Similis

Opening

The dawn sky brightened, lightening from grey to a soft pink flush and turning the pale mist pearly. Ignoring the aerial display, Clark shrugged the roll of wire more firmly into position on his shoulder and tried not to yawn too obviously. Despite his alien heritage, like so many other teenagers Clark was not particularly enthusiastic about getting up at the crack of dawn.

"Clark." From somewhere back along the track Jonathan Kent's soft admonition disturbed the still air. "C'mon son. This fence won't replace itself."

"Mmmm…" Clark tried to rustle up a little more enthusiasm, but it was a lost cause. It was hard to share his father's total dedication to all things rustic, at least in what Clark felt in his heart should really be counted as the wee small hours. He let out another surreptitious yawn.

"Okay Dad." He promised. "Be right on it." Looking up as he carefully positioned all of the fencing supplies to hand, he noted absently that a bank of grey cloud was already looming in from over the distant woods. "It's gonna rain in a bit." He called to his father.

"Don't doubt it," Came back the heavy reply. "Neither of us will melt." Jonathan favoured his alien son with a sly grin. "Course if you were to get up to speed, we could probably have the whole section done before the rain hits…"

It was obvious what was expected, and with only a small smile, Clark blurred into action.


Jonathan chuckled to himself as lines of fresh silvery mesh replaced the old rusty sections in little more time than it took him to make sure that each roll of wire was left open and ready for Clark. They had already spent the better part of the previous day grubbing out the rotten posts in the row and setting new ones in their place. 'Clark-speed' or not, the concrete still took the same amount of time to set, and it did not do any harm to let any potential passers-by see at least some of the work-in-progress evolving at a more human pace.

What was that? Jonathan snatched himself out of his musings and squinted into the shadow still lingering at the base of the far hedge. Movement? Was someone spying on them? He felt his gut churn. Surely they had already had enough problems? Perhaps it wasn't a very charitable thought, but just once could it not be someone else's turn?

The blur rippling across the grass, moved the blades momentarily as it passed, but Clark abruptly dropped back into human speed as he saw his father tense. "Dad? Something wrong?"

"Nothing, son, I guess…"

"You sure?"

"Could have sworn I saw a flicker of light over in the field, just by the boundary hedge." Jonathan murmured.

Clark's heart fluttered. He had only dared to speed through the fencing because of the early hour. That was why they had agreed on a dawn start, so that he could use his powers without worrying about who might chance upon them. With all the weird things that had happened over the past couple of years, Jonathan had become increasingly paranoid about Clark's secret being exposed. Not that Clark could blame his Dad for that.

Perhaps the town council should rename this place 'Weirdsville' rather than Smallville? It was a thought that had occurred to him with increasing frequency of late. "I'll go check it out." He started to say.

The frown on Jonathan's face grew deeper, his eyes wider.

Turning, Clark saw why. Now that he wasn't racing around, barely a leaf twitched around them in the still morning air, but less than ten yards away from them the ankle deep grass of the uncut field danced and glittered madly, tossed by an unseen force.

"What the…?" Jonathan muttered, "You don't suppose...?" Whatever he had been about to ask was cut short, as a circular area maybe fifteen feet in diameter abruptly filled with billowing dust and blown grass stems, while beyond the edge of the ring the remaining shreds of mist still lazily hugged the hollows.

"What's causing that?" Jonathan found himself asking aloud, but despite his unearthly abilities Clark had no answers either.



While the two Kent's watched, paralysed by confusion, and not a little unease, the affected area shimmered. Sparks of blue-black snaked from one side of the column to the other, growing in intensity until the emissions formed a circle of shadow in the tormented sky barely twenty feet above the ground.

With a howl of energy, the shadowed air ripped apart, red light bleeding out of the gash. In the newly revealed void beyond, sparks exploded, tiny points of fire darting to and fro, as thick dark smoke churned and roiled.

"Oh my Lord!" Clark heard his father's shocked tones, and could only nod in agreement as the shadow began to bulge ominously.

Both Kent's took a step back, Clark unconsciously placing himself between his adopted father and the unexpected maelstrom, but before either of them could react, something vaguely human-shaped plummeted down; slamming into the waving grass just a short way off with a thud that Clark could feel right through his sturdy boot soles. He had barely registered what he was seeing, before a second intrusion followed the first.

Four cylinders, so enormous that at first Clark didn't fully understand what he was looking at, reached down out of the aerial maelstrom and snatched at the ground…

'That's a hand! And it's after whoever it was that fell through first!' Looking at the size of the talons on the ends of those massive fingers, Clark's stomach churned. The figure on the ground lay helpless as the immense claws scythed toward it.

Horrified, Clark prepared to launch himself into the fray.

"Clark! No!" Jonathan snatched at his shoulder, blocking him. "It's not our fight!"

"We have to do something!" Clark yelled back.

"Clark, face it son! This whole thing is way out of our league!" Jonathan shouted, his voice barely registering over the tumult, even to Clark's hearing.

Clark hesitated. His skin prickling with frustration, and something more profound...

Inside the strange circle the figure on the ground was barely moving. It had landed just beyond the range of the sweeping claws, but it was obvious from the rapid way that the hands were advancing that this wasn't going to be the case for very much longer.

The hole is too small for whatever is up there, to see what's down here! Clark realised. It can reach in, but it can't watch what its doing at the same time! Like trying to get to the last cookie chips, while your hand is jammed in the neck of the jar!

A chill ran through Clark that had nothing to do with the weather. Sidestepping his father and launching himself over their fence, he growled deep in his throat. This wasn't going to just happen right in front of him! Whatever that … thing ... up there wanted with the fallen figure, he wasn't just going to let it have it!

Abruptly the scrabbling giant located its prize. All five claws embedded themselves into the ground to either side of the fallen prey, crumpling the patch of grass upon which the prone figure lay, gouging a massive lump from the underlying ground and straining to haul it upwards.

As if provoked by the uninvited intrusion the ground under their feet rumbled, the calm of the morning twisting into sudden action like a cornered cat. All across the field, grass rose stiffly on end, static charges snapping across from blade to blade as the very air came alive. The initial hum rose sharply from a faint purr to a keening banshee wail. Erupting from the green sward, white lightning bit furiously upward, breaking into the tube of seething air and fracturing the darkness within it into uneven segments.

From behind him, Clark heard his father gasp at the sudden brightness. Clark's own eyes watered, but he forced himself to keep watching.

A sudden flare of light, a sighing hiss, and further threads of searing ivory energy spat upwards from the torn﷓up ground burning avidly upwards into the encroaching darkness, sending twin spears of scorching, blinding light probing upwards into the yawning void. Together the beams struck at the offending hand like electric snakes.

Hastily, the intruder withdrew. With the retreat of the huge hand the rip in the sky closed, backlit by one last brilliant flash. A final soft sigh of air and the phenomenon was gone, faded away to nothing.

Bemused, Clark stared out into the churned up mess that until a few minutes ago had been an anonymous patch of grass in the front field. Deep in the back of his mind, a tiny voice had begun screaming at him that he now had something Very Important to do…

"Clark?" His father's voice jolted Clark back to the moment.

Licking his lips and blinking, Clark remembered to breathe. Abandoning the fencing gear, he bounded over the ankle deep grass toward his objective.

Jonathan padded up behind him. "Is it all over?"

"Uhmmm." Clark flushed as his voice slipped momentarily back into a higher register. He continued staring down at the pale shape spread﷓eagled amid the churned up soil. "Not quite." He whispered.

Beside him now, Jonathan simply stood astonished, staring at the limp body that lay crumpled facedown in the dusty grass.

Dropping to his knees Clark reached out and let his fingers rest lightly on the still form, absently noting the warmth of the skin under his palm. Using his X-ray vision, he took a very close and careful look at their visitor. Nothing seemed obviously broken, although numerous bruises and cuts marred the exposed flesh. Finally, he reverently examined the two features that had drawn his attention from the second that the air had begun to clear. There didn’t seem to be anything obviously wrong with them either, although Clark wasn't quite sure if he would have recognised it, even if there were.

"Alive?" Jonathan managed to choke out over his surprise.

Clark nodded. Looking up at his father he saw the elder man's eyes widen as they travelled along the fallen form.

Leaning in closer, Jonathan swallowed hard. "Are those really …" he hesitated, as if he expected to hear mocking laughter at any second.