Chapter 46: Getting to Know You
(One Month Later inside Bayview)
It was strange, that was the least Mark could say about his current situation, Raven or so she called herself was a quiet person even after she decided to start speaking to him. Mark would do most of the talking and she would offer a few words; she mostly looked at him, and sometimes he'd catch her intensely staring at him from behind her book. He didn't mind it so he didn't say anything, if he was honest he was just glad she was starting to open up to him. He was starting to go crazy having not spoken to anyone for months.
During the month he continued to work on controlling his abilities and getting used to his ever-increasing strength. He managed to hit a tree so hard it was ripped out by the roots and thrown almost twenty metres.
Right now he sat in the kitchen with Raven as he convinced her to play a game with him, she agreed though she insisted on picking the game. "I haven't played this before, or at least I don't remember..." Mark said as he sat in front of a chess set.
"It's easy," Raven replied simply as she flipped the board allowing him to play whites. Mark snorted before grabbing his drink and taking a swig. "Alright give me the booklet," Mark said looking at the instruction manual.
After reading the first section he moved his pawn to E4. Almost instantaneously Raven moved her piece forward. 'This won't be good...' Mark thought to himself and he was right, Raven proceeded to absolutely demolish him in every sense of the word. There wasn't one moment where he thought he was even getting close to what could be considered a victory.
A few hours later Mark lay with his head on the table considering slamming his head through it. "It's check," Raven said from behind her book, it seemed that playing Mark was such a boring affair that she needed to read as well for the extra stimulation.
"This is dumb," Mark said with a sour expression on his face. He wouldn't say he's a sore loser, but losing over twenty games in a row had rustled his jammies, to say the least.
"Because you're losing," Raven commented.
"What no! I don't even know who's winning!" Mark said before moving his King out of check.
"Checkmate." Raven moved her queen directly in front of his king, he couldn't take her queen as her bishop was protecting it. Flicking his king over he accepted defeat and went back to leaning his head on the table.
"Got Monopoly?" He asked.
"No."
"Ludo?"
"No."
"Risk?"
"No."
"Battleships?"
"No."
"Scrabble?"
"No."
"Game of life?"
"Absolutely Not."
"Jenga?"
"Yes."
...
As it turns out Mark was just as bad at Jenga as he was at chess, he even tried to cheat at one point by using his powers, but Raven had somehow noticed and gave him the energy equivalent of a flick to the head which messed with his concentration. Getting frustrated Mark went outside to train with his powers again leaving Raven inside who floated to the window and watched him train.
Despite Raven's stoic expression, she was happy, it had taken a lot not to smile at Mark getting frustrated at the games they played. It was fun. She almost couldn't remember the last time she had fun like that; it was such a simple thing that usually wouldn't register to a normal person. A deep rush of fear swept through her as she realised how frustrated he had been. 'I should've let him win some...' she thought to herself, she started to bite her nails as she considered the possibility that he wouldn't be interested in doing anything with her again.
'I'm so stupid...' even before she ended up in this place she had often been inconsiderate of people's feelings, she had to control her own so much that empathising with people became hard unless she used her ability. Though her magic had been much calmer than it was before, she deduced that it was a result of her extended isolation, by doing what she had done she had unintentionally imposed order on her chaotic magic which had in turn weakened it to this state. In her heart, she hoped that it would stay like this, but in truth, she knew that it would get stronger, it was just a matter of time.
As she began sinking down into a pit of melancholy the door slammed open and Mark strode in. "Alright I have a plan now, don't think you're going to beat me this time," he said with an arrogant smile on his face.
Raven looked at Mark with shock as she seemed to have completely misjudged the situation. *Snort* Raven covered her mouth quickly and put her stoic facade back into place, but it was too late Mark had already seen it and his smile grew wider which in turn made Raven blush slightly. "Come on I have a new tactic I want to try at chess," Mark said while walking into the kitchen.
Despite Mark's tactic he lost again, and again, and again, but it didn't seem to dampen his spirits and when Raven had tried to let him win he noticed and said he'd win by himself or not at all. They finally stopped when the sun had set and it was getting late; Raven had to admit that Mark was very quickly improving, more so than what she'd expect from a person who just started playing. 'Strange...' she thought to herself before leaving to go to her room.
Mark meanwhile went into the living room. He looked at the wall and flipped the light switch over and over again, sighing at the lack of power. He finally decided to head into the basement and take a look at the fuse box. "Damn things ancient," he said as he blew all the dust away and opened it. His eyes scanned all the switches and wires, it was strange being able to envision the entire fuse box as a 3D model in his mind that he could take apart and edit easily. It made him wonder if he was this smart before and if so what kind of job did he have, if he wasn't a hero of course.
His hands moved subconsciously as he took the fuse box apart. A little application of his attraction ability did well at removing the rusty screws. 'Some of the wires are chewed through and the circuit breaker is fucked,' Mark sighed as he ran through all the problems. Taking a look around the basement he could probably jury rig something with the stuff around here. He held his hand out and pulled an old radio onto his palm; in a flash, he disassembled it and ripped the wires out before fraying them with his fingernails.
It took less than five minutes to replace the wires and fifteen minutes to find the issue with the circuit breaker, but when he flipped the switch he was delighted to see the lights start flickering and slowly glow brighter. "I'm a genius," Mark said to himself with a smirk.
*POP*
The lightbulb burst and glass covered the ground. Mark just looked down and sighed. "Damn it..."
...
Mark stood outside concentrating, he had a small sweat over his shirtless body as he had been training the entire morning. Now he was training to use his gravity powers which he thought he was making good headway on. He held up his arm a red sphere started to swirl in his hand and grow, it grew to the size of an orange before Mark shot it towards the forest, it had the recoil of a canon and if he didn't have super strength he'd probably be down for the count.
The results spoke for themselves however as the red sphere pushed over every tree it hit. A whole line of them were snapped at where the red sphere had hit them and it only dissipated when Mark lost concentration. "I'm getting better," he said with a smile as he set about generating a blue sphere next.
"You could be better." He heard from behind him. As usual Raven was sitting there watching him, though her speaking was a surprise as usually she didn't say anything.
"Oh yeah and how's that?" Mark asked as he crossed his arms.
Raven held out her hand and her eyes glowed for a bit before a flame appeared on her palm. She threw it near Mark's feet causing him to jump back "What the hell," Mark said narrowing his eyes at her.
Raven just looked at him with a blank expression, she'd hit him with much worse so she didn't get why he was being a baby. "The surrounding grass started to catch fire, it spread slowly but soon Raven reached her hand out and the fire jumped from the ground and into her palm.
"Do you understand?" She asked.
"No..." Mark said slowly, he didn't even know something was being explained to him.
He could've sworn Raven rolled her eyes before she stopped sitting and stood up. She generated a fire on her palm again "This is fire, though it is slightly different from regular fire as it is generated through my own power," she then shoots it to the ground again.
"With my magic no longer fuelling it, nature starts to reclaim it as it relies on its bounty for fuel," she explained.
The fire once again started to spread and grow. "I can also reverse the effect," she said raising her hand toward the fire, slowly the fire which had increased in size drew back to her hand where she extinguished it.
"By permeating my magic through it I can take control, though as you can see the flame is much greater than before," she continued.
Mark nodded "As interesting as this is how does it relate to me?" He asked.
Raven almost sighed but managed to hold it in. "When you use your gravity powers you are generating what I assume to be gravitons from your body."
"You have a... unique body and you seem to have large amounts of energy and stamina so while I'm confident you can continue to generate your power, learning how to manipulate gravity around you would serve you much better," Raven stated.
Mark finally nodded in realisation, it made much more sense to try and manipulate the gravity around himself than to generate it himself. It might also open new avenues to his ability; one fit the limitations he'd discovered early on was that he could only make things he was touching heavier including himself. 'That must be because I'm generating virtual mass and passing it through the object, once the connection is cut it dissipates,' he theorised.
He took a coin out of his pocket and flicked it into the air, he concentrated on the world around him. The gravity he generated felt a certain way, it was almost like he had another sense. He tried to stretch that sense out, it was hard at first due to his lack of using it but he started to feel it; The strong attraction pulling them to the earth, was quite a strange feeling, especially since he could make himself weightless. He reached out with his hand trying to impose his will onto earth's gravity, and at first, nothing happened, but after a couple of minutes he felt a disturbance; the gravity around the area he concentrated on shifted, but it didn't do much else, but the fact he could do it made him smile.
"I appreciate the help, Raven," Mark said as he walked over to her grabbing a towel from over a railing where he patted down his body.
"You fixed the power, I felt I should do something to help you," Raven replied.
"You know I think this is the most I've ever heard you speak... I like it," Mark said shooting her a smile.
Raven felt her eyes widen slightly before metaphorically clamping down. She hadn't realised how much she was speaking 'What is wrong with me...' Raven thought to herself before she floated back into the house.
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Lucan growled as Anissa reset his arm, it wouldn't take long for it to heal but that combined with the damage to his ribs would have a negative effect on his fighting. "You were careless Lucan," Anissa commented as she finished setting the bone back into place. She was disappointed that Lucan had let himself get so easily handled by a baby Kryptonian.
"Nolan lied, he said the woman was barely a warrior, that he dealt with her as easily as he dealt with the humans," Lucan said as he glared at Nolan's back.
"Nolan did seem to downplay her abilities if she was able to handle you so easily," Anissa stated.
"She handled nothing! I can and will kill her! She won't stand a chance against me the next time we meet!" He shouted with a venomous expression.
Anissa glared at him before blitzing towards him and cracking her fist across his fast sending him out of the mansion they were staying in. Lucan smashed through multiple walls before he used his flight to slow himself down. "You forget yourself, Lucan, Thragg wants the woman and her baby alive, if you allow your anger to get the better of you I'll kill you," she said menacingly.
Lucan was about to attack before he was pushed back by Nolan who had finally decided to get involved. "Enough, we have work to do and do not have time for your childish behaviour."
"We would have properly prepared if you had been truthful about her abilities," Anissa stated as her glare switched to Nolan.
Nolan didn't reply and instead looked thoughtful, something wasn't right about the whole situation with the Kryptonian girl. She looked different, older and stronger, she also didn't show any signs of pregnancy despite the fact she should be in the late stages. But her face was identical, and Kryptonians were not exactly common, Nolan knew there were only two of them on earth —perhaps even in existence.
"It is strange, perhaps she held back the last time she fought me," Nolan reasoned, but he wouldn't know why she'd have done that considering the situation at the time.
"It doesn't matter, between the three of us she won't stand a chance, we will take her and complete our mission for the empire," Nolan simply said, disregarding everything else.
———————————————————-
Mark slowly crept upstairs in the dead of night, he was having trouble sleeping which wasn't too unusual, but this night it seemed that he wasn't alone. He could hear a soft weeping coming from upstairs, knowing the only person it could be he decided to check up on her. He was a little nervous as he had rarely gone upstairs since he'd been here; creeping along the corridors he came to one of the last rooms in the corridor and opened them.
Raven was lying down on her bed constantly twitching and turning, she spoke quietly but mostly wept. 'I wonder what she's dreaming about,' Mark thought as he stepped into her room. Raven was quite a private person and Mark knew very little about her, but he couldn't help but feel they were similar in some ways.
"We are both alone..." Mark whispered to himself as he sat in a chair next to her bed. Even if he couldn't help her in whatever nightmare she was having he hoped his presence would comfort her like it did to him. Though it seemed to get worse and a purple aura started to surround her; Mark's eyes widened and he did the first thing he could think of and he grabbed her hand.
"It's okay..." he whispered to her hoping it'll be enough and to his surprise it was. She started to calm down and slowly her ragged breaths turned into light ones and she seemed to sleep peacefully.
"Who are you..." he said lightly to himself.
———————————————————
"Wake up!" A man shouted before throwing a bucket of water on the sleeping form of a blonde woman; she lay on the cold stone floor and hardly reacted, she just looked up at the man with a venomous expression.
Galatea would've ripped the man's spine out had she not been under a Red Solar lamp. She slowly got to her feet flicking the water from her short blonde hair, the man leered at her and she hoped he might be stupid enough to try and touch her. Despite not having her Kryptonian powers she was still a formidable fighter and would crush the man's neck between her thighs.
But alas the man seemed to have a brain between his ears and he gestured for her to get out of the cell. She complied and smiled when she felt the rush of her powers returning, she considered killing the man right now, but the only thing it would earn her was more discipline. 'He'll live for now...' she thought before flying down the corridors to the main operations room to report for duty.
"You did well against the Viltrumite, will you be able to prevail against three of them?" Amanda Waller asked when Galatea floated into the room.
"It shouldn't be too difficult," Galatea replied casually. Oh, how she wanted to kill this woman, from her outfit to her voice to her hair there wasn't a single thing Galatea didn't hate about her.
Waller frowned "Don't overestimate yourself, you did well against one of them but we have no idea how strong the others are, and don't forget Omni-Man fought Superman on an even playing field."
"Superman is weak, all brawn no brains," Galatea said with a snicker.
Waller didn't reply to that instead she turned back to the large screen in front of her. "Then go, but if you fail I'll have you disassembled."
Gritting her teeth Galatea nodded before she left the room and made her way out of the building. She shot into the air, she was resolute on doing one thing, and that was getting the damn Kryptonite trap out of her head.
(AN: Another slow chapter, I really suck at them I like punch punch sex sex, I'm not good at just standing around. Anyway Raven and Mark are gonna keep getting to know each other and continue to get closer. Mark has been generating his own gravity waves or gravitons or whatever, point is now that he is manipulating the gravity around him his abilities will definitely improve. If you think he's improving too fast then consider that he was already pretty good in using it before hand, the memories are still there so relearning the same things are a lot easier. Anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyone else looking forward to the Raven Lemon more than me)
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