The room rumbled again and they all heard the loud CRACK!. Looking up in sudden fear, a gap appeared in the concrete support over their heads.

"We're out of time!" Davis shouted, then reached out a hand and took the Blue stone in his grip.

Chloe watched the power of the Blue-K streak up Davis' hand and under his shirt cuff only to reappear from under his collar and speed up his neck.

So far, so good.

Then Davis' eyes snapped open.

His eyes had gone red. Red as Doomsday's. Then his mouth opened on a howl of agony unlike anything that should ever come from a human throat. As Chloe stared in horror, icy blue light overtook the red of Davis' eyes.

Then as suddenly as it had started, the awful howl stopped and Davis collapsed in a boneless heap. The chunk of Blue-K tumbled from his limp hand and across the floor.

Clark rushed forward at super-speed and caught Davis right before he would have hit the floor, as Chloe dashed to retrieve the Blue-K. She stowed it safely with the other pieces back in the case.

Clark gently laid Davis out on the floor, before getting back to his feet and looking around them in surprise. "Chloe, the earthquake! It's stopped!"

Chloe blinked. She hadn't even noticed, her mind full of concern for Davis, but Clark was right. A moment before, the whole room had been shuddering, causing the ceiling itself to crack, but now...everything seemed quiet.

"It worked," she looked down at Davis' quiet form on the ground, then back at Clark. "Can you get us out of here now? We don't know how long this break will last."

Clark nodded. "Let me see if I can find a safe place to tunnel out." His red cape swirled around him dramatically as his face took on the squinting expression that Chloe knew meant he was using his X-ray vision. After a few seconds, his face grew excited. "I think I see a place, but I can't see more than a few feet into it because of the lead shielding, but if those schematics were accurate there shouldn't be anything above that but dirt and rubble. Victor, you still with us?"

"Yeah, I'm here. What the hell happened with Davis? I had to mute his com because of that scream." They heard Victor shudder even through the link. "But I'm here. What can I do to help? I'm still mostly blind into those deeper regions where you guys are."

"That's fine. I need surface eyes. Tell me if there is anyone up there I should know about."

"Gimmie a second." They heard typing. "Shit. You guys need to get out of there now. Looks like Lex's goons are heading up the main road."

"That's our cue to leave then." Clark bent down and threw Davis over his shoulder, then hesitated a moment before grabbing the handle of the case that held the Blue-K and Gold-K chunks. Opening up an arm, Chloe moved in until she stood on one of his red boots and he used the arm with the case to secure her in place. Smiling down he said, "Hang on tight, this is going to be a bumpy ride."

Then Clark blasted through the ceiling above them and the three of them flew up into the tunnel he created. Dirt, rock, and building material showered over them, covering all three in a brown-grey grit. Then suddenly, without warning, they burst from the ground and out into the night.

Chloe let out a relieved breath to be back on the surface and catching the sound, Clark showed off his dazzling smile, which seemed even whiter given everything else was covered in dirt. Chloe smiled back for a moment before her attention was caught by a groan from Davis. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened to him after he grabbed the Blue-K, but she was sure of one thing - he had been just as much a hero as Clark. If not more.

Lex's lab found and destroyed - minus a few meteor rock samples now in our hands. Doomsday temporarily stopped, and a possible weapon to use against it in the future. A pretty good night overall.

Davis woke to the warm feeling of sunlight beating on his face. As he opened his gritty eyes, he saw he was stretched out on a small cot and covered by a light blanket. In a chair next to him, the sun backlit brilliant blonde hair, obscuring her face in a halo of light.

Chloe.

Without thinking, he reached out a hand to hers and his voice rasped. "Chloe..."

When she turned to face him, his smile fell. It wasn't Chloe.

He snatched his hand back and the strange young blonde woman smiled at him, but he thought he saw a slight hurt in her expression as he pulled away. "No, sorry, Davis. Chloe is still asleep." The young woman nodded across the room, which he now recognized as Watchtower. Chloe was curled up on a couch, covered by a light blanket. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically in sleep. "She tried to stay up and watch over you, but when I found her slumped over your bed, I had her moved over there where she'd be more comfortable and I took up watching over you." The girl smiled wider. "You all had a very busy night."

"Thank you for taking care of her." Davis nodded toward the sleeping Chloe, then give her a small lopsided smile as an apology for his earlier disappointment. "And me. You seem to know who I am, but I'm afraid I don't have the same honor," he said.

She blushed prettily. "Oh, sorry. I've heard so much about you by now, I'd forgotten we hadn't met. I'm Courtney. Courtney Whitmore, also known as Stargirl." She gave him a brilliant smile.

Davis felt his own smile respond by widening. In a way this girl reminded him of a younger Chloe. "Nice to meet you Courtney. Or do you prefer Stargirl?"

"Either is fine in here, but outside, it goes by in-costume or not."

Davis nodded. "Makes sense." His eyes went over to Chloe on the couch. She was curled up tightly with one fist curled against her face like a small child. He smiled at the picture, before turning his attention back to Courtney. "Care to fill me in on how we all went from trapped in the Geothermal Plant to here?"

"Sure. At least I can tell you what I know. Chloe or Clar- I mean Superman - can give you more exact details, but I can tell you what was in their report."

Davis grinned at the poorly covered slip. "It's fine, Courtney. I know Clark is Superman. I know a few other identities too, but I'll keep their names to myself if you don't mind," he said, thinking of Oliver/Green Arrow. "This isn't my first time amongst this crowd."

"Right, yeah, of course. You were Doomsday. Or part of you was. Or something." She stopped, letting out an annoyed breath. "Honestly, it is kind of hard to understand, but if Chloe let you in here, she must trust you and that is good enough for me."

He smiled, touched by the girl's faith in both him and Chloe. "Thank you. Now, the plant...?"

"Right! So from what I read, you are connected to Doomsday in some way?" She said, lifting an eyebrow at him for confirmation. He nodded, and she continued. "So they said you grabbed a piece of Blue Kryptonite - which I didn't even know was a thing, but anyway - and they said you screamed and fainted, but that whatever you did stopped the monster from setting off the earthquake and destabilizing the plant. After that, Clark grabbed up you and Chloe and bashed his way to the surface. Just in time too, it seems. As you were all flying away, Lex's security teams swarmed the site."

Davis seized on the most important detail, his gaze intent on the young woman. "Doomsday stopped fighting after I grabbed the Blue-K?"

"That's what they said in their report," she said, somewhat nervously.

Davis had to fight back the urge to whoop with joy. He restrained himself, but still gave Courtney a huge grin. "Do you understand what this means?"

The girl was obviously no dummy. "The Blue-K can neutralize Doomsday?" she said, flashing her own grin in response.

"Yes!" he enthused, then he felt the excitement drain from him slightly. "For a little while at least. Hopefully the exposure today wasn't enough to trigger an immune response from the monster and we will have at least one more shot." He started to get up, but as soon as he threw the light blanket aside, he stopped. He was wearing an incredibly thin, tight white undershirt and his boxer briefs. And nothing else. "Ummm, what happened to my clothes?"

Courtney sprung to her feet. "Victor and Clark removed them to check you over and run your vitals, since you seemed to be in shock. Once you started to even out, we had them cleaned. I'll go grab them for you."

"Thank you, Courtney," he responded, sitting back on the cot and pulling the blanket across his lap. He was glad he didn't really react much to temperature changes, because sitting around Watchtower in his underwear might have been cold.

He didn't notice that Chloe's slow, regular breathing had become fast and erratic, or the brilliant green eye partially hidden by a swatch of blonde hair that watched him.