Zerayah's adventures with Superman 2: Clark's hobby
Clark Kent never really expected anyone to truly get him, oh sure in terms of being born with weird freaky abilities there were plenty of Psykers now newly freed from the shackles of oppression imposed by the Imperium in all its superstitious glory, but there was always a fundamentally disconnect between the normal human experience and well, himself. Something that only grew worse when pa showed him that spacecraft beneath the old abandoned barn, in that moment he had consciously or not resigned himself to always being different. Some days he wished someone more qualified like the great Liberator was blessed with his abilities, truth was most of the time he was just doing his best not to catastrophically hurt anyone due to barely understanding what he could do let alone how to control, or god forbid actually utilise with any real efficacy, his powers. One thing they never talk about superpowers in the holodramas (at least he assumed so, truth be told he stopped really watching public broadcasts and the like when he started getting a headache from his eyes suddenly being able to see every individual frame and never quite got back into the habit), there was never any instruction manual, only vague instinct and a lot of often very destructive trail and error.
Now however things were different. With a small smile to himself he turned to look at the girl sitting beside him in Imperial History. Usually she had tanned skin, hazel eyes and hair of a similar colour cropped into a short hairstyle, but in private she preferred a different look with paler skin, hair black as the night sky and the most piercing purple eyes he had ever seen which reminded him of someone he had seen before... but he wasn't sure where. She wasn't like him, he didn't know if there was anyone like him, but she was born unlike anyone else as well. And in finding another person who did not quite fit any mold, he found the strange melancholy loneliness that burdened his heart was lessened. Not gone, the voice of his true birth father telling him that he was the last of his kind ensured that feeling would never truly be gone, but it was close enough.
"So... hey Clark?" Lara whispered, leaning towards him. "After school today can I join you in your uh... hobby?"
"I thought your overprotective dad wouldn't let you stay out too late." He asked. Apparently Lara's father was some big shot in the city, rich enough that he saw Lara being dropped off via armoured vehicle more than once in fact, and given his daughter's... nature... and his position was apparently sometimes a bit paranoid over his daughter's safety. At least that's how she explained the undercover agents sneaking around the school these days which he had to try really hard to pretend not to notice.
"Well, teeeeechnically I am meant to stay home. But I am very sneaky!" She whispered with a sly smile.
"I still don't know if that's a good idea..." He laughed nervously.
"Come on! Please! Swear you won't get in trouble!" Lara pleaded with the biggest puppy dog eyes that he was almost certain she was using her shapeshifting to enhance, gah! His only weakness!
"Fine..." He agreed, turning his head to hide the small blush he felt growing on his cheek. "Meet you after school..."
"Ahem." Mrs. Codstocking coughed conspicuously, glaring at the two of them intensely enough that he could feel it. "Mr. Kent, could you please tell me what the Great Crusade was?"
"Well uh..." He stammered. "Around ten thousand years ago..."
After school he waited at the agreed rooftop in baggy clothing worn over his costume. The strange suit had been found in the same spaceship he crashed in, and alongside conveniently growing with him seemed to be the only clothing that didn't tear to shreds after any amount of serious physical movement. He wouldn't wear in in public though because... well... to say whoever his parents were had strange tastes in fashion would be an understatement. Though the blue colour as well as the apparent symbol of hope on the front were reminiscent of the Lord of Change's colours and thus aligned quite closely with his goal to bring hope onto others with his strange gifts he wished sometimes it was a bit more... conventional. A cape? Seriously? That was practically begging to get caught on something! Not like anything could really properly hurt him of course, but it was embarrassing when it happened!
...and the idea of embarrassing himself in front of miss Lane seemed to mortify him for some reason...
Speaking of the devil, melting through the shadows a familliar raven haired girl waved at him. He didn't even pick up on her approach with his enhanced hearing or sight, if he didn't know her honestly she would be a little scary. Then again, wasn't he?
"Alright Clark I am ready!" She called out, her casual clothing quite literally melting away to form some chitinous armour in its place. "Told ya I could give them the slip!"
"I don't doubt that... but don't you think your dad would get worried?" He asked with concern.
Scoffing Lara waved him off. "I doubt they'll even notice by the time I get back! Now get changed, surely you aren't going out crime fighting in that?"
She pointed at his clothes, ancient hand me downs from his father really, and looking every single one of their years. "Well no but..."
"Yes?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
Coughing nervously he quickly spun his clothes off, changing into his costume in a fraction of a second. She looked him up and down and gawked.
"I know I know it's kind of weird but I didn't design it or anything... besides it's the only clothing I have which doesn't break when I-" He trailed off a list of justifications before he noticed Lara's face was quite literally burning crimson.
Oh. Sometimes he forgot how... form fitting it was...
Blushing violently himself he stuttered. "Uh... well see... I was rescuing a large felid the other day... though to be honest they were more scaring the local populace than needing saving."
Lara gasped. "That was you? You were the one who brought back Alcides when he ran out the other day!"
"That's your pet?" Clark asked somewhat dumbfounded before remembering who he was talking to. "Right sorry, rich dad. Anyway uh, during the process I saw some strange people wearing the symbol of the plague god..."
"And that's no good! So we need to put them in their place?" Lara finished for him, looking far too eager at the prospect of dealing with cultists of the Plague God, almost like she had some sort of personal vendetta against him.
"I would more say we need to first in-" He began before being quite literally dragged off almost comically by the smaller girl.
"It'll be fine! Dad won't even find out by the time we are done with those bozos!" She declared confidently. Clark could only chuckle in defeat as he let himself be taken into the depths of Cainopolis.
"Have you seen Zerayah today Hektor?" Jurgen asked with no small amount of concern.
"I don't believe I have." A confused looking Hektor replied, finishing off refilling the Panacea in his collar as he did.
"That's funny." Jurgen said with furrowed eyebrows. "Because she told me she was going to see you for training earlier, that was an hour ago."
Hektors eyes opened wide, the old marine now freed from most of the pain induced by the Nails had turned out to be quite the empathetic individual and had quickly grown to care for Cain's daughter even if not as much as some of the more core members of the retinue. The transhuman had a lot of naked concern on display at the moment which, as Khornates are wont to do, was filtered through the lens of outrage. "WHERE IS SHE! WHY DID YOU LET HER OUT OF YOUR SIGHT!"
Jurgen sighed and reassured the old Astartes. "It's just teenage rebellion... well I am not sure if I can call her a teen considering her chronological age... still given how recently she has seemed quite infatuated with a certain boy in her school and has not been allowed to see him outside until a full investigation is completed into the lad's background it stands to reason she has simply snuck off to see him. Still we cannot let Cain worry, and we certainly cannot let her continue to foster bad habits."
Reciting words to a certain spell he had Jafar teach him he took out a lock of hair he had taken from Zerayah's room and felt the energies of the immaterium cackle around him. Soon the exact location of their charge was revealed to both men in the room in the form of scattered images and directions, something Jurgen translated into something more comprehendible before the former beserker could smite him while yelling 'foul witchcraft' or something.
"This is a simple yet quite effective tracking spell, we should have no problem relocating our girl and dragging her back before the tryst becomes anything serious. After all it's only been an hour, how bad can the situation have gotten?"
"Something smells off..." Hektor growled.
"Nonsense! I-" Jurgen said before a terribly familliar smell hit him in the psychic senses. "Sewers? What is she doing moving at hundreds of kilometres an hour in the sewers?"
"I don't understand how you are dealing with this so well, ugh... I don't know if I will ever wash this smell out." Clark Kent groaned, pinching his nose as he hovered a few inches over the filth below.
Zerayah laughed from her spot on the ceiling, scuttling much like an Old Terran reptile known as a Gecko. "What's wrong big blue? Honestly this is about par for the course for the followers of the Rotten One!"
"I know that..." Clark muttered before asking. "How did you know they were here anyway?"
"Well I am very good at tracking, you could even say that was what I was built for..." Lara responded somewhat cryptically before stopping. "Straight ahead."
A group of horrible pale creatures clad in worm eaten cloth that may have at one point been white waited in the darkness just ahead. Ordinary eyes would not have been able to spot them in the murky darkness, but such was not an obstacle for the two young heroes. Seeing that their planned ambush had been spotted the cultists screeched. "YOUR PRECIOUS LIBERATOR COULD NEVER STOMP US OUT! YOU PATHETIC CHILDREN STAND NO CHANCE, PSYCHIC GIFT OR NOT! WE WILL FIND ALL THE SECRETS OF THE PANACEA AND CREATE A PLAGUE THAT CAN SURPASS US AND THEN WE WILL RETURN YOU TO THE FOLD O BL-"
"That's enough talking." Zerayah growled before rushing in with a flurry of movement. Before the head cultist could finish his sentence she had already cleanly separated his head from his shoulders, causing it to flop onto the floor with a splash. Soon afterwards in a whirlwind of blade and claw the other cultists were put down, viciously ripped to shreds before they could even scream. Clark floated just behind her looking rather conflicted and sick at the display of violence. Ah, she remembered now, most normal people were put off by the prospect of actually taking a life no matter how foul. It seems her big blue boy was no exception.
Little matter, that naive optimism and belief in humanity was why she fell for him liked him anyway.
"Trust me it was a mercy, have you seen how rotted their bodies are? Imagine the state of a soul that can live in this state, especially with so much panacea freely given. What miserable existences." She reassured.
Composing himself clark took a calming breath and seemed to gag at the smell. "Ugk- yeah... sorry... I understand... it's just... they were people too."
"I get it, but you have to consider would they be so willing to give the same mercy to us?" She responded.
"Yeah... but could they even do anything against us?" He asked somewhat shakily.
A young woman's scream echoed down the sewer. "We can argue philosophy later! They might not be able to hurt us, but there are plenty of people they can hurt!"
Clark's eyes widened and he straightened his back, creating a sonic boom as he zoomed through the tight sewer corridors. Not one to be outdone Zerayah rushed over to join him, arriving at their destination only a second or two behind him. There in a more open and far more dilapidated section of the sewer was what must have been the last of the Plague God's presence on the planet, surrounding an alter made of rotting corpses, with a woman who couldn't have been much older than Clark chained to it evidently about to be the next body making up the macabre alter and writhing in obvious agony.
Dressed in a robe of rotten vermin carcasses a foul mockery of a priest stood by with pale yellowed teeth. "You are too late! The ritual has already begun! With the weakened immaterial walls around Slawkenberg we will bring forth one of Grandfather's chosen and grant this forsaken world repentance in the eyes of the fo-"
Before he could finish Clark was already moving, travelling so fast even Zerayah's eyes couldn't keep track of him. With a thunderous boom the rotting priest was punched straight through a sewer wall... then another one... and another one... coming to a stop when he slammed into bedrock perhaps a hundred metres or so away. She doubted even the dubious gifts of Nurgle could help him get up from that. With a sound of crumbling steel Clark crushed each rusted shackle effortlessly, delicately picking up the sacrifice and handing her as well as a standard issue Panacea injection over to Zerayah's care, eyes blazing with a righteous fury that Zerayah was honestly kinda into. Nodding she took the tortured girl and injected her with the serum, immediately causing her spasms to lessen and her black pus-filled veins to recede somewhat.
"Blessed child and alien interloper! You will come to regret your mistakes!" One of the more deranged cultists, and thus one that wasn't demoralised by the blatant display of power, proclaimed while cupping their pus-soaked neck with pale skinless arms. "The Last Grandchildren of Slawkenberg will open your eyes yet to the truth of despair!"
With an eerie smile the cultist snapped their own neck with the ease one would break paper and fell bonelessly to the floor... but evidently that was enough. With a rush of otherworldly power space itself around the sewer seemed to get poisoned as a daemonic presence coalesced in the room.
"Blessed child.. you got to explain what's up with that." Clark said as he burned the remaining cultists with his eyes, aiming for their limbs. Even now he was still avoiding causing death if he could help it she realised.
"Really I thought you already knew." She said sheepishly, placing the now unconscious hostage somewhere safe-ish."But seeing as you are denser than your own muscles it seems, name's Zerayah Cain actually."
Clark actually looked shocked for a second before refocusing on the massive portal shaped titan in the room. "Huh... alright I really need to watch the news broadcasts more but i'll deal with that news later."
"Agreed." Zerayah said, enhancing her form to her fullest combat potential.
To say the daemon did not stand a chance would be far too generous for the thing.
Hektor easily ripped open a manhole cover and the two men descended into the sewers, a feat that was quite difficult for Hektor considering the astarte's prodigious size. It wasn't long before the psychic signal started growing stronger... as well as the scent of decay and rotted corpses littering the floor. Centuries of experience told Hektor that these were almost certainly nurglite cultists. He had been told the forces of the Plague God were obliterated by the Liberator years ago, but of course like the mold they worshipped the tainted ones would always find a way to cling onto life. One of the only admirable traits about the wretched lot.
"Cain is going to kill me..." Jurgen sighed, the psyker seemingly resigned to his fate as he pushed onwards.
"Uncle Jurgen?" A voice echoed through the sewers.
"Zerayah? Are you alright!" Jurgen called out.
"Yeah... sorry i'm fine... I know I am so grounded but honestly I am glad to hear you!" Zerayah's relieved voice echoed closer. Soon he could see Zerayah, clad in chitinous armour, carrying an unconscious young woman in her arms emerge from the dark, with another figure floating behind her.
Hektor's muscles tensed as he gripped his knife, his other weapons too large for the tight space. Besides him Jurgen also tensed, psychic light emenating from his eyes.
"Wait stop! That's Clark he's a friend! He helped me kill the daemon!" Zerayah called out.
Looking closer into the dark he could see the young man more clearly. Well sculpted muscles accentuated by that ridiculous costume, blue eyes that seemed to pierce the darkness and all about him coiled power so thick as to practically be visable yet held so tightly to the young man's body that he could forgive mortals for not recognising it. Looking closer at the power Hektor could feel something familiar about it, something that dredged up memories millennia old. It had been an eon since he had been in the presence of power like that... but though the boy was far shorter than even those treacherous twins there was no mistaking it.
Falling to a knee and fighting for putrid rot-scented air Hektor found himself croaking out. "L... lord Primarch..."
"What?" Was the dumbfounded response from everyone else in the sewer, floating boy included.