Eveything Changes but Some Things Don't

Chapter 12

The next day found Clark taking the day off work at the Daily Planet to get everything in order if something did happen to him and history wasn’t changed. He had just got done talking to a lawyer and filling out paperwork that the lawyer faxed him when he decided to take a slight break and see what his daughter was up to outside.

“God he would never get used to that word,” he thought as he stepped outside and found Ariel floating off the ground a few inches playing catch with Shelby as if floating like that was normal. And for his people apparently floating or more along the lines flying was normal even children as young as four or five could do it. Though that was one thing he hadn’t quite got the hang of yet. He knew the mechanics and how to do it, but he didn’t feel comfortable with it so he didn’t do it.

“Ariel!”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Don’t you think you should watch that? Someone could see you.”

“Like who? No one’s around for miles. And you and the animals are the only near enough to see me and I highly doubt that you’re going to be telling anyone,” she said as she flew softly up to the house roof.

“Ariel, please get down from there.”

“Come up here with me, Dad. Clear your head. The view’s awesome.”

“I can’t.”

“Wha—Oh, your grounded still aren’t you?” Ariel smirked, he could tell, by her voice as she called down to him.

“Yes, I’m still grounded,” he calmly replied, “Now can you please come down here and we’ll have some supper before going over a plan or two.”

“Okay,” and Ariel floated down to the porch and went inside where Clark began a small but good supper for them both.

Later that night or if you want to get technical early the next day found a big explosion waking everybody in Lex’s…well now technically Tess’ mansion up. As she and all her security rushed to her room they found her safe broken into and the purple orb of Kryptonian technology she had been ‘researching’ gone.

Later that day found Clark calling Bart Allen aka Impulse and Dinah Lance aka Black Canary over to the farm so they could finalize a plan that had popped into his head while talking to Ariel last night over coffee. She had said nothing on the Earth could stop or even hold Doomsday, so what if they put underneath it, which got him thinking of Queen Industries’ geothermal plant. Using the planet Doomsday was sent to destroy to contain him.

The barn loft...

“Geothermal faculty care of Queen Industry and Luthor Corp,” Bart began saying as he spread out all the schematics they had on the faculty itself and handing Dinah some other papers to look at while Clark walked around the table set up to the head’s spot.

“Ariel said nothing on the face of the Earth could destroy the Beast, so let’s put him under it.”

“Whoa, who said that?” Bart asked confused

“Me,” a female voice said from behind them.

When Bart and Dinah looked over to where the loft’s banister was they saw a young woman with dark brown hair, green-hazel eyes floating in the air. She flew lightly passed them to join Clark at the head and landed softly, touching down with her toes first and then placing her feet lightly on the ground as if nothing was up even though Dinah and Bart watched her fascinated. She wore a dark pink shirt, blue jeans with a gold chain belt and boots.

“Bart, Dinah I’d like you to meet my daughter Ariel from the future. She has come back to help us stop Doomsday.”

“Civilian name’s Ariel. Superhero name is Fírinne. Nice to meet you, now let’s get down to business,” and just like that she went from cheery to serious.

“As I was saying…The Geothermal faculty created 1 mile of tunnels below the Earth’s crust,” Clark stated as he pointed to a schematic in front of Bart.

“So it’s the final resting place for the boney space invader,” Bart said seriously.

“If I can manage to get him down there,” he replied answering Bart’s unspoken question before he looked over at Dinah and asked, “Can you access the detonators in the shaft?”

She looked at Bart and back to Clark answering, “I can override it.” And then asked him, “Are we really going to bury him alive?”

“Not all of him. There’s still a side of Davis worth saving,” Clark replied as he stepped away from the table and around Ariel to get to an old tool box, which he opened fully to reveal a small black and silver lead box which he handed to Bart saying, “Bart this is for you” as he went back to his place at the table.

Bart being the curious teen he was opened the box, pulling out a good sized black rock stating, “It's just a bit of rock,” while holding out in Clark and Ariel’s direction.

They both stepped back. Ariel calmly but still watching the rock closely. Clark a little more obvious about his leeriness of the rock and stated, “Be careful with that.”

Once Bart moved it back closer to the box Clark and Ariel stepped back to where they had been as Clark finished what he was saying to Bart, “It’s a very special meteor rock. It can split the Kryptonian from the human side of Davis.”

“And what if that doesn’t work?” Another voice all of the heroes knew well came to their ears from the top of the stairs to the loft. When they turned to face who it was, they found Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow stepping up to the other end of the table as he stated seriously, “What if you end up unleashing a monster that’s unstoppable, that doesn’t have a conscious?”

“This is the only option.” Clark replied back eyeing Oliver coolly.

“What about the option to get rid of a serial killer before he has the chance to Beast out,” Oliver replied just as strongly. Then he shook his head a bit and lowered his voice to a serious but calm voice, “You never wanted to admit it, but there is a darker side to humanity.”

Clark walked around the table to stand in front of Oliver saying, “I know there is. I’m looking at it right now.”

“Not everyone’s worth saving,” Oliver replied stepping towards Clark a bit and continued on with his thought, “We need to take care of Davis Bloom.”

“And by take care of you mean murder,” it wasn’t a question it was a statement coming from Clark’s righteous and serious voice.

“Okay you guys…um….have some reason tension going on here,” Bart nervously said trying to break the standoff Oliver and Clark were having.

“Ollie, what’s he talking about?” Dinah asked stepping towards Oliver. Oliver shook his head at her as if to say don’t get into this.

“Oliver crossed the line. He killed Lex Luthor,” Clark stated still eyeing Oliver closely.

“You’re making a big mistake,” Oliver told Clark coolly.

“You’re not one of us anymore,” Clark replied right back.

“Is that right,” Oliver stated and then slowly turned away from the three League heroes and walked away.

For a moment the three just watched him go but then Ariel broke the silence stating, “You know he was right about one thing.”

“And what was that?” Clark turned to face her with a mad look on his face.

“Humanity isn’t all green fields and butterflies. Sometimes its fires and ash. You can’t judge him like that for one misdeed, Kal-el or you’ll be judging every man, woman and child who steals for food, murders to survive an abusive situation, a cop who has to shoot a criminal to save their partner and so on.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I understand that in those situations you sometimes have to do horrible things to survive.”

“Really, you understand that. Then why are you judging him for something no one has control over. Do you think he wants the murder of Lex on his soul? Do you think a cop who has to shoot that criminal to save their partner what’s that on their soul? If you’re going to judge one for the same thing shouldn’t you judge another. It’s only fair.”

“Those are completely different situations!”

“Are they? One is shooting possibly killing someone else to save one person. He killed one man to save thousands. Isn’t killing, killing no matter the situation?”

“Yes, but…”

“We’re not all perfect, Dad. That’s what makes us human. We can’t all live by the moral code you do, but we can try to be the best we can. I don’t condone killing for killing’s sake but I understand where he’s coming from. One life for thousands, millions.”

“You sound like you’ve had to make the choice before. Have you?” Dinah asked Ariel softly.

“Yes, twice…but only when it was my last option.”

“But I thought Rokk said one of the rules of the Legion was going to be No Killing?” Clark replied confused and shocked.

“Rokk doesn’t make the final decisions of the Legion. I do. And there is a rule like that but that isn’t what the rule says. It says No Killing Unless It’s THE LAST OPTION Left To The Hero. That means they have better tried every other option conceivable and inconceivable first before they use that one.”

“Whoa,” was all Bart could say as he looked at this small but strong young woman standing in front of him.

“But don’t people look up to you? Wouldn’t they think it’s alright to kill if they saw you doing it?” Clark asked still surprised.

“Give the people of this planet more credit, Dad. Only those who are already bent to killing and cruelty would think that. People might not like me for a while but sooner or later they’ll see what I did was for them. So they could go on living their peaceful, safe lives. So those in situations where they feel like they’re powerless know they can rise above it and survive and even thrive. The people of this planet don’t judge a policeman who shoots a man dead when protecting another civilian. They don’t judge the fireman who couldn’t save everybody of a fire and one or two people died. They know that judgment call, that loss of life will haunt the officer and fireman so why would they think that the hero having to make that choice would be any different?” Ariel said but then continued on with, “Both times I killed. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to play God. I shouldn’t have had to. Only He should, but I did. It was either that one person or thousands, millions and I chose the one. You may not like that, you may not agree with it but don’t judge him for something he thought was best. Heroes are symbols, not perfect Dad. We are meant to show the people of Earth that they can rise above their hardship and be better. To show them we are not perfect but we try to live the best way we can is what heroes really do more than saving thousands of lives from an earthquake or explosion or whatever.”

“So I should kill Davis to save thousands? Is that what you’re saying?” Clark asked getting mad.

“No that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying don’t throw the option out. There must be something in Davis that makes Doomsday so strong or he wouldn’t be so dangerous. Oliver is right humanity does have a dark side, Dad. I just don’t want you to lose sight of that. Lex was a part of that darkness and the human Davis might be too,” Ariel stated calmly and then walked away down the steps, out of the barn and flew away.

“Whoa,” both Dinah and Bart said together letting it out in a huff of air.

“So, Clark…are we going to keep getting rid of Davis as an option or not?” Dinah asked.

“No, it’s wrong. Davis isn’t the problem. Doomsday is. We go with the plan to put him under the Earth, got it.”

“Got it,” both said again and all three got down to business of finalizing the plans.

AN: sry taking so long been busy very busy please keep reading, rating, reviewing and so on k. Please tell me what u think - no flames though. Creative criticism, praise I'll take.