Chapter Twenty-Five
The Five Senses
The human body has receptors for the five senses, the sense of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Clark Kent's body was no different, despite having an alien physiology. For Clark, every sense was heightened beyond Earthly conventions, amplified far beyond mortal men:
The Sense of Sight
The darkness of the sky lightened for Clark Kent, his eyes soaked up the reflective light and spread it out, and he processed all the obstacles before him, and his reaction time was even faster than the speed he traveled, making it easy for him to dodge barriers. With his superhuman speed, Clark zig-zagged between the trees, cutting left, zipping right, tree-trunks a blur. He saw things on the sides of the trees when he sped by them, some large pieces that he recognized that were snippets of Chloe's outfit she wore that evening. It was the pieces, minute to the human eye, embedded under the crags of bark, that made him run faster: pieces of Chloe's skin. He could see droplets of the blood that leaked from the tissues, smeared on the trunks and branches. He couldn't see Chloe for the trees, so he used his special power: the forest became a myriad of oulined-shapes, the x-ray vision creating a clearer canvas, eyes surveying everything, everywhere, for Chloe Sullivan, the girl he liked, the girl he adored, the girl that he loved; his first love.
Clark could see anything. But he just wanted to see Chloe.
The Sense of Sound
As he ran, Clark listened. He listened for the voice, the one voice other than his parents, other than even his best friend Pete, that he listened to; the voice of Chloe Sullivan. She did more than just offer platitudes and advice to Clark like his parents and Pete. No. Chloe Sullivan, more often not, simply told him how things were, constantly reminding him that there was a bigger world, a meaner world, out there other than what was in the city limits of Smallville. She was Big City to his Small Ville, the Snark to his Ah Shucks. She was information, he was a blank slate. She talked, he listened. But there was silence from her now; a rarity. He silently begged for a scream, or a whisper, or something that he could hone in on. He listened. And heard her heartbeat: steady, constant, like her voice, a beacon.
His own heartbeat fell into time with her's, again.
The Sense of Smell
Sometimes, Clark wondered if sniffing Chloe was considered a sin. She's stand close (or sometimes she was across the classroom, or walking up the pathway to his barn, or...anywhere, really) and he'd sniff the air that radiated from her; her scent beyond that of usual descriptions or adjectives. To Clark, she smelled super. Like if she were around, Clark's nostrils flared and he breathed in, but this time he just breathed in the chilly night air. Cold enviroments always envigorated Clark, like the first rays of the morning sun. He could bury himself in the snow or sink to the bottom of Shuster Lake and the cold seemingly recharged him. But the Sun was starting to have that effect lately, too. He would stand in front of his bedroom window and soak in the Sun's rays, basking in them, absorbing that wonderous feeling. But tonight, the chilly night air that penetrated his olfactory system contained something than Chloe's signature scent. He smelled the unmistakable scent of Beppo The Missing Link. Clark remembered how the animal hugged Chloe, how the animal looked at her: like a predator to a prey...
The Sense of Touch
It was the first day of 8th grade when they met at school and Clark told Chloe about how he lived on a farm. An urban girl from Metropolis, farms were unknown to her so she invited herself over to his home and he gave her a tour, describing the many chores he had to do to help his parents keep the farm running. They walked into the barn and Chloe said his skin was smooth and soft, "like a baby's" and how she giggled when he blushed.
Then she kissed him.
Solid steel. It was the closest comparison to Clark's body. It was, so far, unpenetrable. He'd never suffered a bruise, a gash, or even a gouge. Nothing. He could withstand pretty much any impact. But Chloe's kiss melted him. He'd never been touched like that. He wanted to feel like that again, and again, and again.
He stopped when he saw the radio antenna, saw the huge spotlights lit bright, shining up to the heavens. He could see a lone figure, bobbing and swaying, hanging on the spire atop the tower. Beppo. And worse, the monkey glowed green; a sure sign to Clark that the monkey was affected by the meteors. Then he saw a figure laying on the platform. Chloe. Was she tired? passed out? waiting? He stepped onto the clearing, ready to race up the tower and save Chloe from Beppo.
The Sense of Taste
Clark Kent was susceptible to two things.
One was Chloe Sullivan; she had him wrapped around her lil' finger. It was a fact. Not that she abused that knowledge. Much. He fought her effect on him, wanting to be friends. But her smarts, smile, her charm, her looks, and her irrepressible snark won him over. She made him weak at the knees. And he liked it.
Halfway to the tower, Clark starting feeling sick, weak, and not so super. His powers and abilities wavered and faltered. His sprint slowed, his vision quivered, the sound of Chloe's heartbeat softened and disappeared. The sweet scent of Chloe's skin was overwhelmed by Beppo's stench of monkey, madness, and murder. Clark's reactions were slower; he saw a gopher hole but he tripped, his boot caught in the entryway. He crashed and winced at the pain from the impact. He rose slowly and knew what was wrong...by the horrible taste in his mouth. It meant one thing...
Meteors struck Lowell County eleven years prior; chunks of a planet. Chunks of, unbeknownst to Clark, what was left of his homeworld. Scattered hither and yon, over hill and dale, all over Smallville, were meteor fragments ranging from tiny shards to huge lumps. The field that the radio tower was built on had actually been cleared by the meteors by setting all the trees aflame. Deep underground was the first meteorite to hit, burrowed deep, dormant.
The other thing that Clark Kent was susceptible to was the meteorites.
He felt ill, and broke into a sweat; the only time he ever perspired was when he was around meteorites. He knew he needed to be at full strength; the eerie glow he saw from Beppo earlier could only be caused by one thing: meteorites. He had to deal with the monkey while in a weakened state.
For the first time, Clark tasted fear.
While Clark was seemingly powered down, 275 above him on the tower, Beppo shrieked with anger, madness, and raw energy when he saw The Tall One run into the clearing. The monster climbed up and down the antenna spire, swinging from one crossbar to another, hyper and waving to The Tall One to join him atop the tower. Then Beppo saw his nemesis fall. Now, the monster saw, was the time to strike...
On his elbows and knees, Clark looked up and focused on Beppo's silhouette in the moonlight bouncing around. The teen felt weaker, but he didn't throw up; he just felt sluggish. Clark knew he couldn't fail; for if he failed, Chloe would be lost. His parents and his friends, that is what Clark truly possessed, and Chloe was his friend...his girlfriend. I can't lose her, he thought, I just can't...
With amazing speed, the monster jumped through the air, landed on the platform, tumbled in a practiced roll and tore off a guardrail. He saw the jagged pointed edge and lunged, throwing the safety bar like a javelin, throwing it at Clark. This wasn't a chess move, a sliding of a pawn into a square, a test of defense. No, this was the kill-shot. The rail cut straight through the night sky, the aim true, its target: Clark's cranium.
Under normal circumstances, Clark would have gathered the information (Beppo threw something at me!), processed it (it's traveling really fast!) and acted (I have to catch it and toss it aside) but his reaction time was slower, thanks to the chunk of a meteor buried deep in the ground. But it wasn't normal circumstances: by the time Clark realized the rail was zooming at him, he barely had time to roll away. He gasped, watching the makeshift javalin penetrate and sink half its eight foot length into the ground. The precious seconds it took Clark to rise to his feet, another rail planted into the ground. Chloe's would-be hero was glad that the monkey's aim was just a hair off. His mind flashed: Beppo was the killer, having killed 3 teens already, and that made the monkey more dangerous than the bug boy, or the ice boy or the fiery tempered football coach. Not even Tina Greer, the girl that became Lana's clone, was this berserk. They weren't as strong or as fast. None were as homicidal as Beppo. None had Chloe in such danger before. With a grunt of resolve, Clark scrambled to his boots and ran to the tower, ran to stop the killer, ran to get Chloe.
Unhampered by any weaknesses, Beppo tore off all the guardrails on the platform and chucked every one at the Clark's scampering form. With each miss, the monster's throws grew more erratic, and his emotions more angry. The crazy monkey leapt, limbs akimbo, off the platform and downward, and he caught one of the support beams with his huge paw. He swung around the beam and looked down. He yipped in amazement; he saw Clark climbing up the tower, just like he had, incredibly fast, traveling up the angled girders. 'Was he special?' the monkey thought. 'Was The Tall One like me? Maybe that is why The Blonde is with him, not me...' And that thought alone, of The Blonde wanting The Tall One as her mate and not him, made the monsterous monkey to tug on one of the painted-white girders, shaking and rattling the antenna tower's structure, until he tore the girder off. He waited, beam in hand, on paw holding on, with his long toes providing extra balance.
Clark climbed up the side, handhold after handhold, actually sweating, actually calculating how much strength he lost...was it 25? More? Then he heard metal cracking apart and the girder he held seemed to loosen in its mountings. Clark looked up just in time to see Beppo shriek and smash the steel beam into the side of his skull.
The monster nodded gleefully and watched The Tall One's neck snap to the side, ear touch the shoulder, and his hands let go of the girder. Beppo whooped as enthusiastically as he had when he defeated The Tall One at chess when he saw the teen's body falling, tumbling, spiralling down to the ground. Beppo looked at the end of the beam; the steel was warped to fit along The Tall One's head. It was satisfying to him. He dropped the beam and scurried up the tower after he heard the loud crunch of The Tall One's impact. That sound was also satisfying. Climbing over the side, the monster saw Chloe, splayed out, passed out, and suddenly seeing The Tall One fall and hearing him hit the ground was not as satisfying as what he had in mind for The Blonde.
Somehow, Clark kept conscious after the steel beam slammed around his head. And it was thinking of Chloe that pulled him out of the dizzy darkness his mind:
Chloe once told Clark a story about her guardian angel while they waited for her father to pick her up after Clark again saved her life. She sat close to him on the steps in front of the high school, shivering being in the pool, swimming for her life, getting away from Sean Kelvin, who was trying to absorb the heat from the girl's body. She took a sip of coffee that the police officer had got her after she and Clark made their official statements. The officer had joked that the teens were getting well acqainted with the procedure.
"When I was widdle, I didn't like being left alone," Chloe said with a bit of a chatter of her teeth.
"Really? That doesn't sound like you at all," Clark joshed, and she scrunched her nose at him.
"I am trying to be serious, smartie," She said and waited until he gave her his rapt attention. "ANYWAYS, I woke up from a nap and pulled myself out of the crib."
"Crib? How old were you?" Clark asked and grabbed her boot; it was frozen in the pool. He massaged the ankle through the boot's leather. "This foot always seems to take the brunt of all your foot related predicaments."
"Yeah, that foot gets all the trouble," Chloe whispered; even through the leather, his touch was gentle and felt reallllllly good. "And I was 2 and a half years old," she said, getting back to her tale, her voice more controlled. Clark smiled and she continued on. "I was wailing for Mom or Daddy to get me, and by the time Daddy got to my room, I flipped head-first over railing."
"No way," Clark gasped. He looked at her face for any scars, but her skin was flawless.
"Way," Chloe smiled, skin blushed; saying 'no way' was her thing and she liked that Clark picked it up and how he just looked at her. "Daddy didn't get to me. Instead, he said before I caved my head on the floor, I somehow just stopped falling and just landed on the floor like I was being set on it."
"Wow," Clark said quietly, with a shake of his head.
"Guardian Angel at work," Chloe nodded. "Wasn't until we moved to Smallville, I needed him again. Since then, Daddy says I have been working my guardian angel and you overtime." They were both laughing when Gabe drove up and took them home. Chloe didn't tell Clark that her dad thought that the boy she had a crush on was her other guardian angel. Or that she agreed.
Clark wasn't laughing now. He plummeted, he wished he had a guardian angel to catch him, her guardian angel, something, anything to protect him from the impact, something to take the the agony he felt in his head. He fought closing his eyes, afraid he might never open them again, and watched the monkey get smaller and the top of the tower rapidly pulled away. All the teen could do was wait, wait for the impact to occur. He twisted himself while he dropped, and saw the hard rocky ground.
He slammed into the ground; his chest, face, hips, knees, and feet slammed into the unforgiving terrain. The crash sent a seismic wave through the strata of the hill and sent one of utter pain through Clark. He screamed and his lungs seized, his breath lost, the thoughts of Chloe lost, his own idea that he really couldn't be hurt lost in the reverberation of the impact. Anyone else would have shattered, but he squirmed in the indentation that his body made in the turf. Darkness swirled in the around the edges of his pupils, ready to cover his world in darkness.
Then he remembered: the unique understanding of who he was, what he could do, what he needed to do:
Save Chloe Sullivan.
Clark knew in order to do that, he had stay awake.
He wheezed until he got his breath back, and Clark cried out in anguish. He touched his face, where his girlfriend had caressed just an hour ago, and his stomach went queasy at the sight of his blood. He had never seen his own blood; nothing had ever cut him before. He cradled his head, the pain unbearable. Getting hit by Lex's Porsche was nothing compared to what the teen suffered.
Then he remembered: the unique understanding of who he was, what he could do, what he needed to do:
Save Chloe Sullivan.
Clark knew in order to do that, he had to get up, had to stand. He had to make a stand.
Bloody and beat down, Clark stood up, stood tall, and looked up at the tower, looked to where the monster was, to where his girlfriend was, and decided that he was going to bring her to safety. Or die trying. Because, that's what Chloe would do for him: die trying whatever he needed her to do for him. He shrugged off his jacket, once shiny and new, now the denim sleeves ripped on the rocks, and wiped his blood on his shirt. He was going to run and climb as fast and hard as he could, and save her. He took off, wincing in pain with each blindingly fast step.
Beppo's gaze first landed on Chloe's leather boot, scuffed and now speckled with her blood. Then it traveled up her leg, her calf and thigh. Both of which should have been a creamy smooth peachy color even in the moonlight, but now were black from fresh wounds that had continued to bleed after the monster wiped them clean. He stepped closer, looked at how the shirt and tank underneath it was torn at the neckline, the scoop created by Lana scalloped more so, revealing more bloodied skin. Despite the cuts on her face, the monster thought her face was beautiful. Chloe was beautiful enough for Beppo to kill for, and she was the reward for him doing so. The monster lost himself, nodding and grinning, his gaze going under the frayed hem of Chloe's mini-skirt.
Chloe's guardian angel kept Beppo's attention on the unconscious girl in front of him, instead of other things.
Like her other guardian angel behind him.
Clark, now on the platform, saw Beppo step closer to Chloe. Clark's teeth clenched, his jaw muscles tighten. He was mad and, this time, ready to fight the monster.
Sometimes Guandian Angels do more than defend. Sometimes they go into battle.