Tyson, Chloe, and Lana sat in the Talon theater.
"Where'd you get the money to buy and renovate this place anyway?"
Tyson waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it."
Chloe's eyes went wide in mock outrage. "Did you just try to Jedi mind trick me?!"
"Guess that's not a power I have," Tyson replied with a chuckle.
Chloe's expression shifted, becoming more serious. "Speaking of which..." She glanced at Lana, her words trailing off.
Tyson sighed, his shoulders dropping slightly. "Lana already knows. I had to save her, too." He turned to face Chloe directly. "I'm a Meteor Freak."
Chloe leaned in. "How did it happen?"
Tyson gestured toward Lana. "Technically, it's her fault."
"Me?" Lana's voice rose in surprise. "How?"
"The day I arrived, when they dragged me out to the field and made me the scarecrow, I was wearing your necklace... The meteor rock necklace," Tyson began. "It was Jeremy Creek. He had electric powers. When I grabbed him, he used his power on me, and it shocked me, but then I drew his power out." His gaze shifted between the two girls as he continued. "After I gave you the necklace back," he said to Lana, "I could steal the powers of other meteor freaks using the electricity, and see an aura around them too. I got attacked by Greg Arkin the next day. When he was stalking you, Lana, and went after me because he saw us talking. That's how I knew to go looking for you." Turning to Chloe, he added, "Then there was Coach Walt. He burned down the Torch, but I took his power."
Tyson took a breath before concluding, "And now, Sean, with his ice powers."
Chloe stared at him. "You can steal their abilities? You're not a meteor freak, you're 'The Meteor Freak.'"
Tyson chuckled, but something in him went very quiet underneath it. Chloe Sullivan had given him a name for what he was, and the name she'd landed on was a title. It was almost like she'd bestowed it upon him.
"Yup, king of the freaks. Sounds about right. I can see an aura around other people with powers, that's how I knew something was up with Sean."
"So, let me get this straight," Chloe said, breaking the silence. "You can absorb the powers of other meteor-affected people? And you can see who has these abilities? You took the fire power from Coach Walt after he tried burning down the Torch and killing me? And you took Sean's cold power?"
Tyson nodded. "That's the gist of it."
Chloe sat with that for a moment. She had a reporter's instinct for timelines, for the way events connected when you laid them out in sequence, and she was doing it now. Running back through the semester like a reel of tape. The kickoff dance. The thing with Greg Arkin and Lana's kidnapping. The fire at the Torch that should have killed her. Every crisis where things had somehow resolved, and Tyson had been there at the periphery of each one. She'd attributed it to the way things happened in Smallville with its meteor rocks, and hadn't looked at the details of the events too directly.
She'd been sitting next to the answer for months and never even saw the question.
"I owe you an apology," she said.
"For what?"
"For not seeing it." She shook her head. "I'm supposed to be good at seeing things. I have a Wall of Weird, documenting all the strange happenings in this town. And you were right in front of me the whole time." She shook her head, then continued, "This is incredible! If you wanted to share your story—"
"Chloe," Lana interjected, her tone cautionary. "This isn't just some story. This is Tyson's life we're talking about."
"It's okay, Lana. I get it. It's a lot to process for all of us."
"So, what can you do exactly?" Chloe asked.
Tyson shifted in his seat, considering how to explain. "Well, it's a mix of different abilities. I've got Jeremy Creek's electrical powers, Greg Arkin's strength and agility, and ability to heal myself by shedding, and I can spit webbing too, Coach Walt's fire manipulation, oh, and Ms. Atkins' pheromones and Cyrus Krupp's healing, and now Sean Kelvin's ice powers."
"That's a lot. Wait a second. What about Sean? He was all blue, and it was like he needed to absorb heat to keep from freezing. Are you dealing with that too?"
Tyson shook his head. "Nah. I think Coach Walt's fire powers balanced out Sean's cold. I haven't felt any of the negative effects Sean did."
"So you're not going to freeze to death if you don't suck the heat out of people?"
"Nope," Tyson confirmed. "At least, not so far. I can generate both heat and cold without any apparent drawbacks."
"Can you show us?" Lana asked.
He grabbed a piece of paper and held out his hand, palm up. A small flame flickered to life, beginning to engulf the paper. With a slight gesture, the flame froze, becoming a delicate ice sculpture.
Chloe leaned in, her eyes wide.
"That's incredible," Chloe breathed.
Lana reached out, her fingers stopping just short of touching the frozen flame. "It's beautiful."
Chloe steered the conversation back. "So, with Greg's powers, are you like, super strong now?"
Tyson flexed playfully. "Yeah, and I'm faster and more agile too. Most Meteor Freaks seem to have enhanced strength, and each one is making me stronger."
"No wonder you've been doing so well in football."
Tyson groaned. "Another football player off the roster. Dea— Coach Teague is going to be pissed. At least Whitney's back."
Chloe studied him. "How many of the football players and cheerleaders missing games, being arrested, and whatever, is because of you?"
Tyson started counting on his fingers, ticking off incidents one by one. After a moment, he gave up with a theatrical shrug. "Probably all of it."
"Tyson!" Chloe exclaimed, though there was more amusement than shock in her voice.
"What? I didn't ask them to go psycho with meteor powers," he said defensively. "So, about Justin..."
Chloe's shoulders tensed immediately. "This again."
Tyson held up a hand before she could continue. "Just hear me out. I can see the Meteor Freaks. They all have a glowing green aura in my sight. The reason I came into the Torch earlier was that I thought it was Sean in there with you. Justin gives off that same aura. He has some kind of power."
Chloe blinked, processing this. "The same Justin who spilled his papers everywhere and needed help picking them up? Clumsy, sweet Justin?"
"Trust him, Chloe," Lana interjected. "He hasn't been wrong about this yet. Think about it. He's saved me, he's saved you. He stopped Eric—"
"Still not sure how that happened," Chloe interrupted, looking between them. "But now it makes sense." She turned back to Tyson. "Did you take Eric's powers too?"
Tyson hesitated, his expression becoming complicated. "Sort of... I took them away, but I didn't keep them."
"If he thinks Justin has powers, he's right," Lana said simply, crossing her arms. "I've learned to trust him about these things."
Chloe was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. "I believe you. But I know Justin. He doesn't want to hurt me." She paused, comparing the situations in her mind. "Sean was a creep from minute one. There was something off about him that I should have picked up on. But I'll be careful, and if I need help, I know who to turn to. You're not just my hero twice now. You've been a superhero here behind the scenes from the start, haven't you?"
"I wouldn't go that far."
"Don't be modest. How long has this been going on? Since the beginning of the school year?"
"Pretty much," Tyson admitted. "Ever since the kickoff dance."
"I have to say, Smallville High has had such an unusually eventful semester, even by our standards."
— Meteor Freak —
Justin pushed through the door of the Torch office, clutching a rolled piece of paper against his chest. Chloe sat hunched over one of the older computers. The typing stopped as she looked up, and her face immediately broke into a bright grin that made Justin's stomach do small flips.
"Hey!" she said, pushing back from the desk.
Justin managed a smile, though his hands felt suddenly sweaty around the paper tube. "Here, it took me all night."
Chloe carefully unrolled the paper, and a crayon portrait of her unfurled in her hands. "Oh wow." Her voice went soft, almost reverent. She turned back toward him, her smile widening, warmer now, more intimate. "It's beautiful."
"Well, so are you."
Chloe laughed, bright and genuine, and Justin felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders. "Did you know that after that car hit me and I was lying in the road, I kept picturing your face."
Surprise registered on her face. "Me, why me?"
"Because I always had the biggest crush on you, and I was too afraid to do anything about it. And I thought here I am about to die, and I'm never going to get the chance to tell her how I feel." Another step brought him close enough to catch the faint scent of her shampoo. "But when you started emailing me when I was in the hospital, I knew that this was my chance, and I wasn't going to let you get away twice." He paused, searching her face. "I fought my way back for you."
Chloe smiled up at him, and it was like the sun breaking through clouds. She rose up on her toes just as he leaned down, and their lips met in the middle.
The kiss was everything he'd imagined and nothing like he'd expected all at once. Soft and warm and perfect, with Chloe's hand coming up to rest against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat through her palm, or maybe that was his own pulse thundering in his ears.
Around the Torch office, pens lifted from the desks, spinning slowly in the air. A small ceramic doll that served as a paperweight rose from its perch, floating in lazy circles. Scissors drifted upward, along with a coffee mug, a computer disk, and various other small objects. The kiss deepened, and more items joined the aerial dance. Paper clips, a stapler, even Chloe's car keys lifted from her bag to join the floating procession.
Her eyes opened mid-kiss, widening as she took in the impossible sight surrounding them. She pulled back abruptly, and the spell broke.
Everything crashed down at once. Pens clattered to the floor, the mug hit the desk with a sharp crack, scissors embedding point-first in the bulletin board. The sudden cacophony made them both jump apart.
"What just happened?" Chloe asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Justin's heart sank. This was it, the moment she'd realize he was some kind of freak and run screaming from the room. But he'd promised himself honesty, and after everything they'd just shared, she deserved the truth.
"Can you keep an open mind?"
"Sure."
He took a breath, steeling himself. "Something happened to me after the accident. Then, when I was in the hospital, I found that I could move things..." He paused, watching her face. "With my mind."
"Like telekinesis?" she asked, curiosity in her voice rather than fear.
Justin nodded, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. "Am I freaking you out?"
But Chloe smiled and shook her head. "Believe it or not, I've seen stranger things."
"Cause I don't want to end up on your wall."
"Don't worry, you won't." She stepped closer, reaching out to touch his arm. "Now, let's make everything float again."
The shrill ring of the phone interrupted the moment. Both turned toward the sound. "Seriously?" she laughed, stepping back as it continued its insistent ringing. "It's like the world doesn't want us kissing."
Justin managed a weak smile. The phone rang twice more before falling silent, but the fax machine in the corner suddenly came to life, churning and wheezing and spitting out paper.
"God, that thing is loud," Chloe said. "I keep telling them we need a new one, but apparently the Torch's budget doesn't stretch that far."
The printing finally stopped, and she scanned the contents. Her expression shifted from casual curiosity to something more serious.
"What is it?" Justin asked, moving closer to peer over her shoulder.
At the top of the page, someone had scrawled "GOT A MATCH?" in thick black capitals. Below that, the formal text read.
Registered owner Mr. H. Kwan.
Address: 1635 West Street, Smallville, KS 66645.
Justin stared at the paper.
"Principal Kwan's car?" Chloe asked, looking up at him.
"I've gotta go," Justin said quickly, already backing toward the door.
"Already?" Chloe's voice carried a note of disappointment.
"I've got physical therapy for my hand," he said, flexing his fingers weakly as if to demonstrate. "I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
Chloe nodded, though her expression suggested she wasn't entirely convinced. "Okay... I'll investigate this angle."
"Don't worry about it," Justin said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "It's obviously not him."
"Justin," Chloe called after him, but he was already pushing through the door.
"Tomorrow," he called back.
Back in the Torch office, Chloe stood holding the fax. His reaction had been too strong, too immediate. The way he'd gone pale when he saw the name, the speed with which he'd created an excuse to leave, it all felt wrong.
Chloe folded the fax carefully and slipped it into her bag. She pulled out her phone and dialed Tyson's number.
"Hey, what's up?" His voice came through clear, with the sound of video game music in the background.
"Aren't you supposed to be getting ready for practice? Nevermind. I need to tell you something," Chloe said, pacing around the empty Torch office. "Remember that hit-and-run with Justin? I just found out who did it."
The game sounds stopped abruptly. "Seriously? Who?"
"Principal Kwan." She could practically hear Tyson's jaw drop through the phone. "My contact faxed his car registration to the Torch office. But here's the thing. Justin saw it, and he just... took off. Like, immediately. Made up some excuse about physical therapy and bolted out of here." Chloe picked up a pen from the floor, one of the casualties from their earlier telekinetic episode. "Tyson, he looked scared. Or angry. I couldn't tell which."
"So you think he's going to do something stupid?"
Chloe hesitated. Justin had powers now, real ones. And if he was angry enough about Kwan... "I don't know. Maybe."
"So you want to stop him?"
"No," Chloe said quickly, then caught herself. "I don't think he's going to do anything."
The silence stretched between them, and she could feel Tyson's skepticism radiating through the phone. She knew that look he was giving, even though she couldn't see him. He wasn't buying what she was selling.
"Fine," she admitted with a sigh. "Maybe. Look, are you doing anything tonight? I just want to keep an eye on Principal Kwan's house. I'm thinking a stakeout."
"So you want to be alone with me in a car for hours," Tyson said, and she could hear the grin in his voice. "Doing something we're not supposed to be doing?"
"Why do you have to say it like that?" Chloe groaned, dropping into the chair at her desk. Trust Tyson to make it sound like a hook-up.
"Because that's what it is. We're talking about stalking our principal, Chloe."
"We're not stalking him. We're... monitoring the situation."
"Right. Monitoring." The amusement in his voice was unmistakable. "My girlfriend isn't going to like this."
Chloe had forgotten about Lana; she'd only found out about their relationship yesterday. "Bring her along then."
"To a stakeout?"
"Why not? We'll make it a group thing. Less suspicious that way." Chloe was already warming to the idea. "Look, maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe Justin really did have physical therapy, and this whole thing is nothing. But what if it's not? What if he's sitting in his truck right now, working up the courage to confront the man who nearly killed him? He's a seventeen-year-old boy who just found out the identity of the person who hit him and left him for dead on the road. And he has powers," Chloe said. "That's a recipe for bad decisions."
"Okay," Tyson said. "You've convinced me. What time do you want to meet?"
"I'll pick you up. And I'll call Lana and explain the situation."
"Have fun with that."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "We are just friends, Tyson. This is serious."
"I know it is. That's why I'm saying yes." His voice softened. "You care about Justin."
It wasn't a question, but Chloe found herself nodding anyway. "Yeah. I do."
"Then we'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid tonight."
Some of the tension left her shoulders. Having Tyson on board made the whole plan feel less crazy, more manageable. "Thanks. I owe you one."
"You owe me several, actually. But who's counting?" The teasing was back in his voice.
"Alright, I'm going to call Lana. What if she's not interested?"
"Then I guess it's just you and me after all. But don't worry, I'll keep my hands to myself."
"Tyson!"
"Kidding!" He laughed. "Oh, I'll bring snacks too."
— Meteor Freak —
The rain drummed steadily against the windshield of Chloe's Honda Civic, creating rivulets that distorted the view of Principal Kwan's house across the street. The residential neighborhood was quiet except for the rhythmic patter of water on pavement and the occasional rustle of wet leaves in the breeze.
Inside the car, Tyson stretched out across the backseat, a bag of chips crinkling in his hands. This was the part the stories and movies didn't tell you about. Not the fights, not the powers. The waiting. Sitting in someone's car in the rain, hoping that a kid you barely knew would choose not to do something he couldn't take back, knowing that you were the contingency plan if he did, and having no way to do anything about any of it except watch a dark driveway and eat chips and wait. It was almost worse than the action. At least in the action you had something to do with your hands.
He thought about the Torch office and how Chloe defended Justin with the conviction of someone who had made up their mind about a person and was not going to be argued out of it.
He hoped she was right and that her wanting him here would turn out to be an unnecessary thing they laughed about later.
"Lana, why don't you come back here with me?" he suggested, patting the seat beside him.
"Absolutely not," Chloe said from the driver's seat, not taking her eyes off the house. "You will not be making out or worse in my car. It's bad enough I already know about when your relationship started."
Lana turned in the passenger seat, confusion creasing her features. "What do you mean?"
Chloe glanced at her briefly before returning her attention to the house. "Tyson here told us about when you consummated your relationship."
Lana's head whipped around to glare at Tyson. The look she gave him could have melted steel.
"So much for reporters not giving up their sources. I, uh, I don't do well under pressure," Tyson said defensively, his voice slightly muffled by the chip bag. "The interview, the lights, I caved immediately."
"You caved before I even asked any questions!" Chloe exclaimed, finally turning to look at him properly.
"Look, can we focus on why we're here?" Lana interjected, though her tone suggested she wasn't done with Tyson yet. "We're supposed to be watching for Justin, not discussing our private life."
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine. A black Ford turned into Kwan's driveway, its headlights cutting through the rain before sweeping across the small lanterns that lined the pavement. The license plate read 'Kansas DDI 035.'
"That's him," Chloe whispered, leaning forward.
The engine cut and the headlights died. Principal Kwan emerged from the driver's side, wearing a blazer and red patterned tie despite the late hour. He moved toward an overturned metal dustbin that lay on its side, bending to right it.
"Where's Justin?" Lana asked, scanning the street.
As if summoned by her words, a figure approached from the end of the driveway. Justin stood there, completely soaked, his dark clothes clinging to his frame. Rain dripped from his hair, and even from across the street, the tension in his posture was plain.
"Oh no," Chloe breathed.
Justin's voice carried across the quiet street. "Tell me one thing. Was it easy to lie to everybody?"
"Justin? What are you doing here?"
"Reliving old memories."
Even from their vantage point, they could see Kwan's discomfort in the way he shifted his weight. "I think you should go home."
Kwan turned and began walking toward his house, still carrying the bin. But Justin wasn't finished. He started up the driveway, his movements deliberate and slow.
"You know I was only halfway across the crosswalk when your car came barreling around the corner." Kwan stopped and turned back toward him. "It hit me so hard it felt like I'd been broken in half."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kwan replied, but his voice lacked conviction.
Justin continued his approach. "As I lay in the street, blood dripping into my eyes, watching your tail-lights disappear. You didn't even bother to stop."
"It wasn't me."
In the car, Chloe's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "This is bad. This is really bad."
"Should we do something?" Lana asked.
Tyson had abandoned his chips entirely. "Yeah, this is probably going to escalate. Lana, you keep Chloe safe and out of the line of fire, okay?" He grabbed the handle and opened the door slowly, careful not to draw attention or make noise.
"Wait," Chloe said, her hand moving toward the door handle to join him, but Lana grabbed her arm, halting her.
Justin raised his hand, and Kwan was hurled by telekinesis, screaming, through the air toward the white garage door behind him. The principal's body hit the wood with a dull thud before crumpling to the wet pavement. He fell hard, then slowly looked up at Justin, rain streaming down his face.
"It started in the hospital," Justin said, still advancing through the rain. His voice was eerily calm, conversational even. "Maybe it's a way to compensate for the motor skills I'd lost in my hands."
Kwan scrambled to his feet, his blazer now torn and muddy.
"I was immobilized in a total body cast," Justin continued, each word measured and deliberate. "Then I found that I can move things just by thinking."
One of the spherical lanterns was pulled from the lawn with a wet sucking sound. It hurtled point-first through the air and pinned Kwan to the garage door by the shoulder of his jacket. The principal cried out as the metal spike pierced the fabric, trapping him.
"But that didn't replace what I'd lost. Because nothing could ever do that."
The headlights of Kwan's Ford blazed to life, illuminating the terrified man pinned to the garage. The engine started with a roar and began revving on its own.
"Justin! Stop it!" Kwan shouted, struggling against the lantern that held him fast.
Justin stood beside the car, rain dripping from his hair as he looked at the trapped principal. "Do you know what it feels like to be hit by a two-thousand-pound car? No? Well, you will."
The gearbox shifted from park into first with an audible click. The Ford lurched forward, tires spinning on the wet pavement as it accelerated toward Kwan. The principal's eyes went wide as the vehicle bore down on him. Just before the car could crush him, Tyson dove from the side, tackling Kwan and ripping him free from the lantern. They hit the ground as the Ford continued its trajectory, smashing through the garage door with a tremendous crash of splintering wood and twisted metal. The car plowed into the back wall of the garage, its engine finally falling silent.
Tyson pushed himself up and moved to stand in front of the shaken principal.
"You... again," Justin said, his voice carrying a dangerous edge. "You have a habit of interfering where you don't belong."
"Yeah, well, somebody's got to keep you from becoming a murderer," Tyson shot back. "Look, Justin, I get it. This guy ruined your life. But this isn't the way."
Justin's expression didn't change. "I don't need your help."
"I'm not offering help," Tyson said, raising his hands slightly. "I'm offering an alternative. You want justice? Fine. But there are better ways to get it than this."
"Justice?" Justin laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Where was justice when I was lying broken in that hospital bed? Where was justice when he walked free while I had to learn how to use my hands again? Where was justice when my doctor botched the surgery?"
"You're right. The system failed you." He paused. The rain was loud between them. "You know what I was doing two months ago? Minding my own business, trying to find my way in this world. Then I end up strung up in a field in my underwear, and later that night, some kid uses me as a human lightning rod. Still, I don't get to quit. I don't get to burn it down and walk away from the wreckage. Neither do you." His voice dropped. "Because you can still have a normal life after tonight. I can't. Don't waste that. You think Chloe wants to see you like this? You think she wants to watch you throw away everything you fought to get back?"
For a moment, something flickered across Justin's face. Then his expression hardened again, and he raised his hand. More lawn lanterns rose from the soggy ground with wet, sucking sounds. They began to orbit around him, pointed ends rotating outward, spike-first. They created an eerie light show as they spun through the rain.
Tyson looked at the display surrounding Justin, then back at his face. Despite everything, he managed a weak smile. "Telekinesis is strong, but I have the type and terrain advantage here," he called out across the rain-soaked driveway.
Justin's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Tyson pointed to himself with a grin that seemed wildly inappropriate for the situation. "I'm a bug type. Psychic is weak against Bug. Plus, it's raining." He gestured at the downpour. "You really don't want to do this."
"You're not making any sense," Justin said, frustration bleeding into his voice. Without warning, he fired one of the lawn-light spikes directly at Tyson's chest.
He sidestepped the projectile with ease, the metal spike whistling past his shoulder to embed itself in the wet grass behind him. Justin studied the casual dodge.
"You're not normal," he said, a new edge of wariness in his voice.
"Nothing in this town is normal. Except Chloe. Remember her? Local journalist, kinda cute, actually likes you for who you are." His voice softened. "I'm only here because she didn't want you to do anything we couldn't take back. If you kill Kwan, there's no way back from that."
Justin's face twisted with pain and rage. "He took the one thing I loved from me." He held up his hands, fingers trembling slightly in the rain. "Look at them. They're still not healed."
"I can fix your hands. But only if you're still here and not in a cell, and Kwan isn't in a body bag. I'll trade you, your telekinesis for your hands being healed."
Lana watched Tyson stand in the middle of that driveway with lawn lights orbiting threateningly and offer to heal a stranger's hands. She thought about the first week of school, when he'd been the new kid with no history here, and how far that version of him already felt from the person she was watching right now. She wasn't sure if Smallville had made him this way or revealed it. She wasn't sure it mattered. What she knew was that Chloe had needed help and Tyson had said yes without hesitation, and that somewhere between the Kickoff Dance and tonight in the rain, this had become what he did. Not because anyone had asked him to. Because it was who he'd decided to be.
She thought that might be the most frightening and the most beautiful thing about him.
"You lie," Justin spat. "The doctors couldn't fix me. No one can!"
With a violent gesture, he sent all the remaining lawn spikes hurtling toward Tyson in a deadly barrage. The projectiles cut through the rain like arrows.
Tyson did something Justin didn't expect. He leapt straight up.
The jump carried him impossibly high, fifteen, maybe twenty feet into the air. The spikes passed harmlessly beneath him, embedding themselves in the ground and the side of the house with dull thuds. Justin's mouth fell open as Tyson hung in the air for a moment that seemed to stretch.
In that suspended instant, Tyson ran through his options. Fire wouldn't work in the rain. Electricity worried him with everything soaked, too many unintended paths for the current to take. Ice it was.
When Tyson landed in a crouch, Justin had already begun pulling the spikes free from where they'd struck, retargeting. He launched them again, but it was only a distraction from the sound of a revving engine. The Ford had shifted into reverse and backed directly into Tyson's side as he touched down. The two-thousand-pound vehicle should have crushed him. Instead, Tyson batted it away with one hand, the car spinning sideways across the driveway like a discarded toy.
In the car, Lana pressed her hand flat against the window glass without realizing she'd done it. She'd watched Tyson handle things before, the night with Tina, a dozen smaller moments she'd filed away and not fully thought about. But this was different. This wasn't reactive or concealed. This was Tyson standing in the rain in front of a two-thousand-pound car and choosing, calmly, to be in its way. She thought of Whitney's father, and Jeremy Creek, and the meteor rock necklace she'd worn for two years before she understood what it had done to Tyson that first night in the field.
She was in a relationship with someone who bats cars away with one hand. And he'd been worried about her agency and consent. She didn't know whether that was terrifying or the most honest thing she'd ever been close to. Maybe both. Probably both.
The casual display of strength surprised Justin and Tyson himself. All the powers he'd absorbed were additive. With so many abilities layered on top of each other, his strength was far higher than he'd expected. The last time he'd tested himself was in the weight room, when he'd only had Jeremy and Greg's powers. Now he had so many more, and it showed.
Tyson focused on Justin, and ice began spreading from his feet. The frozen surface raced across the wet pavement between them, climbing Justin's soaked body and covering every surface it touched. The telekinetic tried to step back, but the ice spread faster than he could retreat. Within seconds, a thin but solid layer of frost covered Justin from head to toe, his wet clothes and hair crystallizing in the sudden cold.
Tyson didn't give him a chance to adapt or break free. He opened his mouth, feeling the deeply unpleasant sensation of Greg's power activating. A thick, ropey strand of webbing shot from his throat, striking Justin center mass and beginning to wrap around his ice-covered form. Tyson kept the stream going, layering strand after strand until Justin was thoroughly cocooned, his arms bound to his sides, making movement impossible.
Tyson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and made a disgusted face. "God, that was gross," he muttered, spitting to clear the lingering taste. "Why couldn't I fire webbing from my wrists? That felt like I was hacking up the world's stringiest loogie."
Justin struggled against the webbing, his face contorted with concentration as he tried to use his telekinesis to find purchase on the sticky strands. But the webbing had no discrete edges or surfaces for his power to grip. His eyes darted frantically.
Tyson didn't give him time to find anything. He closed the distance in two quick strides. His fist connected with Justin's jaw in a devastating blow. His eyes rolled back and he dropped like a marionette with cut strings, completely limp within the webbing prison.
Chloe burst from the car, feet splashing through puddles as she rushed toward them. "Did you need to do that?" she demanded, voice tight with concern as she looked down at Justin.
Tyson straightened, wiping rain from his face. "He was trying to kill Kwan, kill me. His power is dangerous, so yes. I needed to knock him out. Don't worry, I'll heal his head and his hands. After I take his power. He can't keep this one. No way."
He glanced at Chloe, noting the conflict in her expression. "You might want to step back."
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but the words died on her lips. She'd seen what Justin had done. The violence, the complete lack of restraint. Kwan could have been killed, and Tyson too. With visible reluctance, she stepped away from the webbed figure and moved toward Principal Kwan, who was still sitting against the garage door, looking dazed and shaken.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling beside him. His blazer was torn where the lantern spike had pinned him, mud streaked his face, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
"I... I think I'm okay," Kwan said, his voice shaky. "That boy, he... how did he do those things?"
Meanwhile, Tyson began tearing through the webbing with his bare hands. The strands that had held Justin immobile parted like tissue paper. Once he had enough access, he grabbed Justin's left hand.
With his free hand, Tyson flipped open the locket hanging around his neck. Nestled inside was a fragment of meteor rock, the same green-tinged stone that had given so many people in Smallville their abilities.
"Meteor rock giveth," Tyson said, "And meteor rock taketh away."
He closed his eyes and reached for Jeremy's electrical power. The sensation was different from his other abilities. Where fire felt like controlled rage and ice felt like focused calm, electricity was pure energy, crackling and alive. He felt it building in his chest, spreading through his nervous system like liquid lightning.
He opened his eyes, and they glowed with a soft blue light. Electricity arced between his fingers, flowing from his hand into Justin's, following the path of least resistance through their connected touch.
What he was starting to understand about taking powers was that each one carried its origin with it. Jeremy's electricity had crackled in with the phantom memory of retribution and righteousness. Coach Walt's fire had settled in his chest like barely-contained fury. This was different. Telekinesis flooded into him. The effect was immediate and visible. The meteor rock in Tyson's locket began to glow brighter, resonating with the electrical current flowing between them. Justin's body tensed, even in unconsciousness, as the transfer began. Faint distortions in the air began flowing from Justin toward Tyson, the telekinetic power drawn out through the electrical connection and absorbed into Tyson.
The new power settled into his mind. It wasn't just another ability to call upon; it was a fundamental shift in how he could interact with the world. The sensation of reaching out with his thoughts and touching was strange. Every object within his range of perception suddenly felt accessible, as if invisible hands extended from his consciousness. The broken garage door, the scattered lawn ornaments, even the raindrops falling around them all existed in a new dimension of awareness that hadn't been there moments before.
Tyson released Justin's hand and staggered backward, pressing his palms against his temples. The telekinetic sense was like having a new limb he'd never learned to control. Objects seemed to pulse with potential energy, begging to be moved, lifted, manipulated. A loose piece of debris from the garage shifted slightly without him meaning it to.
"Whoa," he breathed, forcing himself to focus on shutting down the new awareness. It was like trying to close an eye he'd never seen through before.
Justin lay still in the remnants of the webbing. Tyson moved to his hands.
Starting with the damaged fingers, he channeled his regenerative ability into the unconscious young man. The wrongly-set bones began to shift and realign, cartilage regenerating, nerve pathways reconnecting. The process was slow but thorough. He was essentially undoing months of imperfect healing and surgical interventions. Justin's hands transformed. The stiffness melted away, the unnatural angles corrected themselves, and the subtle tremor that had plagued his fine motor control disappeared entirely. When Tyson finished with both hands, they looked strong, flexible, and completely functional. Finally, he moved to Justin's head, placing his palm gently over the spot where his punch had connected. The healing energy flowed in, repairing any damage from the blow, ensuring no concussion or lasting effects. The bruising already beginning to form faded away, leaving unmarked skin.
It occurred to him, not for the first time, that this was the strangest part of what he could do. He could hurt people with abilities absorbed from other people's tragedy, or he could heal them with a gift he'd taken from someone who'd lost the capacity to use it after a tragedy of his own. He wondered sometimes if Cyrus Krupp had any idea what he'd given up. Whether somewhere in his comatose state, he occasionally reached for something that wasn't there anymore. As the healing energy flowed through him, through Justin's skin, finding the broken hands and quietly putting them right, he didn't feel heroic. He felt mostly empty. He could heal Justin's hands. He couldn't heal what had led him to this driveway.
Tyson sat back on his heels. The rain continued to fall, washing away the evidence of their confrontation. The destroyed garage door hung broken in its frame, Kwan's Ford sat embedded in the back wall, but Justin looked peaceful in unconsciousness, no longer the dangerous, pain-driven young man who had nearly committed murder.
"Is he going to be okay?" Chloe asked, approaching cautiously.
"Better than okay," Tyson replied. "His hands are completely healed. When he wakes up, it'll be like the accident never happened. At least physically."
Lana had emerged from the car at some point between the end of the fight and the healing, and was surveying the destruction with wide eyes. "What do we do about all this?" she asked, gesturing at the damaged property and the still-shaken Principal Kwan.
Tyson shook his head. "This one is a mess." He approached Kwan slowly, who was still sitting against the damaged garage door. The rain had softened to a steady drizzle, water still dripping from the broken eaves above them. "You treated me fairly with the whole Whitney thing," Tyson said, crouching down to Kwan's eye level. His voice was quiet, almost conversational.
Kwan looked up at him, confusion mixing with the lingering shock. "Is that why you saved me?"
"No," Tyson replied without hesitation. "I interfered because it was the right thing to do. Justin was hurt, injured, lost the only thing that mattered to him in life, so he tried to take it out on the person he thought was responsible." He paused, meeting Kwan's eyes directly. "You."
The principal's face crumpled slightly, and he looked away toward Justin's unconscious form. "He's not wrong to blame me," Kwan said, his voice barely audible over the rain. "I should have stopped it. I should have done something."
"What do you mean?" Chloe asked.
Kwan was quiet for a long moment, staring at his hands. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy. "It wasn't me driving that night. It was my son, David. He'd been drinking at a party and called me panicked about what he'd done. I... I covered for him."
Chloe's expression shifted from surprise to understanding. Lana covered her mouth with her hand. One covered-up accident had produced a grieving teenager, a mutilated malpracticed surgeon, a Meteor Freak who nearly murdered a man, and a night that had required Tyson to absorb someone else's power into himself. She looked at him across the driveway, at the set of his shoulders, and knew he was already thinking about what needed to happen next. She felt the particular helplessness of loving someone who never stops running toward the thing everyone else is running from. She wanted to say something. Instead, she kept her hand over her mouth and let the rain say it for her.
"Your son," Tyson said. Not a question.
"A DUI, vehicular assault... it would have destroyed his future. His military career, college prospects after discharge, everything." Kwan's voice cracked. "I thought I was protecting him. I never imagined it would lead to this."
Tyson sat back on his heels. Around them, the evidence of Justin's telekinetic rampage was scattered across the driveway. Broken lawn ornaments, the destroyed garage, Kwan's Ford halfway in the grass with a dent from where Tyson hit it.
"We need to figure out what happens now," Lana said, glancing at the neighboring houses. "Someone's going to call the police if they haven't already."
Kwan pushed himself to his feet, brushing mud from his torn blazer. He looked older than his years, worn down by months of carrying his son's secret. "I'll tell them I lost control of my car in the rain. Hydroplaned into my own garage." He gestured at the destruction. "It's not entirely unbelievable, given the weather."
"What about the lawn lights? The telekinetic damage?" Chloe asked.
"What telekinetic damage?" Kwan replied. "There was a car accident. That's all. Whatever else you think happened here, I didn't see it. After what my silence has already cost?" Kwan shook his head. "That boy nearly became a killer because of my choices. The least I can do is make sure he doesn't face consequences for powers he never asked for and seemingly no longer has."
Tyson held out his hand and one of the lawn light spikes flew into it. He said, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate… leads to suffering."
Chloe smacked his arm and said, "This is serious."
A low groan from the webbing cocoon drew their attention. Justin was stirring, eyes fluttering open. Tyson moved quickly to tear away the remaining strands, freeing his arms and torso. Justin sat up slowly, blinking in confusion as he took in the scene around him.
"What happened?" Justin asked, his voice hoarse. He looked at his hands, flexing his fingers experimentally. His eyes went wide as he realized they moved without pain, without the stiffness that had plagued him for months. "My hands... they're..."
"Healed," Tyson said simply. "Completely."
Justin stared at his restored hands, tears mixing with the rain on his face. He made a fist, then spread his fingers wide, marveling at the movement. The memory of what he'd done seemed to hit Justin all at once. His face went pale as he looked around at the destruction, his gaze settling on Principal Kwan. "Oh God. I tried to kill you. I actually tried to..." He buried his face in his newly healed hands. "What's wrong with me?"
"You were in pain," Chloe said gently, moving to sit beside him. "You felt like you'd lost everything that mattered to you."
"That doesn't excuse what I did." Justin's voice was muffled. "I could have murdered someone. I wanted to murder someone."
Kwan approached slowly. "Justin, I need you to know something. About the accident." Justin looked up, eyes red-rimmed but alert. "It wasn't me driving that night," Kwan said. "It was my son. I covered for him, took the blame."
"Your son," he repeated numbly. Justin stared at Kwan, then down at his hands again. He'd built everything around this. Not just tonight, five months of hospital beds and physical therapy sessions and emails to a girl in Smallville who had no idea how much her words had mattered, all of it built around the fixed point of the one who did this to him. The man who drove away. The man who made a choice and left him bleeding in the road. He'd needed that to be real and specific and located in a person he could confront, because the alternative was that what happened to him was just an accident, which meant it was no one's fault, which meant it could happen again to anyone at any time, and there was nothing to do about it except heal and keep going. He hadn't been able to live with that version. So he'd lived with this one instead.
Now Kwan's face, the one he'd assigned to that person, was still in front of him, and it was still the wrong face, and the five months didn't give back their weight just because the target had shifted.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness. What I did was wrong. But I needed you to know the truth."
Justin was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "I don't know what to do with this. I've been so angry for so long, and now..."
The sentence didn't have an ending he could find. He was standing in a stranger's driveway in the rain, looking at his healed hands and a man who hadn't driven the car, and he had absolutely no idea what came next.
Chloe sat down beside him on the wet pavement, as if sitting beside someone in the rain on a ruined driveway were a completely ordinary thing to do. She didn't say anything for a moment. Just sat there, close enough that their shoulders touched.
"You don't have to know yet," she said quietly.
It was such a simple thing to say. Justin had no idea why it cracked something open in him the way it did, but he found he couldn't answer without his voice going wrong, so he didn't try.
"Now you can choose what comes next," Tyson said. "You've got your hands back. You can draw again, if that's what you want. The power that was making you dangerous is gone. You get to decide who you want to be from here."
He said it with more certainty than he felt. He'd been sitting with a version of the same question since the career fair, since the moment he'd stood between two booths and realized that every plan he'd been quietly forming assumed Clark's story was the only story worth staying close to. Maybe that was true. Maybe proximity to the future Superman was exactly where he was supposed to be. Or maybe he was just comfortable with it, which wasn't the same thing. Justin had five months of recovery and a clear enemy and still managed to nearly destroy himself. Tyson had powers stacking up like floors in a building with no blueprint, and a girlfriend in a town that kept trying to kill them both. The difference between them wasn't as large as it seemed. The difference was that Tyson still had time to choose before he was standing in a rain-soaked driveway with no good options left.
"The telekinesis," Justin said, looking at Tyson with sudden understanding. "You took it, didn't you? That's how you were able to heal me."
"It's gone," Tyson confirmed.
Justin nodded slowly. "Good. I never wanted it anyway. It just made everything worse."
He turned his hands over slowly, palms up, letting the rain fall into them. He could feel the individual drops, the way his fingers curved and straightened without protest for the first time in five months. He made a fist without thinking about it. Then he spread his fingers wide. Then he made a fist again. Such a small thing. The most ordinary thing in the world. He'd done it ten thousand times before the accident and never once noticed it.
His eyes were wet, and it wasn't from the rain.
In the distance, sirens began to echo through the rain-soaked neighborhood. Kwan straightened, preparing himself for the performance he'd have to give. He shooed the teens off toward Chloe's car.
"A car accident. Nothing more."