Chapter 28: Trading Places
Kara's hands glowed faintly as she pressed them against my chest.
"There," she said, concentrating. "I can feel it. The energy signature Eric absorbed—it's not stable. It's fighting him."
We were in the Kent barn, the same place where Clark had trained me to track invisible threats just weeks ago. Now Clark sat on a hay bale, pale and weak, his borrowed flannel shirt hanging loose on a frame that had lost its impossible density.
"Fighting him how?" I asked.
"Kryptonian cellular energy bonds to the host over time. Kal-El—Clark—has had seventeen years for the yellow sun radiation to integrate with his biology. Eric has had three days." Kara pulled her hands back, the glow fading. "The power isn't his. It's still Clark's. Just... displaced."
Clark's head lifted. "So it can go back?"
"Under the right conditions." Kara began pacing, her formal Kryptonian education showing in the way she organized her thoughts. "On Krypton, there were documented cases of energy transfer—rare, usually accidental. The key was recreating the original catalyst while both parties were in physical contact."
"Lightning," I said. "The original transfer happened when Eric grabbed Clark during a lightning strike at the dam."
"Electrical surge of sufficient magnitude could reverse the process." Kara nodded. "But the timing has to be precise. Too weak, nothing happens. Too strong, you could kill them both."
The barn fell silent. Outside, I could hear Martha in the kitchen, preparing food none of us felt like eating. Jonathan was in the fields, working through his worry the way he always did.
"The dam has industrial generators," Chloe said from the corner. She'd been taking notes furiously throughout Kara's explanation. "If we could access the power station, create a controlled surge—"
"Eric would never agree to that," Clark said. His voice was hollow. "He loves the power. You should have seen his face when he stopped that car. He thinks he's finally special."
"Then we don't give him a choice." I stood, ignoring the ache in my still-healing ribs. "We lure him there. Make him think he's getting something he wants."
"Like what?" Chloe asked.
I met Clark's eyes. Then Kara's. Then I said the thing I'd been thinking since Eric had lifted me off the ground and promised to destroy everything I cared about.
"Me."
The argument lasted an hour.
Kara was the most vocal opponent. "You cannot fight a Kryptonian. It's suicide."
"I'm not fighting to win. I'm fighting to survive long enough for the plan to work."
"That's not a plan, that's a death wish!"
"It's tactics." I spread Chloe's dam schematics across the workbench. "Eric's ego is his weakness. He thinks he's invincible now, but he's never actually been tested. His powers are new, unpracticed. He doesn't know his limits because he's never hit them."
"And you think YOU can test him?" Clark's voice was skeptical. "Cole, I've seen what I can do with those powers. You can't match that."
"I don't have to match it. I just have to make him angry enough to chase me." I traced the route from the dam's main entrance to the generator room. "Eric wants to prove he's better than everyone who ever dismissed him. I'm the perfect target—meteor freak, dating the girl he's afraid of, connected to the hero he replaced. If I challenge him publicly, his ego won't let him refuse."
"And when he catches you?" Kara asked quietly.
I didn't have a good answer for that. The System had been running calculations since Eric first grabbed my throat, and the numbers weren't encouraging.
[COMBAT ANALYSIS: OPPONENT POSSESSES KRYPTONIAN-LEVEL ABILITIES. HOST SURVIVAL PROBABILITY AGAINST EXTENDED ENGAGEMENT: 12%. RECOMMEND: AVOIDANCE PROTOCOLS.]
Twelve percent. Better than zero.
"I survive," I said. "However I can. And when Clark's in position, we trigger the surge."
"You make it sound simple." Chloe's voice was flat. "It's not simple, Cole. This is insane."
"Smallville insane or regular insane?"
That got a reluctant laugh from Clark. Even Kara's lips twitched.
"Smallville insane," Chloe admitted. "Which means it might actually work."
The preparations took two days.
Chloe mapped the dam's electrical systems with help from a contact at the county records office—someone who owed her a favor from a previous Wall of Weird investigation. We identified the optimal surge point: a junction box in the generator room that could channel enough power to recreate lightning-level discharge.
Clark practiced moving without his powers. It was painful to watch—he'd spent years learning to control abilities he now didn't have, and the absence left him clumsy, uncertain. But he was still Clark Kent. Still determined. Still the hero, even without the superhuman part.
And I trained.
Every spare moment, I pushed the System harder than I'd ever pushed it before. Power output drills. Reaction time exercises. Pain tolerance tests that left me shaking and nauseous but fractionally faster, fractionally tougher.
[STRENGTH MASTERY: 58%. CONTROLLED BURST TECHNIQUE: AVAILABLE. WARNING: TECHNIQUE DRAINS ENERGY RAPIDLY.]
Controlled Burst. I'd unlocked it during the Jeff Palmer fight but never truly tested its limits. The technique allowed me to temporarily match enhanced speed by burning through energy reserves at an accelerated rate. Against a normal meteor freak, it might give me an edge.
Against a Kryptonian? It might buy me seconds.
I'd take what I could get.
The night before the confrontation, Kara found me in my apartment.
I was sitting by the window, watching Smallville's lights flicker in the distance. My hands were steady—I'd trained them to be—but my mind was racing through scenarios, contingencies, exit strategies that probably wouldn't work.
"You're scared," she said, settling beside me.
"Terrified."
"Good." She took my hand, laced her fingers through mine. "Only fools aren't afraid before battle. My father said that, before he sent me to protect Kal-El."
"Your father sounds wise."
"He was. He was also wrong about many things." She turned to face me, her eyes catching the moonlight. "He thought sending me was the right choice. That I could protect a baby across the galaxy. Instead, I arrived too late to matter."
"You matter now."
"Do I?" Her voice cracked slightly. "You're going to fight someone with my cousin's powers. Someone who could kill you with a thought. And I can't stop you, because you're right—it's the only plan that works."
I pulled her closer, felt her warmth against my side.
"Clark would do the same thing for any of us," I said. "He has done the same thing, dozens of times. Someone has to be willing to return the favor."
"It doesn't have to be you."
"Yes it does." I met her eyes. "Because I'm the one who can survive it. Maybe. And because if Clark dies while I could have helped, I couldn't live with that. Neither could you."
Kara was silent for a long moment. Then she kissed me—deep and desperate, like she was trying to memorize the shape of my lips, the taste of my breath.
"Come back to me," she whispered against my mouth. "Whatever happens tomorrow, come back to me."
"I'll try."
"Not try. Promise."
I thought about the twelve percent survival probability. About the calculations I'd run and the outcomes I'd projected.
"I promise," I said anyway.
Some lies were worth telling.
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