For Clark: SuperAnna!
Anna leads Clark through a handy-dandy Nexus portal into her living room.
The front door to her apartment is looking distinctly unwell.
In the way where the doorknob is lying crumpled on the floor, dented with what appear to be finger-marks.
The front door to her apartment is looking distinctly unwell.
In the way where the doorknob is lying crumpled on the floor, dented with what appear to be finger-marks.
It's harder than she thought.
"Stop thinking like a fucking liveling," she growls to herself, pacing back and forth. "Are you Eight-Hour Chainsaw or aren't you? You are not afraid of this shit. That's ridiculous."
She kicks at a rock angrily. It explodes in a shower of fragments and reddish dust. She scowls.
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But it's not like he can go after her. So, he heads out to do what he always does in these situations: bother Chloe. For some reason, though, the trip to the Daily Planet seems to take forever.
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Also muttering. There is muttering, too.
Eventually, she shrugs, casts an exasperated glance at the sky, folds her arms...
...and sighs. "How am I going to do this, anyways?"
Pause.
"Oh, what the fuck. It's not like a couple of half-dead lizards will care if I stand around making funny faces while I figure it out."
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He shrugs, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You busy? I thought we could go for lunch."
"Clark, I'm always busy. But when have you known me to not have time to valiantly attempt to cheer you up when you really need it?"
That gets a small smile out of him. "Never."
"Exactly." Chloe saves her work on her laptop, slams it shut and grabs her coat. "But you're totally buying."
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"One day the whole alien thing might just sink in."
"Funny," she says, throwing a piece of garlic bread at him.
"Hey! That's edible." Clark manages to rescue it from the table and frowns at her. "Wasting food is bad manners, Chlo."
"A truly unforgivable sin. So, she's not only dead now, but she has your powers. That must be going well."
Clark shrugs. "She's doing all right."
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"Dammit, okay, take twelve," she says, jumping up and down a little. "Fuck, why didn't this body come with an instruction manual?"
She is no more successful now than she was any of the previous eleven times.
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Another shrug. "It's weird."
"I bet, but good weird or bad weird?"
"Doesn't really matter, does it? It'll go away after a while."
She tilts her head at him. "Are you sure about that?"
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Anna scuffs at the dirt with one foot. If nothing else, this has been an object lesson in restraining her strength under duress.
"Okay," she tells the air, rubbing her hands together, "let's try that again without the part where I fall flat on my ass, shall we?"
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Clark kicks at a random stone. "I just don't see any point in making a big deal out of something that's not permanent."
"Uh huh. You know, I don't think it's one bit fair."
"What isn't?"
"If anyone deserves to know what it feels like to have your powers, it's me."
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"Okay, making constipated faces and jumping up and down clearly isn't working," she says thoughtfully. "Maybe I need to get a little more daring with it."
The lizards having been long since frightened off by her antics, there is no-one and nothing present to respond to this.
With a sigh and a shrug, she hops thirty feet to the top of a mesa, walks to the edge, and steps off.
"...Oof. Back to square one."
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"Maybe not, but sometimes I'd kill for the ability to set my editor's hair on fire just by glaring at him."
He snorts. "The glare works just fine. Trust me."
"Thanks." Chloe beams. "You'll keep me posted, though, right? You know I'm always on call for Alien Issues 101. Actually, I could probably teach it at this point"
"I'll call." Clark pulls her in for a quick hug. "Thanks."
"Anytime."
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The first time she hovered was just after she came home from eating the fateful cupcake. She was tired, and settled onto the couch for a quick nap - only to awake with a start five minutes later, floating a few feet above the floor.
"Maybe I need to relax at first, to do it properly. But Clark said you need a lot of will and concentration to get up any speed. Well, I don't want speed at first, do I? Not necessarily. Shit, Reeve, stop talking to yourself."
Shaking her head, Anna stands still for a moment and tries very hard to remember what it felt like, in the instant before she dropped to the ground. A calm, peaceful sort of feeling, like and unlike the fire-move, like and unlike the quiet feather-lightness of a waltz.
Slowly, she opens her eyes and looks down.
And down.
And down.
"Liftoff," she pronounces softly, voice breathy with amazement.
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It's just been a really, really weird day and for who he is living where he does, that's saying something.
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Emotionally and physically.
She has a little bit of trouble with landings. So far the easiest way seems to be stopping about thirty feet above the ground and letting go of the flight feeling. Any closer and she risks ramming into the landscape at full speed, which is detrimental to rocks, wildlife, and small hills; any farther, and she falls with enough force to accomplish the same effect on a smaller scale. The mesas, needless to say, are taking a beating.
Still, as long as she doesn't try to land, she has no trouble at all. Avoiding planes is easy; there aren't that many, she's smaller than they are, and she can see them before they can see her. Besides, at the heights she takes to there's more of a worry about low-orbit satellites. (She sincerely hopes a certain one of those was not the sort that takes photographs of things. Near-collisions leave her in a bit of a temper and the last thing she wants is for her rude gestures to show up on Google Earth or something.)
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