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Title: Capacity For Good (Part 1): The Second Emissary
Author: El Duderino (otherwise known as the Dude
)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own 'Smallville,' and if you continue to say I do, I shall call the police.
Summary: The latest thrilling chapter in the 'All The While' story arc (I should really come up with a wraparound title to tie all those things together. Any suggestions?). As public opinion remains divided over the mysterious Superman, Clark is forced into a confrontation with an old friend, some new friends make an appearance and of course, a dark power looms.
EDIT: A link to the previous story, "The Light That Shows The Way,"
Capacity For Good
-----------------
The Second Emissary
-------------------
Prologue
--------
He is running. Not fast, more like running through treacle; he can barely lift his legs.
The sky is strange. Something about the light. He looks up and sees the sun burning high and red; something tells him it should’ve been the dark of night. Days and nights mean nothing anymore. All that matters is the vessel.
He sees it; far in the distance, across the desert of scorched earth, the small ship launches, climbing into the heavens. He tries to scream for them to wait, not to leave him behind, but there is no sound. In minutes, the ship makes high orbit and then streaks across the sky, disappearing.
A bright, soundless flash catches his eye, and the sun grows dark. Something is coming. The ground cracks and rumbles under his feet, and he watches the clouds boil above his head. The sea evaporates, clouds of supersteam sweep towards him. He waits calmly now, and as it comes, it seems to stare at him, roaring like an animal…
…The storm passes suddenly. It is dark. Raining. There is something familiar and dreadful about it all. He is on his knees, feeling soft mud sinking under his weight. Gravestones glare at him accusingly; JONATHAN KENT, MARTHA KENT, LOIS LANE, CHLOE SULLIVAN, PETE ROSS,…as far as the eye can see. The world is a graveyard. There is nothing left. And it’s all his fault.
Clark flinched awake, sweating and panting for breath. He’d only ever felt like this once before; after the vision of Cassandra Carver. He whispered quietly into the dark of the apartment.
“Something is coming.”
“…thinking of running the Metropolis marathon topless. Clark?”
Clark looked up, blinking, as a rolled up ball of paper bounced off his glasses. “What?”
“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?” Lois huffed from across the conference table.
“Sure,” he said, grinning. “Something about a topless marathon?”
“Trust you to catch that part,” she rolled her eyes. “I said I hope you have something for today’s conference, otherwise Perry’s going to give you the mules.” ‘Mules’ was Lois’s term for the assignments no-one else wanted to do.
“I’m not sure I’d mind,” Clark sighed, still perturbed by last night’s vivid dream. “I could use a quiet day.”
“A quiet day can get you fired,” she said, digging out her notes. “ ‘Quiet’ isn’t newsworthy, Clark. A reporter is only as good as their last story,” she commented in a sage tone.
“What is that, a Lane-ism?” he smirked back.
Lois was about to respond when Perry strolled in with a newspaper under his arm, casting an eye around the table. “Good morning, boys and girls. I won’t waste too much of your time. Lois, good job on the fire in Suicide Slums; the only reporter to get an on-the-scene quote from Superman.”
Clark watched her blush, adorably, he thought.
“Kent,” Perry said. “Where were you?”
“Uhh, h-home?” Clark ventured. “Asleep. It was three in the morning, Chief.”
“That’s no excuse. Lois was out there hustling for the story as soon as it came over the wire,” he pointed. He wasn’t really getting at Clark, just stoking the fire; if he could work up the natural competitiveness between him and Lois, he had a feeling he’d get some great stories out of them. “The news doesn’t come to you, Clark, and it doesn’t wait until after cornflakes. Shape up, kid. And for the umpteenth time, don’t call me Chief.”
“Well, don’t call me ‘kid,’ then,” Clark returned without thinking. After hearing the muttered ‘uh-oh’ from Lois, he could’ve bitten out his tongue. “I-I mean…”
“Fair enough,” Perry returned. He took a moment, enjoying Clark’s sigh of relief, then held up the newspaper. “You know what this is, folks? This is today’s Metropolis Journal.” He flicked out the front page with a flourish, displaying the headline:
“MUSEUM BREAK-IN; POLICE BAFFLED.”
“And this is a scoop,” he continued. A collective squirm ran through the room as everyone there recalled passing over the assignment at the Metropolis Museum of Natural History. “Remind me; we still work at a newspaper, right? Our job is about reporting and printing current affairs?”
“The burglary was interrupted,” Lois chipped in. “Nothing was taken, no-one was hurt, seemed like a non-story.”
“Yesterday, it was a non-story,” Perry strolled around the table, deftly flipping his poker chip over his knuckles. “But today, Lex Luthor pledged a sizeable donation for restoration of the building, so it’s news.” Luthor’s contribution was being trumpeted across both the Inquisitor and the Journal, something that left a bad taste in Clark’s mouth; those papers, presumably under Lex’s influence, were actively pursuing pernicious rumors about Superman’s involvement in what was now being called the Metallo incident. The novelty of Clark’s first appearance as Superman was wearing off, and his public image had taken a few knocks; opinion polls tended to come back that Superman was ‘too good to be true.’
“The trail’s getting cold, so we’re just gonna have to make do,” Perry said. “Lois, you and Olsen get down there, bag some photos and on-the-spot quotes.”
“But the crime scene’s wrapped up,” she protested. “There’s nothing there.”
Perry threw a smirk at her. “Gee, it’s almost as if it happened yesterday. It’ll be good practise for you. Try and find something everyone else missed. Clark.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“First, I told you, stop callin' me Chief. Secondly, Luthor’s holding an invite-only shindig at the Luthor stately pile back in Smallville tomorrow night; it’s a fundraiser for the redevelopment of Suicide Slums. In return for his donation, the Natural History Museum agreed to loan him some of their pieces for display.” That sounded like Lex; there was always a catch. “You’re going to attend. It’s black tie, so if you haven’t got a tux, get one.”
“But,…”
“But what, kid?” Perry said. “You know the town, and you know the man. It’s a no-brainer. Just snag some quotes, a few photos and do something on the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Now, other business…”
Lex slammed the phone down angrily. “Specialists. For what this has cost, it had better be worth it.”
“I can take care of it, if you like.”
He looked over to the bed; Mercy Graves, his personal bodyguard. New to the job, and very keen.
“The offer is appreciated,” he said, “but not only does something like this require a professional touch, I don’t want to risk the exposure.” He glanced at his watch. “Get dressed. We leave in half and hour.”
The girl slid her long legs over the side of the bed and stood, unabashed by her nudity as she walked to the bathroom; rather than being affected by Lex’s brusqueness, she seemed excited by it.
He picked up the copy of last week’s Planet he’d saved. ‘I Spent The Night With Superman.’ After everything he’d done for this city, they were still championing that freak. His eye fell on the photo; it was the one Lois had taken at Cadmus Labs, Superman framed against the debris, looking stoic and determined. The man bore such an uncanny resemblance; he could swear it was…
‘No,’ he caught himself, ‘you can’t allow yourself to start thinking like that again.’ The dreams he’d had, Clark’s face haunting him through others, like his conscience escaped, had contributed to his earlier…episode. Clark and the freak had been together on the steps of LexCorp, not to mention the numerous times he had seen Clark injured and bleeding; it wasn’t him.
‘You have enough real enemies,’ Lex thought, ‘without making them up.’
After coming back from the museum, Lois was deep in thought; something wasn’t right.
“Hey,” Clark nodded from his desk as she walked over; when he was assigned a permanent workstation, he was put on the opposite end of the floor from hers, at the ‘new guy’ desk. “What’d you get?”
She scoffed. “Right, I’m gonna tell you. Why don’t I just give you my notes and type the story for you?”
“With your spelling?” he grinned. “No, thanks.”
She fired a narrow-eyed smirk at him. Her spelling was a running joke between them; in fact, it was now impeccable. Lois, in typical stubborn fashion, had treated her typos like enemies, and had quizzed and read and wrote until she’d hunted them all down and killed them dead.
“Tell you what,” said Clark, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Tell me what you found at the museum, and you can be my ‘plus one’ at the Luthor mansion tomorrow night.”
Lois’s heart jumped; it sounded a little like Clark Kent was asking her on a date. “And why on Earth would I want to do that?”
“Because you’ll get a clear run at Lex,” Clark smirked. “You do think he was involved with the break-in, right?”
She sighed. “I hate that you know me like that. Well, the job was professional, precision timed, and whoever broke in, they knew the security system backwards. They avoided the cameras, the motion detectors and the guards, all without a hitch. If it hadn’t been for a keen as mustard new guy, the alarm would never have been raised. After that, they cleared out.”
“No idea what they were looking for?”
“No idea,” Lois shook her head.
“So what makes you think Lex was involved?”
“The donation he made was far in excess of the damages to the museum,” said Lois. “Since the break-in was a bust, I’m figuring the reason for that was…”
“…so he could talk them into loaning out the artefacts,” Clark finished, then grinned, tapping a pencil sharply on the desk. “Well, a deal’s a deal. Wanna be my date?” He forced himself to sound whimsical, though his heart raced a little.
“Fine,” she shot back, playing the game to cover her own nerves, “but just so you know, Smallville, I have an eleven o’clock curfew, or my Dad sends out the National Guard.”
He laughed, and she loved it; he always made it sound like she was his favorite person in the whole world.
“What do you think he’s looking for?” she continued, back to business. “What could he possibly want with a bunch of museum relics?”
“I don’t know,” Clark said, gravely. “But whatever it is, knowing Lex, I’m betting it’s not GAAAAH!”
Lois was struck cold by her friend’s agonized howl; Clark threw his head back, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut against the head-splitting screech that tore through him, filling him with broken glass. It was like the call of the crystals, only harsher, a thousand times worse.
“Clark? Clark, what’s wrong?!” Lois was at his side, reaching for him.
“Don’t touch me!” he shouted, terrified of hurting her.
He tried to stand, pressing the heels of his hands into his temples against the agony, and instead slumped into the desk, dragging papers as he crashed to the ground, breathless with pain.
End of Prologue
---------------
Author: El Duderino (otherwise known as the Dude
)Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own 'Smallville,' and if you continue to say I do, I shall call the police.
Summary: The latest thrilling chapter in the 'All The While' story arc (I should really come up with a wraparound title to tie all those things together. Any suggestions?). As public opinion remains divided over the mysterious Superman, Clark is forced into a confrontation with an old friend, some new friends make an appearance and of course, a dark power looms.
EDIT: A link to the previous story, "The Light That Shows The Way,"
Capacity For Good
-----------------
The Second Emissary
-------------------
Prologue
--------
He is running. Not fast, more like running through treacle; he can barely lift his legs.
The sky is strange. Something about the light. He looks up and sees the sun burning high and red; something tells him it should’ve been the dark of night. Days and nights mean nothing anymore. All that matters is the vessel.
He sees it; far in the distance, across the desert of scorched earth, the small ship launches, climbing into the heavens. He tries to scream for them to wait, not to leave him behind, but there is no sound. In minutes, the ship makes high orbit and then streaks across the sky, disappearing.
A bright, soundless flash catches his eye, and the sun grows dark. Something is coming. The ground cracks and rumbles under his feet, and he watches the clouds boil above his head. The sea evaporates, clouds of supersteam sweep towards him. He waits calmly now, and as it comes, it seems to stare at him, roaring like an animal…
…The storm passes suddenly. It is dark. Raining. There is something familiar and dreadful about it all. He is on his knees, feeling soft mud sinking under his weight. Gravestones glare at him accusingly; JONATHAN KENT, MARTHA KENT, LOIS LANE, CHLOE SULLIVAN, PETE ROSS,…as far as the eye can see. The world is a graveyard. There is nothing left. And it’s all his fault.
Clark flinched awake, sweating and panting for breath. He’d only ever felt like this once before; after the vision of Cassandra Carver. He whispered quietly into the dark of the apartment.
“Something is coming.”
“…thinking of running the Metropolis marathon topless. Clark?”
Clark looked up, blinking, as a rolled up ball of paper bounced off his glasses. “What?”
“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?” Lois huffed from across the conference table.
“Sure,” he said, grinning. “Something about a topless marathon?”
“Trust you to catch that part,” she rolled her eyes. “I said I hope you have something for today’s conference, otherwise Perry’s going to give you the mules.” ‘Mules’ was Lois’s term for the assignments no-one else wanted to do.
“I’m not sure I’d mind,” Clark sighed, still perturbed by last night’s vivid dream. “I could use a quiet day.”
“A quiet day can get you fired,” she said, digging out her notes. “ ‘Quiet’ isn’t newsworthy, Clark. A reporter is only as good as their last story,” she commented in a sage tone.
“What is that, a Lane-ism?” he smirked back.
Lois was about to respond when Perry strolled in with a newspaper under his arm, casting an eye around the table. “Good morning, boys and girls. I won’t waste too much of your time. Lois, good job on the fire in Suicide Slums; the only reporter to get an on-the-scene quote from Superman.”
Clark watched her blush, adorably, he thought.
“Kent,” Perry said. “Where were you?”
“Uhh, h-home?” Clark ventured. “Asleep. It was three in the morning, Chief.”
“That’s no excuse. Lois was out there hustling for the story as soon as it came over the wire,” he pointed. He wasn’t really getting at Clark, just stoking the fire; if he could work up the natural competitiveness between him and Lois, he had a feeling he’d get some great stories out of them. “The news doesn’t come to you, Clark, and it doesn’t wait until after cornflakes. Shape up, kid. And for the umpteenth time, don’t call me Chief.”
“Well, don’t call me ‘kid,’ then,” Clark returned without thinking. After hearing the muttered ‘uh-oh’ from Lois, he could’ve bitten out his tongue. “I-I mean…”
“Fair enough,” Perry returned. He took a moment, enjoying Clark’s sigh of relief, then held up the newspaper. “You know what this is, folks? This is today’s Metropolis Journal.” He flicked out the front page with a flourish, displaying the headline:
“MUSEUM BREAK-IN; POLICE BAFFLED.”
“And this is a scoop,” he continued. A collective squirm ran through the room as everyone there recalled passing over the assignment at the Metropolis Museum of Natural History. “Remind me; we still work at a newspaper, right? Our job is about reporting and printing current affairs?”
“The burglary was interrupted,” Lois chipped in. “Nothing was taken, no-one was hurt, seemed like a non-story.”
“Yesterday, it was a non-story,” Perry strolled around the table, deftly flipping his poker chip over his knuckles. “But today, Lex Luthor pledged a sizeable donation for restoration of the building, so it’s news.” Luthor’s contribution was being trumpeted across both the Inquisitor and the Journal, something that left a bad taste in Clark’s mouth; those papers, presumably under Lex’s influence, were actively pursuing pernicious rumors about Superman’s involvement in what was now being called the Metallo incident. The novelty of Clark’s first appearance as Superman was wearing off, and his public image had taken a few knocks; opinion polls tended to come back that Superman was ‘too good to be true.’
“The trail’s getting cold, so we’re just gonna have to make do,” Perry said. “Lois, you and Olsen get down there, bag some photos and on-the-spot quotes.”
“But the crime scene’s wrapped up,” she protested. “There’s nothing there.”
Perry threw a smirk at her. “Gee, it’s almost as if it happened yesterday. It’ll be good practise for you. Try and find something everyone else missed. Clark.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“First, I told you, stop callin' me Chief. Secondly, Luthor’s holding an invite-only shindig at the Luthor stately pile back in Smallville tomorrow night; it’s a fundraiser for the redevelopment of Suicide Slums. In return for his donation, the Natural History Museum agreed to loan him some of their pieces for display.” That sounded like Lex; there was always a catch. “You’re going to attend. It’s black tie, so if you haven’t got a tux, get one.”
“But,…”
“But what, kid?” Perry said. “You know the town, and you know the man. It’s a no-brainer. Just snag some quotes, a few photos and do something on the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Now, other business…”
Lex slammed the phone down angrily. “Specialists. For what this has cost, it had better be worth it.”
“I can take care of it, if you like.”
He looked over to the bed; Mercy Graves, his personal bodyguard. New to the job, and very keen.
“The offer is appreciated,” he said, “but not only does something like this require a professional touch, I don’t want to risk the exposure.” He glanced at his watch. “Get dressed. We leave in half and hour.”
The girl slid her long legs over the side of the bed and stood, unabashed by her nudity as she walked to the bathroom; rather than being affected by Lex’s brusqueness, she seemed excited by it.
He picked up the copy of last week’s Planet he’d saved. ‘I Spent The Night With Superman.’ After everything he’d done for this city, they were still championing that freak. His eye fell on the photo; it was the one Lois had taken at Cadmus Labs, Superman framed against the debris, looking stoic and determined. The man bore such an uncanny resemblance; he could swear it was…
‘No,’ he caught himself, ‘you can’t allow yourself to start thinking like that again.’ The dreams he’d had, Clark’s face haunting him through others, like his conscience escaped, had contributed to his earlier…episode. Clark and the freak had been together on the steps of LexCorp, not to mention the numerous times he had seen Clark injured and bleeding; it wasn’t him.
‘You have enough real enemies,’ Lex thought, ‘without making them up.’
After coming back from the museum, Lois was deep in thought; something wasn’t right.
“Hey,” Clark nodded from his desk as she walked over; when he was assigned a permanent workstation, he was put on the opposite end of the floor from hers, at the ‘new guy’ desk. “What’d you get?”
She scoffed. “Right, I’m gonna tell you. Why don’t I just give you my notes and type the story for you?”
“With your spelling?” he grinned. “No, thanks.”
She fired a narrow-eyed smirk at him. Her spelling was a running joke between them; in fact, it was now impeccable. Lois, in typical stubborn fashion, had treated her typos like enemies, and had quizzed and read and wrote until she’d hunted them all down and killed them dead.
“Tell you what,” said Clark, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Tell me what you found at the museum, and you can be my ‘plus one’ at the Luthor mansion tomorrow night.”
Lois’s heart jumped; it sounded a little like Clark Kent was asking her on a date. “And why on Earth would I want to do that?”
“Because you’ll get a clear run at Lex,” Clark smirked. “You do think he was involved with the break-in, right?”
She sighed. “I hate that you know me like that. Well, the job was professional, precision timed, and whoever broke in, they knew the security system backwards. They avoided the cameras, the motion detectors and the guards, all without a hitch. If it hadn’t been for a keen as mustard new guy, the alarm would never have been raised. After that, they cleared out.”
“No idea what they were looking for?”
“No idea,” Lois shook her head.
“So what makes you think Lex was involved?”
“The donation he made was far in excess of the damages to the museum,” said Lois. “Since the break-in was a bust, I’m figuring the reason for that was…”
“…so he could talk them into loaning out the artefacts,” Clark finished, then grinned, tapping a pencil sharply on the desk. “Well, a deal’s a deal. Wanna be my date?” He forced himself to sound whimsical, though his heart raced a little.
“Fine,” she shot back, playing the game to cover her own nerves, “but just so you know, Smallville, I have an eleven o’clock curfew, or my Dad sends out the National Guard.”
He laughed, and she loved it; he always made it sound like she was his favorite person in the whole world.
“What do you think he’s looking for?” she continued, back to business. “What could he possibly want with a bunch of museum relics?”
“I don’t know,” Clark said, gravely. “But whatever it is, knowing Lex, I’m betting it’s not GAAAAH!”
Lois was struck cold by her friend’s agonized howl; Clark threw his head back, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut against the head-splitting screech that tore through him, filling him with broken glass. It was like the call of the crystals, only harsher, a thousand times worse.
“Clark? Clark, what’s wrong?!” Lois was at his side, reaching for him.
“Don’t touch me!” he shouted, terrified of hurting her.
He tried to stand, pressing the heels of his hands into his temples against the agony, and instead slumped into the desk, dragging papers as he crashed to the ground, breathless with pain.
End of Prologue
---------------
Could you set them all on one thread? That would be so much easier than trying to figure out which story goes where!
Am I the only person who thinks he's frequently more trouble than it's worth?
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