11865/Drops of Infection

Drops of Infection
Date of Scene:	29 July 2020
Location:	Metropolis, Hospital
Synopsis:	Kara visits Clark, to try to help with the strange thing stuck on his arm.
Cast of Characters:	Superman, Supergirl

---

Superman has posed:
There's a team of doctors trying to puzzle out what to do, now. This is outside of their league, and the consensus so far is that they need to contact some of the superhero groups for aid.

Earlier that day, some kind of alien menace had burrowed up out of the ground in a Metropolis Park. The hospital was full of people with issues from the monster attack, but this particular one is more worrisome!

The patient, a Mr. Kent, seems to have gotten infected by something white and frothy; plant-like matter that has leeched into the veins of his light hand. Furrows of red and white, with brackish flecks, has come up through the palm, starting in on the elbow. Information came that the superheroes used cold abilities, and a smart young doctor has now packed the limb with ice. That has stopped the spread, it seems, but Mr. Kent has been talking about needing to bury the spore in the ground rather insistantly, until they sedated him.

Which, well, the fact that they COULD sedate him at all might raise some flags with those who know a secret or two about Mr. Kent. This is vastly bad.

Supergirl has posed:
As things had wound down at the park, Supergirl was busy helping with clean up. It was a busy scene and she had managed to miss that Clark was there at all. When she got the text message later, she was on her way from Starling a moment after reading it.

A short jaunt up through the atompshere then she was able to hit her full speed without risking damage. There was a loud sonic boom heard high above the Tri-County area as she made reentry. She slowed before landing on the rooftop of the hospital. She did take a moment to put on the wig and glasses that were part of her secret identity. Suddenly a brunette instead of a blonde. She was in her normal clothes. Jeans with a Hello Kitty t-shirt. Sneakers on her feet.

She entered the hospital through the roof access door, heading down. Some uses of x-ray vision helped her pinpoint the room without asking, heading there as quickly as she could.

The door to the room opened and she slipped inside, moving to the side of her cousin and reaching for his hand. Until she saw the something there on it. She frowned and her eyes blazed red for an instant. Wait, heat. She forced her anger back down and her eyes returned to their normal blue. "Clark? Can you hear me"

Superman has posed:
While yes, they did take Clark's glasses off (they are nearby), nobody's suspected anything. Because this is a crumpled looking newspaper reporter with his parted hair and ill-fitting shirt and tie. Thinking anything else would be crazy.

"What?" Clark asks, in a sort of distant, puzzled way, when she comes close and speaks to him. He opens similarly bright blue eyes, taking her in. He doesn't seem extremely aware, though: disoriented. "I need to dig a hole," Clark says, without much energy to it. It's very similar to how any number of the 'gardeners' that were planting the spores acted while Supergirl was fighting the monsters that rose from those 'seeds'.

Supergirl has posed:
"You already did. Several in fact. You can rest now," Kara says to him, focusing on his eyes now. Very blue like her own. Just like him, she looks like herself. Just with a wig and glasses. Yet, it was enough. No one ever suspected she was Supergirl.

"How do you feel, other than the whole hole thing? Do you...why do you want to dig a hole still?" She flicks her gaze to the thing on is hand, using her superhuman sight to look at it in ways no human could without specialized equipment.

Superman has posed:
In the street, Power Girl and Supergirl both had unloaded on some of the monsters with their heat vision. The monsters had reacted, growing strong and bloated by the energy. One of them had even gotten so large as to try to send roots down into the very street, trying to anchor, and metamorphose into something else, and probably much worse. Then again, maybe it wanted to be a giant butterfly: there's no way to know now.

Clark's arm has markers of everything that they saw in the battle: the spore stuck into his hand has threaded itself into the veins, much like it did with the street, and is soaking in Clark's energy, stealing his ability to draw from the sun. It is a mass of strengthening spore, perhaps very very strong, due to the energy source it is stuck to. Ripping it free, at Clark's current level of strength, would be very harmful to Clark.

"To protect it. It needs our help," answers Clark.

Supergirl has posed:
There has to be a way to get that thing off him. Cold had worked, but it would likely harm Clark just as much right now. How had it managed to sap his powers this way? She bit her bottom lip then looked to his face, drawing in a shaky breath.

"The thing on your hand? They look a lot like the things we fought a couple of years ago. They led to a lot of bad things. What do you need to protect them from? Help them...do what?"

Superman has posed:
"Did they?" Clark asks, with a mix of confusion and distance in his voice. He's out of it. He was, before the doctors came to help him, and now he's got an IV in him. An unnatural and surreal situation to see Clark in: that a needle could go into his arm at all suggests the current level of weakness.

Human?

"They need to be planted, to grow." He's sort of a one-statement pony right now, parroting just like the others were.

Supergirl has posed:
How did it penetrate his skin? It was all wrong and she found herself wanting to hit something in frustration. She was smart enough, particularly in the sciences, but Kara was not on a level she could figure this out. "Clark, you have to fight this thing. You have the greatest will of anyone I know. Push it back. Force it out. It's in your head."

She brushes a hand through her hair, a nervous gesture that gives away her agitation. "If they grow, they will turn into those giant things. Last time, they tried to destroy the Earth." At least, from her point of view. She didn't know all the dirty details personally.

"What will they do if we let them grow?"

Superman has posed:
"I'm helping it," Clark says in a distant way. Which may reveal a great deal about this. It has pacified the hero, by convincing him that he is helping a dying alien. Would Clark really fight against that, if he did believe it? It's not throwing up the proper red flags to where a fight is necessary. It is a poor little flower that needs a bit of soil and love.

"Grow? They'll live. They're weak and alone."

Supergirl has posed:
"Weak and alone. Oooohkay."

Kara sits down in a chair beside the bed and eyes the thing on his hand. "You want someone healthy to snack on? You let go of my cousin and you can have me. Do you even understand a thing I say?" She reached out a hand toward it, a finger outstretched.

Then she pauses. Her brow furrows as she thinks back to the fight. "Alright, I'm sorry about this, Clark." She draws in some air then leans down, giving a chill puff of breath at it. Not enough to full on freeze it and her cousin's hand but enough to test the theory.

Superman has posed:
There are still the ice-packs around, specifically the bicep area to restrict the growth (from the clever doctor mentioned before), but the breath is different. It gets a lot of pain from Clark, though, he tries to sit up and roll over, to get away from it. It's VERY cold and painful.

The creature itself doesn't seem to do anything much, other than to pulse at a slower, more retarded level. The ice does stop it, contain it from advance. It also has another effect.

Clark's coming out of it. "...Kara?" And the hospital room, and everything comes into more immediate focus, but most specifically his arm that's in heavy pain, all of it reads on his expression as he looks at it. "I--- feel terrible."

Supergirl has posed:
"Clark?!" The excitement replaces the horror she was feeling at his reaction, the way he was in pain and trying to get away. But now he is talking, not repeating about planting things!

"You have some sort of...thing on your hand. We don't know how to get it off yet but the cold seems to have stopped it from muddling up your brain. Do you remember anything?"

Superman has posed:
"Sure, yes. There were spores being planted in the park," Clark says, distractedly looking around him. "I have pictures of..... is Lois okay?" Clark asks quickly. "Is everyone all right?"

Priorities. As if he could do anything about it.

"I think it's similar to the Oomycetan from a few years ago," Clark explains quickly. "They had mental powers of some kind. But not like this. They were weak to cold then, too. Cold ..." he works to make his memory performed. "Am I drugged?" He's seen the IV now. "Cold, sonics. Mental abilities."

Supergirl has posed:
"Lois is fine," Kara assures him quickly. "Unfortunately, there were some people hurt. Several here in this hospital. None are in as bad of shape as you are though. You..."

She looks to that IV then back to him. "I'm really confused but yes, you are drugged. They also iced your arm to keep the thing from spreading further. Not sure what is going to happen when the thing thaws out from my freezing it with my breath."

She reaches out to take his other hand carefully, squeezing it at human levels of strength. "You seem to be...reduced in your powers. Like...human level."

Superman has posed:
"That... seems to be right," Clark agrees, taking the news for what it is: information. "I tried to look at it, or vibrate." And neither of those things worked. He also suddenly looks at her quickly, "Don't use heat on them," he warns her urgently, with a directness and serious quality to his blue eyes.

That might have been more useful earlier.

"That is how we ended up with one the size of a space cruiser in orbit." Important safety tips.

"I'm sorry I let it get to me," Clark adds, moving his other hand to squeeze hers, curling the thumb against the back of her fingers.

Supergirl has posed:
"Nothing for you to be sorry for," Kara tells him, shocked he would even apologize like that. "We had no idea what were were dealing with at first. No way to know what was going on. It was just lots of people with shovels digging holes. I mean, that could've just been some freaky Flash Mob these days, y'know?"

She does give a little sheepish grin. "Yeah, learned the heat thing when I hit a couple of them with it. They ended up the size of little cars but we still managed to get them. Combination of freezing breath from Power Girl and myself combined with rain from Thor."

She considers the thing on him. "Cold. Sonics. Mental Abilities. I have a friend that goes to a school with some telepaths. I can see if they might be able to come do their mojo zappy brain thing on it!"

Superman has posed:
Clark squeezes her hand tightly: lots of strength there, though nothing that will even remotely hurt her, of course. And he's a little on the weak side for a human of his fitness level at the moment, being that he's sporting an alien fungal horror attached to his arm, and is on some interesting drugs.

"I'm proud of you, you worked together and helped a lot of people. I'll do as much as I can from my end; a telepath is a great idea. Try J'onn, too, if he's in the area. I don't remember. Be careful with who we trust - since it's us - but I know you'll pick good people."

Supergirl has posed:
"J'onn is probably the better bet but I think this woman at the school might be okay. They help mutant kids and keep things kind of secret themselves, to protect them. I have a friend I took there since he was having a rough time at his home."

She doesn't take the time to get into her friend's story. It isn't the most important thing right now. "I just don't know how that thing got through to you and managed to sap your abilities. I don't remember them doing that last time around. I wonder if these are the same or something else? I'd say they mutated but for something that advanced, such a mutation should take a long time. Not a year."

Superman has posed:
"They were highly mutated to begin with, and there were different types. We encountered... two types, I think," Clark answers. "Will you turn down the temprature in the room? At least... cold seems to work. I can shiver a little while, to keep this thing where it is," Clark suggests. He's trying to think, through his semi-druggy haze. The sedatives, so that he wouldn't get up and go dig the thing a nice hole outside, are still certainly working.

Supergirl has posed:
"I can check the Justice League files. See what all we had on them." Kara gives his hand another squeeze before she gets up and moves to the thermostat on the wall. She cranks it down a bit so that it will be quite chilly in the room. "We can get you some more blankets but keep the arm with it on the outside. Won't be pleasant but beats the alternative."

"For now, you should probably rest. Or try to."

Superman has posed:
Clark nods at her immediately, pushing himself to sit up a little bit more, expression firm, jaw tense. It's a very Superman look; even with the drugged state, very cold and painful arm, and zero powers, his spirit is there and has come back to the front.

"I'm going to try to fight it, not rest. For as long as I can," Clark answers. A promise.

Supergirl has posed:
Kara looks concerned but nods. She knows better than to argue when he gets that look on his face. She might as well tell the ocean waves to stop in their tracks, for all the good it would do.

"I'll hurry then. Get to the Watchtower and see if J'onn is around. If he is, I'll have him come visit. Discreetly." Likely as one of his doctors or nurses.

"See if he can help with the thing at least. Just wish there was something I could punch." She sighs and shrugs. "I'll be back as soon as I can!" She leans in for a quick hug, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I've got you, cuz." Then she is heading for that door.