Ch.57

She spent a very long time scrounging in my head and when she came out, she asked where all my memories that weren't about teaching were. I grunted, telling her they were buried behind my mental defense she wouldn't want to face. I opened her mind to the multiverse before telling her she needed to practice now, but when she'd mastered everything, if she wanted I'd let her put her mind against my own to strengthen it further.

Sarah agreed and started her magic, sorcery, martial arts and linguistics training. There was a huge difference between seeing, understanding and experiencing it all. She ended up helping Clark, Lana and Chloe find out who was trying to kill Chloe, Dr.Garner's patient, Molly Griggs. Dr.Garner works at Summerholt and Chloe had dug into it looking for a story, striking gold.

I got to meet Adam Knight and frowned, telling him that he smelled wrong, sickly and like death. I asked if he was undergoing experimental treatment for something, saying he smelled like he was fresh out of the morgue. He said no and I frowned asking why he was lying. Chloe hadn't noticed but Lana and Clark had.

He told Lana he'd see her later and left looking disturbed. Lana asked discreetly if I could be wrong and I shook my head. "Not a chance. To put it bluntly, I can tell you how long it's been since your last period by smell alone. When I say he smells like death, I mean he's died and someone brought him back with experimental drugs I've never heard of. Whosever experiment he is, it's illegal and very expensive as well as dangerous. He's hiding a psychosis that would make Dr.Jekyll blush and he knows it."

I shook my head telling her not to mind my animal senses. She said she trusts me and I shrugged before telling her to be careful because he was targeting her and not in a lovers sort of way. She fidgeted and said she'd watch her back before asking Inara to stay over for a while.

Inara agreed while I hacked Molly's computer and gave them her address, telling them i planted a virus and the next time Molly Griggs tries to use her psychological virus it'll deep fry her hard drive and melt the hard copy disk while it's in the tray.

My computer dinged and I smirked as we watched her through her computer camera as it had a serious meltdown. Molly lost her marbles and screamed in rage at the computer while the stolen hard drive was wiped as well. The reporter she'd tried to have killed was safe and the program was destroyed down to bytes. There was no recovering it now and since there was no real proof, I hacked Summerholt and gave all their files to Chloe's reporter friend anonymously.

I hopped off the computer after that, telling Chloe. "I can teach coding and hacking as well if you're interested in upping your game from basics to pro. It won't be much so you'll be able to hack the NSA and the like, but trying to get into my computer or TR Industries would be next to impossible. Stop by the community center if you want lessons."

I turned to Clark. "You too."

Adam Knight didn't take rejection well and with Lana at the mansion for the next few weeks, he was frozen out before he disappeared entirely. When a coach tried to kidnap Lana, I knocked him out and Sarah was able to find the other girl he kidnapped, getting him arrested double kidnapping and double attempted murder by his own admission. A few days later Johnathan Kent was in the hospital for a heart condition and after checking him over, I told them that if it is Jor-El's doing it's not with nanites nor any technology I know of.

Clark said the doctors told them he had the heart of a twenty year old before. I tapped my watch and it covered my arm before I scanned Johnathan. I frowned and brought up a hologram, telling them. "It was the blast from the ship. A tear here in his aorta and the valve, it has residual energy that matches the energy signature of the blast."

I held a hand over Johnathan's heart and told him it was going to be unpleasant, but not entirely painful. He grimaced as my hand glowed and my ring after that. When I stopped he panted and asked if I got whatever it was. Another scan later and I nodded. "I did and you're healed, but there's scarring so you'll need to be careful not to stress yourself or consume too much food with sodium…salt. You're basically post surgery now so expect confusion from your doctors."

I put my watch back to normal. "Remember, no stress, no salt. Meditation and fishing may help, but if something irritates it or tears the scarring you could need major surgery fast or you'd possibly die before you can get it."

Clark asked. "Can't your nanites fix him the rest of the way?"

I nodded. "They could in someone like you or me, but they work by shutting down the area for repairs. Even Ryan had to go under to near comatose levels to get his tumor removed. They shut down the area and effect repairs to near perfect condition before starting it back up again. They're robots and don't understand that if they shut down his heart his brain will die from lack of oxygen, they'll effect repairs before moving on to the brain and repairing the damage which could cause memory loss and or entire mind wipe if they're able to repair the damage at all before the brain atrophies in those areas."

I turned to Clark. "The human mind is a delicate thing kid. There's a reason even I hesitate to use magic on it let alone let nanites repair things in someone's head. I could've made medical nanites more versatile centuries ago. The trouble lays in that the more complex something is, the slower it is to effectively do it's designed function."

Johnathan said it was good enough so long as the doctors agree so I left and a few days later Pete and Clark came to me for money, twenty grand to be exact. Kara gave them the money and warned them that if they paid it they needed to be careful because such people tended to think of those capable of paying as ATMs they can hit up for more money whenever they want. True to form they beat the shit out of Pete and demanded a hundred grand so I went with Pete to pay this time.

Dante tried to get his boys to beat on me and that didn't work so well for him because I tore their arms off and beat him half to death with them. I beat Dante down and made sure the little psychopath knew he was dealing with something far more dangerous. His buddies would live because I used magic to reattach the limbs before they could bleed out and paralyzed them from the neck down.

As for Dante, I told him he was going to give me the name of the deputy on his payroll. He said he wouldn't so I told Clark and Pete to go outside. The screams that followed were worse than anything else by far. Dante gave me the name of his deputy and I told him that he was going to go to the police, tell them everything bad that he'd ever done before giving them the deputy's name or I'd come for him and no distance nor amount of firepower would stop me.

He swore to do so and I patted his cheek. "Oh, and kid, if I hear you've caused trouble for those here or mentioned me at all, you'll wish I'd killed you today."

He swallowed and swore he'd never tell a soul or try anything. I nodded and healed his boys before breaking their legs so they couldn't start shit. The last bit of brutality hammered home that I wasn't fucking around. I walked out and healed Pete with chi before telling him when he said we could go into business together. "Kid, I'd never work with you and if you ever cause me another problem you'll wish you were in Dante's shoes, cause I'll turn your reality into a living nightmare of perpetual torment."

Pete swallowed and Clark asked what I did to them. I shrugged. "Nothing permanent besides mental trauma. I just showed Dante what literal hell was like and gave him a hundred years worth of torments in it. He'd do anything to avoid the pit, including spending however long he has in prison."

Clark frowned. "What we're you doing in hell?"

I grunted. "I tried to get the devil to kill me. Turns out he can't, so I left after fucking his place up in a rage. Turns out I'm banned from hell now, not that there isn't many hells and devils in the multiverse, but yeah, one's enough to scare the testicles out of psychopaths like Dante."

I turned to Pete. "Or others who break their words and cause me problems, cause hey, you don't want to find out what demons do to living humans in hell and I can send you there with a thought for a personal experience."

Pete grimaced and I walked to my Lamborghini, getting in and telling them. "Let me know if Dante breaks his word. He has a place waiting for him in the pit already so there's a vacancy he can fill anytime and I don't even have to kill him."

I drove away hearing Pete say I was one scary dude that redefined the word scary. Even Clark agreed and told Pete he didn't think I was joking so Pete shouldn't bring problems to me anymore. Pete said he was way ahead of him and had no intentions of causing problems period. Dante and his people went to jail, the deputy was arrested and Dante confessed every sin he'd ever committed like he was talking to a preacher instead of the sheriff.

When asked if he was speaking under duress he said no, only that he wanted to go to jail because there were some things in this world scarier than being arrested and he didn't want to piss one of them off again. The cops offered protection and he told them flat out that there was no protecting him from what awaits if he doesn't confess and go to jail. He begged them to arrest him for his crimes and they did. Hell, judge Ross threw the book at him for assaulting her son and Pete wasn't exactly out of trouble himself, though Dante never once mentioned him by name.

Soon enough a teleporting metahuman named Alicia Baker was arrested for attempting to kill Lana after an incident at the LuthorCorp plant in Metropolis on a school field trip saw her and Clark together. Alicia found her teleporting skills didn't work when she attacked Lana at the Talon due to power suppression emitters in the building. Lana kicked her ass before the cops showed up and Inara told them Alicia was a metahuman teleporter.

They cuffed her and I told Lana she'd improved since her last private lesson. A few weeks later a kid named Garrett tried to blow up the hospital while Johnathan was there getting a checkup. His brother Vince had died and was taken, revived and dropped in the hospital like Adam. I checked him over because he was dying again and grimaced, finding what appeared to be nanites though half assed ones.

I told the kid. "Your brother's going to be fine. The nanites in him are shit, but TR Industries has better ones that can repair this and keep him alive for a proper transplant."

I called River and a canister was delivered. Inside was a vial of yellow liquid that glowed. I told Garrett. "Disarm the bomb and I'll give him these. They'll keep him alive for a good year before a transplant is necessary and by then TR Industries can grow him a liver with cloned stem cells. No one has to get hurt but you've got to work with me kid. Look into my eyes, know I'm not lying to you and that however this turns out you won't even get jail time."

He looked in my eyes and disarmed the bomb. I injected the nanites into his brother who immediately recovered from near death. I told the cops that disarmed the kid. "TR Industries lawyers will be defending him. He's been through enough and he's just desperate is all. Hurt him and you'll wish you hadn't when the lawyers sue you out of jobs."

River was already on standby and the kid never saw the inside of a cell, just an interrogation room where he was given a psych exam before he was taken before a judge with his brother. River told him the nanites had barely reached human trials and would break down in a year's time so she would have a healthy disease free liver grown with cloned stem cells for Vince if he signs the medical testing waver.

He signed it and she told the judge that his brother had died before Lionel Luthor had him shipped to a lab and had illegal human trials with a shoddy set of badly replicated nanites used on his body that jumpstarted his heart and barely brought him back. She told the judge that the prospect of losing a loved one not once, but twice, would drive anyone to desperate moves no matter their position and as her professional opinion, Garrett's suffering was more than anything a jail or uncalled for mental facility could bring especially when LuthorCorp was responsible for the fresh hell heaped upon them both illegally.

The thirty odd lawyers showed proof from video recordings to Lionel being there and ordering Vince brought back. The illegally forged documents and the fake cremation documents forged by the mortician under Lionel's thumb were brought in and the Mortician was arrested. Garrett and Vince received an apology from the state of Kansas for the serious hell like situation they'd been put into and Lionel Luthor was arrested again.

He took a ton of heat himself before demanding that TR Industries prove they didn't conduct an illegal experiment themselves. One of the documents Vince signed was a trial participation document for the nanite human trials we were forced into giving him. Slides of both types of nanites were shown and Lionel demanded a sample but River told him it was proprietary technology and both Vince and Garrett were under TR Industries care for the duration of the trial so there was no way in hell he was getting ahold of the nanites.

He wanted his nanites back and a jar was left on the table before the judge and world. River told him. "The nanites you put in him was expelled through bodily waste by ours. They were doing more harm than good so don't expect to find any traces of ours though yours were deactivated so more power to you if you want the proof of your guilt back."

The judge took it as evidence and when the trial closed Vince and Garrett were awarded a twenty million dollar settlement. Garrett had to see a court approved TR Industries therapist for the duration of the year with and without Vince and they both had to stay in a suit, but they didn't have a problem with that.