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Metropolis
July 4th, 12:00 EDT
“Doesn’t Wonder Woman usually handle this guy?”
“Yes, but-” Clark dropped to avoid an ice blast, then threw himself forward, just skimming the asphalt to reach their opponent. “-she’s busy. Tag team?”
He could practically hear the grin in her voice when Naomi answered, “Coming up!”
Minister Blizzard managed to pull up a frozen wall just before Clark could plow into him, but punching it kept the man distracted long enough for the real attack. Naomi swept up from behind, put on a burst of speed to cover the last hundred feet, and wham! Blizzard’s head hit his own ice wall, an instant knockout.
“Nice,” Clark said with a grin of his own. “I’ll start melting down this mess if you drop him off with the police.”
Naomi nodded, bouncing on her toes a couple of times. “Alright, but make it fast, okay? Today is the day, and I don’t want to be late!”
So, it started with hot dogs.
Or rather, it started when a glowing teenager in golden armor over a black bodysuit crashed into a hot dog street vendor’s cart outside the Daily Planet, and rather inelegantly asked for Superman's help. First and foremost to beat the supervillain chasing her, but then afterward... well. Clark knew something about being a kid with unknown, still-developing powers, completely unlike anyone else in the world.
He came from another planet. Naomi came from an alternate dimension. Other than that, and the exact powers in question, they had a lot in common.
Ma and Pa adored the girl, the handful of times Clark took her to visit Smallville. They’d also started up a steady correspondence with her parents in Port Oswego, although it at least turned out that Jen and Greg weren’t quite as out of their depth as the Kents, back in the day, considering Greg himself was also a transplant to Earth. (Between him, the Hols, J’onn, and a more recent acquaintance named Augustus up in Dakota City, Clark really felt tempted to start a Welcome to Your Second Home-Planet club.)
Hot dogs turned into waffles at a 24-hour diner. Then hamburgers after a fight with Lobo, and tamales following some kind of lizard turned radiation monster. After that, Chinese take-out, a meal shared with Lois on the Daily Planet’s rooftop, which unintentionally turned into Naomi’s first interview and the alias ‘Powerhouse’, and by that point... Well, four other members of the Justice League worked with younger partners. Possibly soon to be five, considering J’onn’s recent news.
So when those others brought up the idea of a first step to formally inducting their kids, by bringing the whole group to the Hall of Justice for a peek behind the scenes - Clark agreed.
(In hindsight, he probably should have sent Naomi home and said ‘maybe next time’.)
Hall of Justice
July 5th, 00:07 EDT
Clark really, truly, absolutely hated going up against magic. The only thing he possibly hated more would be kryptonite, and even then, the two came very close to a tie for first place of ‘to be avoided at all costs’. And right behind them came ‘a lack of yellow sunlight’, the thing responsible for his powers, which almost went away entirely thanks to Wotan and the amulet he’d gotten ahold of.
The Kryptonian did not let himself groan and lean against the nearest wall as soon as they got back to the Hall, but it was a very near thing.
The rest of the League slowly spread out from the zeta tubes, several of them nursing small injuries. Zatara in particular looked exhausted from being the focal point of stopping and reversing the magical attack, limping for the nearest chair. The one exception among their sagging ranks, even though Clark knew good and well he’d cracked at least two ribs, Bruce strode past at his usual swift pace and headed for the door to the library.
Right. Kids. With an internal wince at how long he’d been gone, Clark activated his x-ray vision to check whether or not Naomi bothered to wait or if she’d already flown back to Oregon.
Sure enough, no teenage girl to be seen. No Robin, Kid Flash, or Aqualad, either.
Clark wouldn’t put it past a teenage speedster to get bored and take off, but from what he knew of Arthur’s apprentice, the Atlantean youth didn’t seem the type to disobey an order to stay put. As for Dick, well, he’d be far more likely to hack his way deeper into the Hall than to just take off for Gotham.
A bad feeling settled in Clark’s stomach. He straightened his shoulders and went after Bruce.
His friend momentarily paused when the doors slid open, but then headed for the computer. Clark caught up just as the screen activated - and the bad feeling got worse when he registered an open case file.
Project Cadmus.
“You don’t think that they...?”
“Hn.”
Yep, that displeased grunt was Bat-speak for of course they did. Clark winced even as he reached for the commlink in his ear. “Powerhouse, come in.” Naomi didn’t reply. “Power, are you there?” Nothing but faint static.
Bruce’s hands flew across the keyboard, and a moment later a new window opened - a map of the city, with blinking indicators for each of the missing kids. Except, each miniature symbol bore a layer of red shading.
Last known location
No current signal
Clark took off before Bruce could do more than go stiff. Out of the library, out of the Hall entirely, and halfway across the city to the block where a nondescript two-story genetics lab sat. Or at least, where a nondescript lab used to sit.
A gaping hole occupied the site instead.
And it stretched deep, revealing layers of concrete and open rooms, as if someone had driven a massive post-hole digger into the ground and yanked away a core sample, exposing an anthill hidden out of sight. Clark hovered overhead for a few stunned moments, before he dropped the entire distance to the very bottom.
Familiar scorch marks waited. Naomi’s power generally didn’t burn unless she deliberately wanted to, but when she activated one certain ability in particular, it tended to leave behind distinctive signs. Hovering above an impact crater just the right size for his kid, Clark furiously ran through the options of what could possibly have hurt or scared Naomi bad enough for her to lose control to such a degree, and open an interdimensional gateway massive enough to yank away over fifty stories of a hidden laboratory.
Along with herself, and likely Dick, and Wally, and Kaldur’ahm to boot.
...and maybe someone else, too, he realized, belatedly noticing a nearby containment device, some kind of medical pod shattered beyond use - but etched with the distinctive “Kr” symbol that never failed to get Clark’s hackles up.
“Superman to all points,” he said out loud, pressing a finger to the commlink tucked inside his ear. “We’ve got a problem.”