slayers_desire | the calvary arrives in Smallville

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the calvary arrives in Smallville

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))

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Zod manages to dodge, the knife slicing into his long black coat, only just missing cutting into him. And he superspeeds towards the doorway again, this time refusing to stop, or bounce back, pushing as hard as he can. And the spell starts to fail.

It all happens so fast that Victor isn't allowed to protest and when she does she does it loudly. She doesn't understand what purpose an attack serves at this point, other than to make the spell fall apart faster by poking at it; they were holding up fine without physically antagonizing the creature they have in the cage.

Why did you do that? thinks a very upset Victor. You didn't need to make an attack!

It's not because she's a pacifist, it's because it literally doesn't make sense to her, when they were on a roll, when they could have kept him longer.

The spell wasn't lasting. And we need to hinder him somehow Victor. April really didn't know what else they could have done.

She concentrates and enforces the doorway with a mental shield. Magic strengthened by magic might help. If you have any other ideas, now would be the time to use them.

Fortunately, more ideas are not necessary. Because as Zod finally pushes through the binding spell, there's a whoosh and then he's flying backwards to crash into - and mostly through - the wall. And Clark steps through the doorway, his clothing tattered and slashed, and covered in dried blood. "Going somewhere?"

Now that Clark's here, now that they're safe, Vic has the time to think, Better make an informed retreat than go off half-cocked. The spell was fading, and you don't want to give a man a reason to hit you when the anti-violence charm is going away. There's an undercurrent of, if she had died doing this, what about Clark. It's selfish, but the fact that April just went off like that made her feel like she doesn't value her input, that she wants to go off and get herself killed, when her 'other idea' was leave if the place starts burning and not to make the guy with the burning eyes angrier. She's angry at April right now because she cares.

She's relieved that Clark is there.

Right now, April is feeling like all she has done is screw up. And the fact that Clark has arrived is barely noticed by her.

Her intention was not to 'get herself killed'. But she just could not leave to the safety of the Nexus knowing Zod was here, about to make things worse. And at the very least if Zod had attacked her... April had her other hand on her PINpoint and the destination to the Red Sun Earth. His contact with her would have brought them both to her backup plan.

Right now all she can do is watch Clark face Zod. This is his show now.

Clark has no idea what's been going on here except that Zod has his friends cornered somehow and he doesn't want to let him endanger anyone else, ever again.

"Kal-El," Zod says, picking himself up out of the rubble, looking as surprised as he's ever been. "How did you escape the Zone?"

"Bit of a secret, sorry." He glances to the sides, briefly, checking April and Victor and even Lionel to make sure they're not hurt. "You all okay?"

Victor doesn't think that April's a screw up. It all ties back to how powerless she feels, and when April just lunged toward Lex/Zod like that, with the knife, after they had decided not to... it meant she was even more powerless, her plan to retreat and try again later was discounted out of hand, and she was left standing there with Lionel like an idiot. Like so many other times in her life, she can't stop the big bad thing from happening, and events happen around her whether she wants them to or not, whether it's prudent or not.

"I'm good," Victor says, looking to Clark, not taking her eyes off of Clark, this is important.

It seems both girls have issues of their own. Because having Victor at Lionel's side, and knowing where April would have taken Zod with her PINpoint would have been quite valuable. But now is not the time to unload any of it on Clark. Not when he has Zod to deal with.

"Take care of him Clark."

Whatever the problems between the two of them, once Clark finds out the details of what happened in his absence, he's going to be impressed and proud of the both of them. For stepping into the role of protector as best they could, keeping the world as safe as possible until he could come home. And for working together despite their very different methods of doing things, despite the disagreements.

But for now, all he can do is face down Zod. Destroyer of Krypton.

Zod lunges at Clark, and what ensues is a no-holds-barred Kryptonian brawl. Zod is a soldier, and highly experienced, but has little practical experience in using powers from the yellow sun. Whereas Clark has been getting training from multiple sources, and has years of practice in using his powers. He manages to guide the fight outside as soon as possible to avoid damaging the bystanders - by punting Zod through a window - because two Kryptonians that aren't pulling their punches are dangerous, striking hard enough to register on seismic monitors, and the mansion's lawn is going to be a real mess until the landscapers can fix it up.

Victor doesn't like watching that sort of thing, so she inches more toward the wall, takes deep breaths, no one wins when another person is being pummeled, and she understands that maybe it's necessary but it doesn't make it easier for her.

Mostly because she's been on the other end of fists that think they're justified, so the moral boundary between violence and rightness is mud to her.

While the Kryptonian man-on-man fight is of interest, April moves to stand beside Victor. "I am sorry. Training under Buffy and the Scoobies sometimes tends towards acting first, thinking second. When working with you again... I will remember the importance of planning."

Lionel gives the two of them privacy to talk, watching the fight instead, in case Zod gets the upper hand. He's never seen something so violent and destructive, not when the participants are punching hard enough that any normal opponent would be jelly after one hit.

"Thank you. I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't've gotten so upset. I just... all I could see, in my mind, was him hittin' you so your head flew off. Everything I plan, I plan so that the least harm comes to anyone." It sounds stupid, she thinks, with the sound of the fight below, and even the sound of Zod getting hit is upsetting her on a visceral level. "I don't want you to get hurt. Maybe... maybe the next time we work together, we could have a more open brain-link, so we can communicate more often about stuff before it happens, and so I can make adjustments?"

"I know. I saw some of your thoughts." April whispered. She appreciates Victor's concern. "Sometimes that is the thing with my visions... they speak and I act. Almost immediately sometimes."

"We could try a more open brain-link. And we will adjust." They will indeed, especially with both playing a role on the future Justice League someday.

"Do you think there is a way to help Clark win against Zod?"

Clark and Zod are fairly evenly matched, but Clark never opens his right hand for anything, a little secret weapon tucked away for just the right moment. But it's hard to know when that moment might be, because he only has one shot at this.

She gives April a really careful hug (aware of the burns, not sure how healed they are), and tries to push back the impulse to force the boys to stop fighting and patch them both up. Someone's being hurt, that needs to be fixed.

"I think... he's going to win, on his own. Zod isn't in his proper body. Anything we do to level the playing field for one will do the same for the other."

Hugging Victor back, April leans in slightly for support. She so much wants to be out there. At Clark's side. "He made it out on his own. He can do this."

The thing about Kryptonians, too, is that they aren't truly invulnerable to impact. It's just that most of the time, there's nothing that exists that can hit them hard enough. But in a one-on-one fight, there's plenty of that going around, and both of them are in a cycle of being bruised or cut and then rehealing by the time Clark finally gets Zod pinned down, if only for a moment.

"My father sends his regards."

And before Zod can react, Clark takes his right hand, opens his palm, and presses the Phantom Zone crystal (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110505051730/smallville/images/9/9b/601Smallville0802.jpg) against the back of his neck. Zod screams for the first time, and a shadowy figure seems to erupt out of Lex's face, out of his torso, the suggestion of a bearded humanoid shape in black robes, and is sucked into the crystal. Lex's body collapses like a ragdoll, the back of his neck smoking and branded with the symbol of El, which heals over in a matter of moments.

She tucks her hair back fondly, gives her a gentle squeeze. "He'll be great."

Though when Victor hears the scream and runs to the window (don't freak out) in time to see the shadowy thingy get sucked into the crystal, and she is going to be a man about this and not cry or anything but she leans against the wall, breathes in and out, wonders if this means that the world is fixed, if everything is still not working.

There is a brief smile from April, before the scream also gets her attention. She joins Victor at the window, and places a hand on her back. "It's okay. Doesn't look like anyone is dead. It more looked like soul recapturing."

"Lex should be Lex again."

She is so damn proud of Clark right now for finding another solution.

((bed summons))

The moment Zod is evicted, Clark lets go of Lex and kneels down to check his pulse, to make sure he's still alive and okay. And he gives the thumbs-up to Lionel, who is also watching from the window. "Just in case, you should get him to a hospital," Clark suggests when he jumps back up into the house. "He should be fine."

"Are things gonna be okay again?" she asks Clark, fretfully. Wondering if she should stay and help with riot control, or... what's next on the agenda. "And are you okay? There was, uh, a lot of hitting and stuff, and before that you were... well, you know where you were."

Learning if Clark is okay would be a good thing. There is blood on his clothing, and it smells like Clark's. He looks so tired. She just can't imagine what he had to go through to escape.

"We could use a 'this is what happened' from all sides."

"I'm fine. All healed." Though he wipes some blood off his cheek, because being healed doesn't mean the blood disappears. "How long was I gone? And... what happened?" His time sense is thrown off, disoriented by the Phantom Zone, where the sun never sets, inmates never age, and time has no meaning.

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