Disclaimer: Me no am own anything owned by someone else. Me am own me ideas though.
A/N: Take two for combining emotion with action. Let me know how I'm doing here.
Chapter Two Checking with Jason, Martha, Ben and Batzarro
While Superman was off in the silent void of space making another run at slowing down the asteroid that was on a collision course with earth (so that it would eventually fall into the sun), a knock had come at the front door of Martha Kent's farm house late at night. Ben Reilly had woken up from where he was sleeping soundly on living room couch. Gathering his wits and his robe about himself, Ben flipped on the living room light. Then he put on his glasses and his slippers to walk over and answer the door. He opened the inner door and looked out through the screen door.
The figure at the door, standing partially in shadow, looked like Superman. Ben had seen the huge red and yellow S-shield clearly but the figure's head had been obscured in shadows. "Why Superman," Ben began perfectly relaxed. He'd been with Martha and Jason, except for trips out for food, since Clark had dropped the lad off. They had not been watching the news. Ben didn't know about the young mother in Metropolis or the three MPD cops in the hospital. "What brings you out here in the country in the dark of night? Come on in and set a spell. We'll put on some coffee or something.'" This was Ben Reilly: old, tired but still folksy and charming even, in the middle of the night.
The figure had stepped into the light, "Me no am Sooperman. Me no am World's Worst Detective. Me am Dark Knight."
"Is that why you've got a Dracula costume on over your uniform?" Ben squinted through sleep-addled eyes. Who was this? What was going on here? "Are you pretending to be that vigilante from Gotham City?"
The tall muscular figure wearing the Superman costume with black cape and cowl replied, "Me no am pretend. This am serious. Me no am lose small boy." Peering around the figure asked, "Where am small boy? Me am take small boy to Luthor."
A light showed down the stairs. Martha Kent knew that her son was hundreds of thousands, if not dozens of millions of miles away right now. But that voice downstairs…she called out, "Who is that down there, Ben?"
Ben turned partially toward the stairs still keeping the tall costumed figure in view. He had suddenly come fully awake and his mental weird meter started moving toward the high numbers as he called back, trying to keep his voice even, tensionless, "Martha, what we seem to have here is a confused Superman."
"What do you mean by confused?" Martha was now completely awake as well. If it was just some local in a costume, Ben would have said that. He'd have the kid sitting at the kitchen table with a pitcher of milk talking about fishing, or crops or baseball by now. Ben was great with people, especially young people. But he didn't say a kid in a Superman costume. Something about the bearing and manner of whoever was down there made Ben take that person seriously. But that person was not her son. As far as Martha knew, for all her son's many gifts, being in two places at once was not one of them. The hair stood up on the back of her neck as she poked her head out from the top of the stairs, she, too, wearing a housecoat.
"Well, first, he's talkin' differ'nt. Second, he's dressed up like Dracula and says he's the Dark Knight." Ben tried to sound calm, tried to keep the tension out of his voice
"Dark Knight no am confused. Me am find small boy and take to Luthor. Luthor am be very happy with Dark Knight," the huge costumed figure's chest swelled and it pointed at itself proudly with the thumbs of both hands.
Ben Reilly drew himself up to his full height, "Look here young man, I'm sure the Widow Kent will gladly offer a great person such as yourself some coffee and donuts even at this late hour, but her grandson goes nowhere."
"This no am going right," still standing just inside the door way, the figure snatched up a hat stand that was next to the door and leaned the stand back over its shoulder like a fighting staff. The stand found its way back out the door, but when the black-caped figure brought it back over its head to smash down on the puny man in classes and robe, the stand smacked the overhead door jamb and broke like a tooth pick.
As the legs and few remaining inches of the hat stand cut through the air toward Ben, he cowered, crouching as low as he could. The remains of the hat stand missed him by a good eighteen inches or more and Ben started to say, thank Heaven, but then an idea struck him. Turning toward the couch, he reached under it and grabbed the rifle. While the huge man was staring at the remains of the hat rack with a puzzled look in his eyes and his mouth open, dumbstruck, Ben took aim doing what he could to protect Martha and Jason.
Back upstairs, Martha was quietly rousting Jason. Even though he was Clark's son and already beginning to manifest some of Clark's powers, he was barely old enough to go to school. Martha felt very protective of this young boy. She silently prayed that what yoga and manual farm work she and Ben still did on her property and his, too, left them limber and strong enough for the coming activities this evening. The last thing Jason needed tonight was for one of them to pull a hamstring or break hip. She took his meds from Clark's old night stand and some clothes from under the bed scooping them into the lad's book bag. Martha began to move the lad along toward the door of Clark's old room and the window at the end of the hallway. She seemed to recall that Clark and Lana and Chloe had climbed in and out through this window in various combinations years ago. Another prayer went up that the ivy covered wooden cross work outside the window would still hold them.
"What's going on Grandma?" Jason asked sleepily.
"We have to leave." Martha spoke as calmly as she could. Jason was about six, getting him out of sorts on his first visit wouldn't do.
"Why are we going out the window?" Jason asked groggily. As he heard the voices from downstairs, he perked up, "Is that Father's voice downstairs?"
"Take a look son." Martha spoke cautiously still moving Jason toward the window, opening it slowly, hoping it wouldn't creek too much. "What do you think?"
"I can't see through walls yet Grandma," Jason answered matter-of-factly, "just cardboard boxes and wastepaper baskets."
"Then listen." Martha now stood very still.
"That sounds like Father's voice, but it's not like how he talks." Jason spoke very thoughtfully, standing very still while he listened even more intently, "The heart sounds like him, but not the breathing." Suddenly he turned away from Martha and the window. "The Bad Bald Man sent him. You have to go, and Mr. Ben, too."
Martha kindly and patiently put a hand on the young man's shoulder, "Son, I don't want you to throw my piano at the monster down there." She spoke lovingly and with humor, "I can't just buy another like the Bad Bald Man." Then her tone took on more firmness, "I need your help to climb down the side of this here house to the trucks. We'll take Mr. Ben's; it has a phone in it. We'll get Mr. Ben at the back door."
Jason turned back to her. His expression signaling acceptance, "Where will we go?"
Martha spoke with the tired determination that only an aging widowed farmer can muster, "We just have to get to the Kowachee Caves, son. Your grandfather, Jor-El, built a portal there that leads to your father's Fortress. We'll be safe there."
"What's a portal?"
"It's like a Star Trek teleporter." Martha replied moving again.
"Oh. Okay. Wait a minute, Grandma. Your joints don't look like Mom's and Daddy's. You won't make it through that window." Jason grabbed the frame of the open and ripped it out of the wall, creating a much larger opening. He saw how the tree branches had grown close to the house and had an idea of his own. "Hold on to me, Grandma, like a piggy back ride."
The older woman grabbed on to Jason with her arms and held his hips with her knees. She kept her feet up off the floor. Jason took three steps and jumped out to the tree branches where they were thicker. He caught a branch with his arms. "Wow. Don't tell my Mom. She doesn't let me climb trees."
"Jason I can hold myself for a few seconds. You drop down to the ground and then catch me."
Jason let go. The rifle went off in the living room. Martha fell. Jason landed, braced himself with his knees bent to absorb the shock and caught her.
Jason heard Mr. Ben scrambling for the back porch. The lad and Martha climbed up into the cab of the pickup truck. She cranked it up and drove over to the kitchen door to pick up Ben. Ben fired the rifle again and the stepped from the top step into the bed of his truck. As Martha pulled out, he rummaged around in his truck box for more ammunition and reloaded. Rather then cut out back around the barn and into the farmland, Martha drove around by the front porch and waited until she saw the thing come out the front door. She drove over a real estate 'sold' sign leading the behemoth away. She didn't want it tearing her house up any more. After all, she had a contract on it.
As they sped away up the rural road toward the Kowachee Caves the monster caught up to them in three strides. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw Jason on the phone and wondered who he could be calling at this hour? Would 9-1-1 do any good against something like this? It grabbed onto the side of the truck bed, keeping pace with them. Ben aimed the rifle at the thing's hand a fired again. The thing wasn't injured but it did let go and slow down bit. It still seemed to be startled and need to examine itself.
Ben leaned around toward the driver's window and called to Martha, "Why don't you head into town? At least the Sheriff's Posse can slow this thing down."
"We're going to the Kowachee Caves." She answered simply
"What's there?" Ben wondered what could possibly be in a historic Native American site that could possible
"Family secrets," she put the window up.
Ben turned back toward whatever the huge thing was that was after them and held the rifle at the ready. He started to review the situation in his mind to try to organize the facts and figure out how to best help Martha and the boy. A "man" looking very much like the photos he has seen of Superman in newspapers and on TV, from the chin down anyway, comes to the door late at night, but wearing a black Dracula cape and some kind of strange cowl. And why was "Superman" or "Dark Knight" talking like that? Ben got to the first question when the whole situation took a hard right turn straight into the Twilight Zone: Lionel Luthor ran up on foot from behind them wearing a grey robe with Superman's "S-shield" on it in black. He began to pace the truck.
Next thing Rod Serling's voice would ring out in his ears. He had to be dreaming.