading yesterday's paper but was aware of the conversation.
"Call me by my nickname, Rogue." she told them. "I really never liked the name Marie anyways."
The three Kents looked at her for a second. Finally, Jonathon and Clark nodded while Martha smiled. "Of course," Martha told her. "We can do that." Marie smiled back to her then grabbed her backpack to join Clark. Once they were ready they got in the family's old red Dodge truck and headed for school.
The first few hours before lunch passed on in a frenzy. Rogue had a little trouble at first finding where to go but thanks to Clark she could now at least find half the classes on her schedule. During her classes a couple of teachers had asked about her gloves but she politely gave them the same cover she'd given the Kents. Falling for it thankfully they never brought it back up. A few of the students in her classes had asked about the gloves and her odd hair. One student, whose name was Lana, loved it. Rogue was getting tired of the questions but knew she had to put on a pleasant demeanor for just a little longer and hopefully the humans would tire of asking anything else. She was happy to know that John, Kitty, Jubilee, Pitor, and Kurt were in a few of her classes. That helped her to get through some of the lonliness she had. She'd also watched her ex, Bobby, hanging out with a blonde girl, Chloe. It saddened her a little when she saw the two's interactions. Hopefully he'd gotten over their relationship woes and was now moving on. Sighing to herself, she left the lunch line with her plate and began to look for a place to sit. She looked over to one table where Clark, the Lana girl, and some other man, who she remembered as Pete, were sitting. Her friends from Westchester hadn't made it through the line so she decided to head over to Clark and his group.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked. Clark and Pete spun around from their conversation and looked up at her. Lana also stopped what she was doing to look at the Mississippi girl. "Sure, go ahead." Clark replied back. She smiled a little and took her seat. A small conversation started up between the four and Rogue found it easy to fit in. She shared a little with the three Smallville students about Westchester when she noticed her friends making for their way to the table. Slowly but surely, Kitty, Jubilee, Pitor managed to sit on one side on the table while Kurt, John, and Bobby sat on the other. The six exchanged introductions with Pete, Clark, and Lana as they joined in on the conversation. Things had been going well enough until Chloe came running in out of breath, waving papers furiously.
"Clark, Lana, Pete! Am I glad to find you guys!" she stopped and looked at the seven before continuing, " I've got some new information on the latest mutant!" The seven mutants stopped what they were doing. They exchanged a few glances with each other before eyeing the blonde reporter.
Clark knew what she was talking about. For about the last two weeks Smallville had once again been under a meteor freak's grasp. Several bodies had popped up here and there, prompting the Lowell County Sheriff's Department to declare a public announcement stating that there was a serial killer on the loose. Before too long it was believed that the FBI would be brought in, seeing as how the body count was now up to six. The bodies themselves had been terribly mutilated beyond recognition which tried making a postitive identifiction on them impossible.
"I contacted one my sources in Metropolis. He said that he's got direct proof that whoever was exposed to the meteor rocks worked at a top secret LuthorCorp. in Metropolis that was doing research on them." she told him as she tried to regain her breath.
Clark nodded. "Chloe, maybe we should talk about this more in the Torch." Chloe nodded, and the four headed off.
Once they had left the cafeteria, Bobby turned to his friends. "What do you think's going on?"
"I'm not sure." Pitor replied. Like his friend he shared a concern over the mention of the word "mutant" and what it might have meant in this case.
"Maybe we should follow them and find out." This time it was John that chimed in. He was equally as curious as the big Russian.
"Hey you guys! Like, there's been some murders in the newspaper lately. The cops, like, don't have any clue as to who's doing it." Jubilee interjected.
Kurt, who'd been mostly silent since sitting down, finally spoke up. "If there is a mutant out there killing humans, then we must do something about it."
Bobby stopped for a second. He looked at his friends then back to the table. "Alright, let's go see what there up too." The others nodded and headed off to find the Torch.
While the mutants were heading for the Torch, Pete, Lana, Chloe, and Clark were there reviewing the data that Chloe's contact had sent her. It wasn't much but hopefully there were some clues there that could help them out. Maybe some kind of data pertaining to the mutant's behavior. While Clark and Chloe were looking over the information Lana was sitting at a computer checking some things out. Pete, obviously bored, pulled out an rubix cube from one of the desks and started to try to match up the various colored sides. He nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard a knock at the door.
"Hi Chloe, it's Bobby. Mind if we come in?" he asked hesitantly. She looked up and smiled. "Of course," she replied softly. Her friends stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She looked back at them. Feeling a little embarassed, she quickly went to shuffling some papers as the seven mutants entered the office.
The first thing he noticed upon entering the Torch was a huge bulletin board. Posted on it were several odd looking stories and pictures from over the last 13 or so years. Bobby took note of this and decided to ask about it later. "So what's this about a mutant?" he asked. The four Smallvillians looked up at him before Chloe answered. "The mutant? Oh yeah, I guess you guys don't know yet."
"Apparently not," John replied back. Bobby glanced over to his friend as Chloe continued.
"Well, the mutant that were talking about was affected by the meteor rocks." She told him. Bobby nodded, so she continued. "Well, thirteen years ago we had a devastating meteor shower here. The meteor rocks that have been left around have been affecting people in some way or another." She then pointed to the board. "Hence this: the Wall of Weird. It's a little something I've put together over the last few years documenting stories on the meteor freaks that the town's had run ins with."
Rogue made her way over to the board. She gazed over a few of the stories before turning back to the others. "Clark, your name's on a few of these. Why?"
Everyone stared at Clark. He looked up from the monitor he'd been staring at intently to her face. "Um, well..."
"The reason he's on there is because he's saved quite a few people in this town from them." Lana stated as she inched closer to Clark. She'd seen the way he'd been staring at Rogue all day and was a tad bit jealous, to say the least. Even though they were broke up she still cared about him and didn't want to see someone else come into his life.
"Oh," she replied, and walked back over to her mutant friends.
Clark finally cleared his throat. "I think I might have found something." Everyone once again looked at him. He felt a little uncomfortable by all the attention but continued. "I think I've found a pattern in the way this mutant's been killing. Something that the police reports have. It seems as if it's killing every three-four days. They're still not sure on why it's killing but apparently that's the span of time that its fallen into. A sort of habit, if you will. Also, alot of the killings are happening around the area of my parent's farm."
A silence descended upon the Torch. Each person, lost in their own thoughts. It was finally Pete that broke it. "So what do we do?"
Clark gave his friend a knowing look. The young man nodded. He knew that Clark would have to take care of this.
Clark's look hadn't gone unnoticed, though. Bobby had seen the interaction between the two and knew instinctively that something was up. "We can help." he told them calmly.
Clark turned to look at him. "Maybe you could, but don't worry about it. We take care of this ourselves."
Bobby looked back at the boy. 'He's human and he thinks he can take care of this, meteor freak? He's crazy.' "That maybe so, but don't you think that a little back up would help?" Clark was about answer when Pete cut him off. "No offense, but we've handled this before." Clark shot him another look, but he continued. "We can take care of this ourselves."
And with that, Pete headed out of the Torch. Clark got up and slowly followed. He stopped momentarily and glared at Bobby who returned the glare. Ending the stand off, Clark made his way through the crowd and exited, leaving the seven bewildered mutants and two humans by themselves.
'Indicates individual thoughts.'
[Indicates telepathic communication.]
The next morning Rogue managed to pull herself out of bed. She glanced over at the alarm clock. '6:00, are these people mad?' she asked herself. Classes back at the mansion started around nine in the morning which meant she could usually sleep in till around eight before having to get up. Sighing, she sat up and ran a hand through her hair as the previous night's occurences came back to her. Clark's question had been enough to make her break down in tears. She shook it off momentarily and decided to head for the shower when she heard a crashing noise that made her jump. Deciding to put the shower on hold for a second, she went to investigate the strange noise that had startled her.
The alarm went off. Clark groaned and pulled his head underneath his pillow. He was in no mood to get up. Seeing as how the clock's sound wasn't going to stop anytime soon, he reached out with a fist and smashed it to pieces. Satisfied with his work Clark rolled back over in his bed and went back to sleep.
'The sound came from Clark's room' Marie thought as she made her way down the hall. Stopping at his door, she hesitated. Should she knock or go straight in? What if Clark was in some kind of trouble? Not knowing what else to do, she opened the door and eased in. After a quick glance of the room she found Clark snoring in his bed and the remains of his clock in pieces. 'What the?' were her only thoughts. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened but Clark seemed to be ok. 'Maybe he had a bad dream and hit the clock by accident' she rationalized. 'Yeah, that's probably it.' Still a little curious but also some what satisfied with her idea she headed back for the bathroom, intent on getting her shower first before all the hot water was gone.
Martha Kent managed to get up before her husband. She had too, knowing that Clark wouldn't be up and she would have to get onto him. It wasn't that it was a daily thing but it was something that had to be done, otherwise the boy would sleep in and miss school all together. Slowly she knocked at his door and called out his name. Clark stirred a little but otherwise did nothing. Opening the door she saw the scattered remains of the clock. Martha frowned. She and Jonathon had already gotten onto Clark for smashing clocks before. 'Seems it didn't help all too much.' she chuckled. Silently clearing her throat, she prepared herself for what would happen next.
"Clark Joseph Kent!"
Immediately, Clark jumped out of his bed. He glared at his mother who looked back at him then to the clock. He turned to look at it then sheepishly turned back to his mother. "You broke another one, Clark." she stated matter of factly.
"Sorry." he muttered.
She couldn't keep her scowl up for long though. She smiled back at her adopted son. "Well honey, don't worry about it. I'll get one while I'm in town today."
"Okay," Clark replied back. As soon as Martha left he jumped out of bed and headed for the shower only to find the door locked. Since his mother was up and had already gone downstairs he figured that only his father or Marie could've been in there. Leaning back againist the opposite wall he waited for whoever was in ther to get out. A few minutes later he heard the water shut off. The door then swung open to reveal Marie, bound only in a red towel with another wrapped around her hair. The two teens froze when they saw each other. A swift moment of silence passed before Clark finally broke it. "Sorry," he told her. He then turned the other way, giving her a wide berth in the process. She finally broke out of it and began to head for her room. Clark was about to turn and head into the bathroom when Marie smirked, "No you weren't." Clark blushed, and then pratically ran into bathroom.
About a half hour later, the four were in the kitchen. Clark grabbed his red backpack then kissed his mother on the forehead. He told his parents good bye and was about to go outside and superspeed off to school when he remembered Marie. 'Crap, can't leave her here.' He glanced over to Marie who was finishing off the last of her breakfast. "Mrs. Kent, that was awesome!" she told her. Martha smiled at her. "Marie, I'm glad you enjoyed it. But please, you don't have to call me Mrs. Kent. You can call me Martha."
"Ok," Marie replied back. "If I can do that, then can I ask you guys to do something?"
"Sure," responded Jonathon, who'd been reading yesterday's paper but was aware of the conversation.
"Call me by my nickname, Rogue." she told them. "I really never liked the name Marie anyways."
The three Kents looked at her for a second. Finally, Jonathon and Clark nodded while Martha smiled. "Of course," Martha told her. "We can do that." Marie smiled back to her then grabbed her backpack to join Clark. Once they were ready they got in the family's old red Dodge truck and headed for school.
The first few hours before lunch passed on in a frenzy. Rogue had a little trouble at first finding where to go but thanks to Clark she could now at least find half the classes on her schedule. During her classes a couple of teachers had asked about her gloves but she politely gave them the same cover she'd given the Kents. Falling for it thankfully they never brought it back up. A few of the students in her classes had asked about the gloves and her odd hair. One student, whose name was Lana, loved it. Rogue was getting tired of the questions but knew she had to put on a pleasant demeanor for just a little longer and hopefully the humans would tire of asking anything else. She was happy to know that John, Kitty, Jubilee, Pitor, and Kurt were in a few of her classes. That helped her to get through some of the lonliness she had. She'd also watched her ex, Bobby, hanging out with a blonde girl, Chloe. It saddened her a little when she saw the two's interactions. Hopefully he'd gotten over their relationship woes and was now moving on. Sighing to herself, she left the lunch line with her plate and began to look for a place to sit. She looked over to one table where Clark, the Lana girl, and some other man, who she remembered as Pete, were sitting. Her friends from Westchester hadn't made it through the line so she decided to head over to Clark and his group.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked. Clark and Pete spun around from their conversation and looked up at her. Lana also stopped what she was doing to look at the Mississippi girl. "Sure, go ahead." Clark replied back. She smiled a little and took her seat. A small conversation started up between the four and Rogue found it easy to fit in. She shared a little with the three Smallville students about Westchester when she noticed her friends making for their way to the table. Slowly but surely, Kitty, Jubilee, Pitor managed to sit on one side on the table while Kurt, John, and Bobby sat on the other. The six exchanged introductions with Pete, Clark, and Lana as they joined in on the conversation. Things had been going well enough until Chloe came running in out of breath, waving papers furiously.
"Clark, Lana, Pete! Am I glad to find you guys!" she stopped and looked at the seven before continuing, " I've got some new information on the latest mutant!" The seven mutants stopped what they were doing. They exchanged a few glances with each other before eyeing the blonde reporter.
Clark knew what she was talking about. For about the last two weeks Smallville had once again been under a meteor freak's grasp. Several bodies had popped up here and there, prompting the Lowell County Sheriff's Department to declare a public announcement stating that there was a serial killer on the loose. Before too long it was believed that the FBI would be brought in, seeing as how the body count was now up to six. The bodies themselves had been terribly mutilated beyond recognition which tried making a postitive identifiction on them impossible.
"I contacted one my sources in Metropolis. He said that he's got direct proof that whoever was exposed to the meteor rocks worked at a top secret LuthorCorp. in Metropolis that was doing research on them." she told him as she tried to regain her breath.
Clark nodded. "Chloe, maybe we should talk about this more in the Torch." Chloe nodded, and the four headed off.
Once they had left the cafeteria, Bobby turned to his friends. "What do you think's going on?"
"I'm not sure." Pitor replied. Like his friend he shared a concern over the mention of the word "mutant" and what it might have meant in this case.
"Maybe we should follow them and find out." This time it was John that chimed in. He was equally as curious as the big Russian.
"Hey you guys! Like, there's been some murders in the newspaper lately. The cops, like, don't have any clue as to who's doing it." Jubilee interjected.
Kurt, who'd been mostly silent since sitting down, finally spoke up. "If there is a mutant out there killing humans, then we must do something about it."
Bobby stopped for a second. He looked at his friends then back to the table. "Alright, let's go see what there up too." The others nodded and headed off to find the Torch.
While the mutants were heading for the Torch, Pete, Lana, Chloe, and Clark were there reviewing the data that Chloe's contact had sent her. It wasn't much but hopefully there were some clues there that could help them out. Maybe some kind of data pertaining to the mutant's behavior. While Clark and Chloe were looking over the information Lana was sitting at a computer checking some things out. Pete, obviously bored, pulled out an rubix cube from one of the desks and started to try to match up the various colored sides. He nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard a knock at the door.
"Hi Chloe, it's Bobby. Mind if we come in?" he asked hesitantly. She looked up and smiled. "Of course," she replied softly. Her friends stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She looked back at them. Feeling a little embarassed, she quickly went to shuffling some papers as the seven mutants entered the office.
The first thing he noticed upon entering the Torch was a huge bulletin board. Posted on it were several odd looking stories and pictures from over the last 13 or so years. Bobby took note of this and decided to ask about it later. "So what's this about a mutant?" he asked. The four Smallvillians looked up at him before Chloe answered. "The mutant? Oh yeah, I guess you guys don't know yet."
"Apparently not," John replied back. Bobby glanced over to his friend as Chloe continued.
"Well, the mutant that were talking about was affected by the meteor rocks." She told him. Bobby nodded, so she continued. "Well, thirteen years ago we had a devastating meteor shower here. The meteor rocks that have been left around have been affecting people in some way or another." She then pointed to the board. "Hence this: the Wall of Weird. It's a little something I've put together over the last few years documenting stories on the meteor freaks that the town's had run ins with."
Rogue made her way over to the board. She gazed over a few of the stories before turning back to the others. "Clark, your name's on a few of these. Why?"
Everyone stared at Clark. He looked up from the monitor he'd been staring at intently to her face. "Um, well..."
"The reason he's on there is because he's saved quite a few people in this town from them." Lana stated as she inched closer to Clark. She'd seen the way he'd been staring at Rogue all day and was a tad bit jealous, to say the least. Even though they were broke up she still cared about him and didn't want to see someone else come into his life.
"Oh," she replied, and walked back over to her mutant friends.
Clark finally cleared his throat. "I think I might have found something." Everyone once again looked at him. He felt a little uncomfortable by all the attention but continued. "I think I've found a pattern in the way this mutant's been killing. Something that the police reports have. It seems as if it's killing every three-four days. They're still not sure on why it's killing but apparently that's the span of time that its fallen into. A sort of habit, if you will. Also, alot of the killings are happening around the area of my parent's farm."
A silence descended upon the Torch. Each person, lost in their own thoughts. It was finally Pete that broke it. "So what do we do?"
Clark gave his friend a knowing look. The young man nodded. He knew that Clark would have to take care of this.
Clark's look hadn't gone unnoticed, though. Bobby had seen the interaction between the two and knew instinctively that something was up. "We can help." he told them calmly.
Clark turned to look at him. "Maybe you could, but don't worry about it. We take care of this ourselves."
Bobby looked back at the boy. 'He's human and he thinks he can take care of this, meteor freak? He's crazy.' "That maybe so, but don't you think that a little back up would help?" Clark was about answer when Pete cut him off. "No offense, but we've handled this before." Clark shot him another look, but he continued. "We can take care of this ourselves."
And with that, Pete headed out of the Torch. Clark got up and slowly followed. He stopped momentarily and glared at Bobby who returned the glare. Ending the stand off, Clark made his way through the crowd and exited, leaving the seven bewildered mutants and two humans by themselves.