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  • #31
    i like it!! ppms

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    • #32
      This is great PPMS.

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      • #33
        I am soooooo reading this!

        Please continue!!

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        • #34
          Oops. I am so sorry. I know I said I would update more often but i've been so busy and then I was on vacation again and then I was just having a lot of trouble writing this chapter. I'm really, really sorry, I didn't anticipate it taking this long, but I'm updating now and I'll try not to get so far behind again.

          Lol, I just realized that with the new forums, they stretch across my whole computer screen and my chapters look really short.

          Thanks for commenting, everyone, I really do appreciate it~

          5.

          .....

          Daylight dies, blackout the sky.
          Does anyone care, is anybody there?
          Take this life, empty inside.
          I’m already dead, I’ll rise to fall again.

          I’m falling apart,
          Leave me here forever in the dark.

          .....
          The first thing she felt was the sharp pain of a spark, an ember, something glowing with light and heat deep inside her heart. Everything was dark, but she could sense a light inside her. It was brilliant and white, but it hurt as much as a flame.

          Why won’t it stop?

          She’d given up, she’d accepted her fate. Why couldn’t she finally rest? Why wouldn’t the pain let her go?

          The light grew inside her, spreading from her heart to the rest of her body. It still hurt, but the sharp flames were dimming into something more bearable.

          …Why am I not dead?

          She should be dead. She’d accepted it, believed it was finally inevitable. She’d cheated death far too many times for it not to catch up with her eventually.

          Just let me go.

          She couldn’t block out the light, or the fire. The darkness was so peaceful; why couldn’t she just stay there?

          The light was fading again and the pain was disappearing. Maybe it was going to let her go. Maybe it listened. But no, now she was aware of where she was- no longer in the empty darkness, but somewhere that was more tangible, more real. The light inside her was gone, and so was the pain from Lex’s knife.

          How…?

          Tess opened her eyes.

          It was still dark, but not the pitch-black emptiness of where she’d been. A green glow from somewhere behind her cast eerie, murky shadows on the ceiling above her. She could tell she was lying on some sort of lab table.

          Inwardly, she could appreciate the irony of it all. Well, that’s twice now...

          “Welcome back,” said a horribly familiar voice from behind her. Tess gasped and stood up, spinning around to see the man responsible for her temporary death.

          “Lex. How... Why did you...”

          She trailed off, confused. Why would he kill her only to bring her back?

          Instead of anger, or triumph, she saw confusion on his face. And... and fear.

          He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t remember anything.

          She felt a dark kind of happiness at the thought that her plan had worked. Clark and the others were safe now. That’s what she’d wanted. But there was something inside her, the part of her that had chosen to believe in Clark, that hated what she’d been forced to do to protect them.

          It doesn’t matter. I did what I had to do.

          But the question of why she was standing in a LuthorCorp laboratory and not dead right now was still very much unanswered.

          “I see you know who I am. Well, since I don’t exactly know who you are or who I am, I’d say you have an advantage,” Lex answered. “However, I think you know how to give me back my identity.”

          Oh no. He’d brought her back so she’d bring back his memories. There was no way she could let that happen. But what if he could find some way to undo what she’d been willing to die to achieve?

          “That’s impossible, Lex. ” She smirked, trying to hide the apprehension she felt. “Trust me, the world’s better off with your memories gone.”

          Lex’s eyes narrowed and she could see in his anger a trace of who he’d once been. “I know you had something to do with this,” he hissed. “But if it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead right now. So if you know anything about what happened to me, I’d suggest that you tell me, or you’ll end up back where you started.”

          Now that’s ironic...

          “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” Tess laughed bitterly. “Well, I’m not thinking it’s in my best interest to fill you in. And I know that’s an empty threat. I know you, Lex, and there’s no way you’d kill me if I can be useful. And since I have information you want...”

          “I know more than you think,” he said, with a smile that sent a chill of fear through her. “Apparently, I was smart enough to write a note in the thirty seconds before the neurotoxin kicked in. It told me my name and why my memories were gone, and it told me to come here. And I found a whole lot of interesting information here, as a matter of fact. I even have a way to restore my identity. And I even found a way to resurrect you, because I need you to tell me what I need to know about the neurotoxin, or the procedure won’t work.”

          “What on earth makes you think I’m willing to cooperate?” she replied, her eyebrows raised. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. The neurotoxin is irreversible.”

          Tess thought she noticed a flicker of uncertainty in Lex’s eyes, but it disappeared as her half-brother reached over and grabbed the gun lying on the shelf next to him. “You’re lying,” he accused, pointing the weapon right at her. “And I assure you that this is not an empty threat. If you don’t tell me what I need to know, then there’s no reason to keep you alive.”

          With a humorless laugh, Tess took a few steps toward him. “I see that even without your memories, you’re still the same Lex,” she replied. If I just keep him talking, maybe I can figure out a way out of this. “How did you bring me back, anyway?” she asked, glancing briefly toward the mechanical contraption that was set up next to where she’d awoken. The telltale green glow of kryptonite flickered inside it.

          “There are crystals here that can do amazing things,” he replied. “A lot of green rocks, and a few clear crystals. And from what I’ve discovered, the crystals are actually a form of technology. Alien technology. You were dead for less than six hours; it wasn’t that hard to bring you back.”

          “I doubt they’re actually alien, Lex, maybe just-”

          “You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?!” Lex stepped forward with the gun and Tess stepped back a few paces. “You know everything and you won’t tell me! So stop lying, I know you can fix this! Stop trying to distract me and tell me what I need to know!!” He was shouting now and Tess could see that he was afraid- afraid of being lost forever with no identity, angry and uncertain. He was willing to do anything to restore his memories, and that made him far more dangerous.

          “Who are you?!” He shouted.

          Calmly, Tess took a deep breath, and replied with a steady voice despite the fear that was threatening to emerge. I protected Clark by stealing his memories. I can’t let that be reversed. “You’re not going to find out anything from me,” she said. “I don’t care what you threaten me with. I don’t care how sure you are that you know enough to understand this, Lex. You don’t know anything. And it’s going to stay that way.”

          Suddenly Lex’s anger seemed to fade, replaced by calm resolve. “Fine. You were right; I’m not going to kill you. Because there’s more than one way to get the information I need from you.” Lex smiled and before Tess could react, she felt a sharp spike of pain as he hit her with the end of his gun, and then everything faded as she fell back into unconsciousness.
          Last edited by Firesong; 08-24-2011, 08:35 AM.

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          • #35
            As long as you don't give up on this story before it's finished, it's ok if you don't upload very often! Everyone is busy those days

            I love the new chapter! It's amazing that the characters are not OOC at all in your story. I hope Clark is going to find Tess before Lex's uses her to get what he wants Anyway she's alive again, yay

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            • #36
              He won't torture her. No please, Clark come and save Tess before he tortures her any further.

              And I agree with Costanza, long wait for another chapter is better than no update at all.

              Good update!

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              • #37
                Tess really needs some help, this looks like a job for Superman! That was great please update soon.

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                • #38
                  I'm dying to read the rest of this story, please update it as soon as you can! And please don't give up on it, it's really good so far

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                  • #39
                    Thanks Costanza, and everyone who commented. And I know you've been waiting for a while, I'm so sorry. I know I said updates would be infrequent, but I didn't expect them to be this infrequent. I assure you I am working on a chapter, but with school starting I have very little time to write. I think this chapter will be a bit longer, at least. I'm going away this weekend, but I'll try to have the next chapter sometime next week.

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                    • #40
                      I'm sure once you posted an update, the long wait would be worth it.

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                      • #41
                        I'm updating!
                        Sorry, again, that I'm so slow writing this. This chapter's the longest so far, so i hope that helps to make up for it.

                        6.

                        .....

                        I’m frightened by what I see,
                        But somehow I know there’s much more to come.
                        Immobilized by my fear,
                        And soon to be blinded by tears.
                        I can stop the pain if I will it all away,
                        If I will it all away.

                        .....

                        When Tess opened her eyes, at first she didn’t know where she was. Everything was gray and the acrid tang of smoke was all around her. With a rush of panic she realized she was injured; there was a dull pain in her head as if she’d been thrown back against something. Bringing her hand up to the source of the pain, she could feel blood. There was a faint ringing in her ears, and she could hear people screaming, some from far away.

                        Where am I? What happened?

                        It was hard to keep her eyes open, but she thought she could see a glimmer of light coming from somewhere above her. Twisted metal formed the walls of the structure where she was lying, and the edges appeared black and burned as smoke drifted around her.

                        The last thing she remembered was waking up in Lex’s lab... but she wasn’t still there now, was she? Then where... how...

                        She tried to sit up but the pounding in her head almost made her black out again. Then from somewhere near her she heard a voice. Lex’s voice.

                        “Well, I have to say this isn’t what I expected,” he commented. Tess, ignoring the pain, twisted her head around to try to see where he was, but although his voice seemed close by she couldn’t see him anywhere.

                        “...What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice harsh from the smoke. The ringing in her ears was slowly disappearing, but it was as if she could still hear an echo of whatever happened.

                        Was there some kind of explosion?

                        She still couldn’t think straight...

                        “This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I was looking for,” said Lex. He paused, and then laughed. “You don’t know where we are any more than I do, do you? You should. After all, it’s somewhere in your memories.”

                        What? Suddenly she remembered what happened- there was an explosion, and then...

                        “How...?”

                        “You used this tech yourself, once, didn’t you? I found it in some files from a place called Summerholt. It lets me into your head, into your memories. I just... upgraded it a little. With the help of a certain crystal.”

                        Tess’s surroundings flickered a bit, then faded to black, only to come back a second later. But this time, Clark was looking down at her, and she was in his arms. He had saved her life after the explosion on the bus, the day everything in her life had changed. The day she’d been thrown headlong into a world of destinies, secrets, and heroes. She smiled up at Clark, surprised at how amazing it was to see him again like this, even knowing this wasn’t real.

                        Lex’s voiced hissed next to her again. “Now this makes a bit more sense,” he said. She realized that he wasn’t really here, he didn’t have form, but he could see into her memories as she re-lived them. “This is all about him, isn’t it?” he continued. “Whoever he is, you want to protect him. You are the one who stole my memories.”

                        Tess felt a flash of fear as she realized that with this technology, Lex would be able to find what she knew about how the neurotoxin was created, and how to reverse it. Suddenly, she was pulled out of the memory and into someplace dark. She was standing somewhere, somewhere where she couldn’t see anything. “How do you know it has anything to do with Clark?” she asked into the empty shadows, knowing Lex could hear her.

                        “This device reads your emotions, and activates the memories based on what you are thinking. To you, you are simply reliving everything exactly as it happened. I can control a bit of what you see, guide your mind in whatever direction I want. I am able to watch, and to project myself into your thoughts.”

                        As he reached the end of his last sentence, Lex’s voice became clearer and finally seemed to come from a single direction instead of from all around her. Tess whirled around and saw him standing behind her, a kind of glow surrounding him. He was partially transparent, and the longer Tess looked at him, the harder it was to see him clearly.

                        “Now,” he directed, “tell me about the neurotoxin. I want my life back.”

                        “Never,” she answered. She would fight this thing, not let him control her mind. She’d protect Clark’s secret, and the rest of the world. She always had, even when he refused to trust her.

                        Suddenly the world flickered and spun, and when it settled she realized she was standing in the Kent barn, facing the doorway, with Clark standing in front of her.

                        “I thought you were different from Lex,” he said. “I was wrong.”

                        He walked past her, leaving her standing alone. Everything flickered to black again, leaving her with the same disappointment and sadness as the first time she’d experienced this memory.

                        “My name as an insult?” Lex remarked. “I’m getting a strong impression that neither of you like me very much.” He smirked at her. Tess glared at him and opened her mouth to speak but before she could she was pulled into another memory.

                        This one she recognized immediately. She was sitting on the balcony above her office in the Luthor Mansion. It was dark, and flashes of lightning through the window on the other side of the room announced the presence of a storm. Clark sat next to her, her hand in his.

                        Luthor blood is poison.

                        That’s what he’d said to her before the incident with the mirror box. But now... now he’d come to admit he was wrong. It was Lionel who corrupted Lex, and the other Clark, not Lionel’s blood. He came to the mansion that night to let her know he trusted her, and she could count on him.

                        She glanced over at Clark, a small smile on her face. “You’re not alone anymore,” he said softly, before he faded away into darkness with the rest of the memory.

                        As she stood in the darkness again, she could feel a similar emptiness in her heart. This was almost worse than the more painful memories. There was every chance that as soon as Lex found what he wanted, he would simply kill her again. She wouldn’t actually see Clark, or anyone else, ever again. These glimpses, however vivid, weren’t real. They were only memories, phantoms.

                        “You care about him,” Lex commented, his ghostly form circling her. “You’d do anything to protect him. I knew something, something you couldn’t let me know, so you took away my memories.”

                        “Yes,” she admitted. There was no point in hiding it; he knew at least that much now. “And that’s why I will never willingly help you. I’ll fight, I’ll stop you from finding what you need.”

                        Instead of angering Lex, her defiance seemed to amuse him. “Oh, I think I’ll find what I need. But I am running out of patience. There must be a darker memory somewhere in your past...”

                        As she realized that her surroundings were flickering again, she tried to hold on to that calm, black emptiness, but it slipped away, pulling her into another memory.

                        She was terrified, running through a long hallway as fast as she could. There was someone following her, she knew that. She was younger, a child again. With shadows all around her, she hid in a closet at the end of the hallway, desperately hoping that no one would find her...

                        In another flash, she was sitting on the floor of Watchtower, pain shooting up her side from where she’d hit the wall. Clark was kneeling in front of her—but it wasn’t her Clark, it was the other Clark. Clark Luthor. He was smirking, an evil look in his eyes she couldn’t imagine ever seeing in the eyes of the Clark she knew. “I’ll kill you,” he said, and she knew he meant it, she could see the hate and malevolence inside him that corrupted the shattered reflection of the only person she’d ever known who was truly good.

                        As fear spread through her, she fell into another memory, this one also in Watchtower. She was looking up at a computer screen, and what she saw there scared her as much as any enemy she’d faced before. Apokolips was headed toward Earth, a fiery sphere of darkness and destruction that she’d doubted even Clark could stop.

                        Lex stepped out from behind the monitor, his ghostly form shimmering in the light from the stained-glass window. “Well, we’re getting closer,” he said. “I’ve seen that before,” he explained, gesturing at the screen. “Out the window, when I first ‘woke up.’” He circled around behind her. “Fear seems to be a good motivator. But I think I can find something stronger. You were willing to do anything to protect Clark, weren’t you?” He smirked. “Even die for him.”

                        Watchtower flickered and faded into another memory. This one was cold. Looking around, she could see crystals... oh no. She was in Clark’s fortress. Which could only mean...
                        “You touched the sun when you freed me from the orb.” Zod stood behind her and she turned to face him, dreading what she knew would come next. “Now you’re going to learn what it feels like to get burned.”

                        Before she could react, the fire engulfed her and she knew only pain. She screamed, a broken sound that echoed in her ears as if it came from far away. The agony of the flames consumed her and she couldn’t sense anything else. The fire must have gone already, and in the back of her mind she knew she must be lying in the snow now, half-dead and helpless. The pain was all she had left, the only feeling she knew and could ever imagine knowing.

                        Please, Clark. Help me.

                        The fire couldn’t let her go; it held on to her soul as if it was alive, burning and destroying any free will she had left.

                        When she finally slipped into another memory, she barely realized where she was. The pain of the fire was fading, but an echo still clouded her senses. Then there was another pain, a sharp, clear spark that burned inside her like the fire had. This was familiar. This was recent. Looking up she saw Lex, with his memories still intact, and she knew it was his knife that was draining the life out of her body. The phantom Lex flickered into life behind his counterpart in the memory, and his voice echoed in Tess’ ears.

                        “What did you do to my mind?” he hissed, and she had no strength left to resist the pull of her mind into a new memory.

                        She only stayed there a few seconds before she blacked out completely, but it was enough to see where she was, and to see the files on the neurotoxin. As she finally drifted into unconsciousness, she felt despair overwhelm her as she realized she’d failed. Everything she’d done had been for nothing.

                        .....

                        Lois stood looking out of Watchtower’s window, her mind spinning. After everything with Darkseid was finally over, it turned out that one of their own was still missing, and, despite their reluctance to admit it, there was a good chance she was dead. Oliver was talking to Chloe through the computers, which meant that Lois kept hearing things like “Wait, I thought that button activated a different satellite,” and “No, Ollie, that’s another communications link, I just told you how to reprogram it,” “…Huh?” and “...What the hell does that button do?” “Don’t press that!!!”

                        Admittedly, none of them were all that great with computers. Except Chloe, of course. And Tess...

                        Lois glanced back at Clark, who was pacing on the other side of Watchtower. Ever since he got back, he’d just been pacing and thinking. He seemed distracted, like he could hear or sense something they couldn’t, and he seemed kind of disoriented when anyone tried to talk to him. Maybe he was trying to listen through the city with his superhearing. Something seemed a little...off though. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said he had a headache or something. But Kryptonians didn’t get headaches...

                        Lois sighed and turned back to look at the city. At least everything was peaceful now that Darkseid was gone for good.

                        ...Well, peaceful outside, she amended, as a burst of static from one of the computers caused Oliver to curse in frustration.

                        Suddenly, a crash from the other side of Watchtower caused Lois and Oliver to jump and spin around.

                        “Clark!” Lois ran toward him and knelt beside him as he lay on the floor, unconscious. “Clark?”

                        “What happened?” Oliver asked from behind her.

                        “I don’t know! He just collapsed...”

                        In the distance Lois could hear Chloe yelling from one of the computer screens, asking what had happened, and Oliver was answering her. But Lois stayed focused on Clark and everything else kind of faded into the background.

                        Please, Clark. Please wake up.

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                        • #42
                          Interesting! Thanks for another great update!

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                          • #43
                            Fantastic update!

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                            • #44
                              This is great!... i'm not a big fan of Cless, but i'm reading this anyway lol.
                              Clark collapsing is... weird. How did he collapse? :S
                              I wanna read the next chapter!

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by lana4ever
                                Fantastic update!
                                Thanks!

                                Originally posted by tessmerceryoubamf
                                Interesting! Thanks for another great update!
                                Thank you~

                                Originally posted by mercyredhair
                                This is great!... i'm not a big fan of Cless, but i'm reading this anyway lol.
                                Clark collapsing is... weird. How did he collapse? :S
                                I wanna read the next chapter!
                                Thanks, and I'm glad you're reading~
                                And as for Clark, you'll just have to see what happens

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