the calvary arrives in Smallville

[slayers_desire]

It was time to mount a rescue effort in Kansas. After losing Clark to the Phantom Zone, April had helped Lionel get back to the safety of his mansion, and then had disappeared to the Nexus. Where she was able to find a couple of people who wanted to help keep the peace.

PINpointing back to the farmyard with her allies, April waited for everyone to get settled. Then she took a breath, and gave them a briefing. "So basically right now we have mass public panic, no technology is working, and there are several friends of Clark's that are missing."

"We have two enemies that we need to be concerned about," April pulls out two artist renditions. "The first is Brainaic, a Kryptonite supercomputer who has been posing as Professor Milton Fine. He has all the Kryptonian powers of flight, strength, speed and healing... but isn't affected by Kryptonite. Meteor rock. He can also shapechange. Chloe, you will go with Alice, Victor Van Dort, Doc and Marty to find Brainaic. Also do what you can for those innocents who need to be saved from this chaos. You will also need to find Martha Kent and Lois Lane, as they are both missing."

"The second is General Zod, who has taken possession of Lex Luthor. Once again Zod has all the Kryptonian powers, and I am not sure if meteor rock will affect him. I haven't had a chance to test it."

"Victor Allen and I will try to find Zod, as we have more experience with dealing with crazy Kryptonians. We will also look for a way to bring Clark out of the Phantom Zone."

"I am going to give each of you a piece of Kryptonite, just in case. And hopefully we can figure out a way to get through this situation." April took a breath. Hoping that their little plan would work for the better good.

((this will be a split thread. Alice and Her gang will go off with Chloe to deal with Brainaic. Victor Allen and April will deal with the Clark issue))

Comments

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

Chloe nods as she's given her task, and turns to the group of strangers, Clark's friends that she's never met. "I'm Chloe Sullivan. Wish we were meeting under nicer circumstances, but I'm glad you're here to help."

[save-us-alice.livejournal.com]

Alice, apparently acting as the current leader (as she gathered everyone up), extends a hand to shake. "Alice Liddell. I wish we were too. We'll do our best to be of assistance." She's in her traditional blue dress with the apron -- her Vorpal Blade's tucked into the side of the apron strings, while her cards are in one of the front pockets.

"Dr. Emmett Brown," Doc introduces himself. He's quietly glad he was able to even get into this world, given his difficulties in getting back to his own. He's also glad Dee's safely at home in this situation. He'd hate to have to be worrying about her on top of everything else. "I'm a pretty fair hand at mechanics -- which includes some supernatural abilities with them. I might be able to fix a few things."

"Marty McFly," Marty says with a wave. "I can get people to listen to me sometimes, so. . . ."

"Victor Van Dort," Victor says, a little shyly. "I'm willing to help however you need me." He also happens to be holding the croquet mallet -- Alice insisted on giving him something to defend himself, if need be.

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

Chloe nods, memorizing names as best as she can, though she looks worried. "Normally I'd be using my uberhacking skills to try to track Fine - um, Brainiac - down, but with the virus rampaging everywhere, it's not really possible. I mean even if we somehow got a computer working, there's no way the internet would be up. So I'm thinking we should start with trying to find Mrs. Kent. She and Lois were flying out to a conference today, but we haven't heard from them even before all this happened."

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"Flying?" Doc says, instantly looking worried. "When was this? Because when April said that no technology was working. . . ." He's really hoping they would have landed long before the chaos started.

"What the heck is the virus doing to everything?" Marty adds. "Anyone know? Or is it all just alien gibberish?"

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

"I don't know. It didn't hit everything at once, more... spreading outward like a ripple effect. So I'm hoping they landed before it caught up to them, but there's no way to know until we find them."

Chloe shakes her head at Marty's question. "Every computer screen, even cellphones, all they're showing is just scrolling green Kryptonian symbols. Clark didn't have time to try to translate before he... ran off."

[museicalmarty.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least that probably means not everything on the planet has been affected yet," Doc mutters. "I could try to use one of my gifts on something, see what happens--"

Marty grabs his arm. "NO, Doc. I don't want this techno-virus hitting you too." Realizing this probably makes no sense to Chloe, he adds, "I dunno if you recognize us from a certain trilogy of movies or not, but we're not exactly the same as those guys. Doc and I got yanked out of our world by Faery bastards. This Doc's got mechanical guts." A blast of steam from above Doc's tailbone, wafting out from beneath the long dark coat he's wearing, adds a bit of extra punctuation to that pronouncement.

"I run off steam, Marty, not electronics," Doc argues.

"I'm not taking chances. The last thing we need is you getting sick from this." Marty shakes his head. "Where were Mrs. Kent and Lois flying out to?"

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

"Washington DC," Chloe says, and she's giving Doc a bit of a considering look now, like she's weighing the risks. "I'm not sure if you'd be affected. I haven't seen a car that works yet, and we're still using combustion engines, but most new cars have computers in them these days that help control and coordinate everything."

[deadgirlsliekme.livejournal.com]

Doc looks thoughtful himself. "Hmmm. Sounds like something we'd have to investigate further before trying anything. Marty's right in saying that I'm not much of an asset if I do get infected. When did they leave?"

"Washington, DC," Victor says, looking around. "We're going to have to figure out how to get there. We certainly can't walk, but with no cars working. . . ." This is the sort of thing that makes you wish for the old days of horse-drawn carriages. Only not, because they'd be too slow. "How far is it, anyway?"

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

"Sometime early this morning." And it's late afternoon now, quickly heading for evening, judging by the sky. "They were supposed to flying commercial but they ended up taking a LuthorCorp jet instead."

Chloe gives Victor a bit of a funny look. "Uh, fifteen hundred miles. Give or take."

[save-us-alice.livejournal.com]

Doc nods. "And when exactly did the virus hit? It sounds like they had enough time to land -- though now I'm worried that they may have been on their way back. How long were they supposed to stay there?"

Hey, Victor's a Brit, and the only American city he's at all familiar with is Chicago -- how would he know? "Oh, bloody--" Alice grumbles as she hears that figure. "If anyone can teleport, now would be a good time to say something."

"My talents are limited to flying via wind control, and I can neither carry all of you, nor do I trust my control enough to blow the rest of you along," Doc says. He suddenly frowns and looks down at his PINpoint, strapped to his wrist. "However, speaking of teleporting. . .do you think we could use these? If it can transport someone to and from the Nexus. . . . It's outside technology, and mine doesn't appear to be scrolling anything green and Kryptonian."

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

Chloe glances at her watch, then looks exasperated because of course it stopped when everything else did. "Uh, an hour ago, tops? I'm not sure exactly." Everything's been happening so fast, and she can't judge accurately by the sun, with how much smoke is in Metropolis, blotting out the sun. "She was supposed to be there for a day or so, I think."

She all but lunges at Doc's wrist, though she's careful not to wrench his arm when she examines it. She's seen Clark's before, and she's familiar with how they work, if only in passing. "That's perfect, if it works. Can you program it for the Ronald Reagan Airport in Arlington?"

[clockwork-doc.livejournal.com]

"That's all right," Doc says, looking up at the sky. "At least we can be pretty damn sure now they weren't in the air when the virus hit." Which means one major disaster has been averted.

"I can sure as hell try." Doc starts fiddling around with the PINpoint. He's had a lot of time to go over all the options on it and see how it works, so after a few minutes he manages to get the appropriate address programmed in. "All right, that should do it! Here, let me get everyone else's set up. . . ." He goes around and does the appropriate fiddling with Marty's, Victor's, and Alice's. "All right -- Chloe, you should probably stay with me when we try this. All together now, right? Everybody ready?"

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

Chloe nods. "Let's do this."

The airport is a mess. Most people have fled already, but the airport employees are trying to keep the remaining stranded passengers calm. There's smoke coming from part of the runway, and fires burning in the city. It's a stark contrast to Smallville, which is isolated enough that the chaos that's gripped the cities doesn't seem to have that much effect. But here, the word of the day is panic. All the lights are out, and every screen in the terminal is scrolling with green Kryptonian symbols.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"Okay, awesome," she says, feeling super jittery, and her headache has its own headache, but that's fine, they're going to kick serious rear. She's already going a mile a minute, thinking of each possible scenario, plans stacking like so many books in a library.

[slayers-desire.livejournal.com]

Noting that the other group seem to have things well underhand, April comes over to Victor. And placed a hand on her shoulder.

She doesn't know where they can start looking for Zod. Or how to help Clark. But April attempts to open her voices again, looking for answers to where they should start.

[smallvillians.livejournal.com]

Far away in Metropolis, standing on the roof of LuthorCorp, Zod watches the world burn with a sick sense of satisfaction. All these humans, fighting amongst themselves, rioting and screaming and dying, and he hasn't even done anything yet. This world will be easy pickings.

And at his side, this strange dark-haired female who's offered herself to him. He wonders if she had some connection to his host, but decides it makes no difference. She's given herself willingly. And there is no escape from Zod.

Whispers of this trickle back to April, the dark presence hanging over Metropolis, and Lana in his grasp, not realizing yet that the man in black is no longer Lex.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

Victor... stands there. She is not sure what is going on, our dear girl, just that April has her hand on her shoulder and she is making that vision-face that she made in James' lab that one time so she decides the best thing she can do is stand very still and very quiet.

[slayers-desire.livejournal.com]

Slowly April returns to her senses. "Zod is in Metropolis. And Lana Lang is with him... believing him to be Lex. They were developing a relationship."

This could be all kinds of bad.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"Do you know where, in Metropolis?" Okay, another person with Zod-Lex. Lezod. Zex. No, not Zex, that's terrible. At any rate, that means that there's an extra element that they didn't account for, except that Victor has accounted for there being extra elements that she hasn't accounted for so it is not all bad.

[slayers-desire.livejournal.com]

"On the roof of LuthorCorp." April replies. The difficulty would be getting there. She doesn't drive. And she can only hope that the PINpoint is still going to be able to teleport them.

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

And Victor doesn't drive either, so that could be an issue. And time is of the essence. "D' you have the coordinates for it?"

[slayers-desire.livejournal.com]

"LuthorCorp? Yes. Luckily Clark and I were there earlier talking with Lionel." April entered the coordinates into her PINpoint. "We have been fortunate the computer virus is not affecting these yet."

She opens a portal, to Lionel's office, where they will be out-of-sight, and still within walking distance to Zod. "Ready?"

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"Epiiiic," she says, at the news that the virus is behaving itself, at least as far as their PINs are concerned, because it would be awfully inconvenient not to be able to get home again.

She takes a deep, bracing breath, wraps her fingers around the meteor rock in her pocket. "Totally. Let's do this."

[slayers-desire.livejournal.com]

Entering the portal, Victor and April are teleported to Lionel's office. From this vantage point, they can see the chaos down on the streets below.

"Lets find the stairs and go to the roof."

[victormakesart.livejournal.com]

"Okay," she says, frowning out of the window, watching the riot like a swarm of ants over a particularly scrumptious piece of pie that's been left out, and she wants to say, no, people, stop that, stop being ant-like what with your behavior, go back to being people so that I can trust you again.

But that's a passing thought, as they walk to find stairs, which they find, and they climb them, which Victor does quickly and quietly, although she can feel each step in her knees and it hurts.