A cautious meeting

[reality_warper]

From Jeannie's perspective, it's been less than two weeks since she and Jack had met the Clark Luthor version of Ultraman in the Nexus. Give or take an unspecified amount of time, given all the weirdness of their current living situation. She'd honestly expected to get to this sooner, but Pamela's kids had been more of a handful than she could have predicted. Things had finally settled somewhat and she has a place all prepared... so its a matter now of sending a text message off via PINpoint and arranging to meet Mr. Luthor in the Nexus to do something about those scars.

Comments

[reality_warper]

At least she'd curbed some of her usual preferences enough to keep the place from looking like the inside of a circus tent. "You're quite welcome, Mr. Luthor," she says, as she settles into one of the chairs.

Despite the rest of the reinforcement, the room isn't particularly soundproofed - at least not enough to counter Kryptonian hearing. If he tries, he might be able to identify the sounds of nineteen other people outside of the dome-shaped room. The large majority of them are children, with a small scattering of teenagers. Jeannie is currently one of only three adults in this little pocket of semi-reality.

[clark_luthor]

The faint sounds do catch his attention, but as they're not a threat, he doesn't care enough about them to really focus on them at the moment. He takes a seat across from her, quite at ease in the armchair she created. "So. Where do we begin?"

[reality_warper]

"Well, we could indulge in some silly small talk... how've you been, how's Bruce been, are Metropolis and Gotham both still standing..."

"Or, we could just get down to business. I know you're a busy man, it comes with being a Luthor. And I'd rather not give my best friend enough time to start thinking of ways to get away with killing my husband." While she's hoping they're all past that, well... Pam still didn't trust Jack.

[clark_luthor]

"To business, then." Clark appreciates dealing with someone who gets straight to the point sometimes. The word games are interesting sometimes, but trivially easy.

[reality_warper]

"Well, then... You mentioned some scars you'd want rid of. I shouldn't have any problems doing that here, without having causality get its knickers in a twist."

[clark_luthor]

"Yes." He shrugs out of his suit jacket, and unbuttons his shirt cuff and rolls up the sleeve. On his forearm, there's a large raised scar, deliberately carved into his flesh in the shape of Lex's personal crest. If left to his own devices, it's fairly obvious that it will never heal any more than this.

[reality_warper]

Figures. Great writing skills, and Lex had to go and waste it on petty torture. What was with some guys?

"Okay, this might kinda tickle a little... Or it might not. I really don't know," she admits, as she thinks about changing things so the scar isn't there. It won't erase the event that caused it from causality, but it's easier anyway to just convince reality - such as it is here - that it should have completely healed.

[clark_luthor]

Clark watches very closely. He's still a bit wary of this whole thing, but he's committed to it now, and the benefit might outweigh the risks.

There's a strange sensation, almost like the gentle heat of sunlight, concentrated around the area of the scar. It doesn't hurt, exactly, but it's not entirely comfortable either. Bit by bit, the dark lines fade, until there's little left but silvery white, not really noticeable unless you're looking for it.

[reality_warper]

"Ta-da! And there ya go."

[clark_luthor]

He examines his arm, frowning. "It's still there." He wasn't sure how effective he was expecting this to be, but he can't help but be a bit disgruntled that it wasn't a hundred percent.

[reality_warper]

Truth be told, Jeannie's a little disappointed it wasn't herself. But, "I guess I coulda tried harder... but you'd be more upset if I accidentally made your arm disappear. Raw chaos is funny stuff, y'know."

[clark_luthor]

He gives her a look, pretty much sure that she's not joking, but you never know. "If this is leading up to a 'disarming' joke, I'm going to be very disappointed in you."

[reality_warper]

And she laughs. "Much as I'm gonna kick myself for not thinking of that one before you did, no... I meant it. Working with chaos is a lot like... I don't know if you ever watched cartoons, but if you have, you know the chase scenes where someone runs off a cliff. And they're perfectly fine as long as they don't look down. You can do a lot... as long as you don't think too hard about how."

[clark_luthor]

Clark has never watched a cartoon in his life, nor has his pop culture knowledge been the greatest. He vaguely knows what she's talking about though. "I was under the impression that control, such as it is, came through greater concentration, not less."

[reality_warper]

"Most things, maybe. But that'd be logic, and logic and chaos are like oil and water. Think about it too much, and thinking just gets in the way of letting stuff happen." Luckily, she's an expert at doing things without thinking about them too much... maybe not a good thing in most cases.

[clark_luthor]

"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it." He's a meticulous planner, so the idea of letting chaos just... do things... is rather antithetical to that.

[reality_warper]

She just nods. She really hadn't expected anything else. It wasn't hard, in the whole scale of chaos to order, to peg him as being firmly on the order side. "I guess there were reasons why I usually only used to do it if I was... knocked out, or worse. Nothing to get in the way of instinct."

[clark_luthor]

"Instinct has its place. Survival is certainly one of the appropriate scenarios."

[reality_warper]

"Mmmhmm," Jeannie says with a nod. "Though, it's also why I said something last time about why I wouldn't show up as a meta as long as my family's having a nice, quiet, normal life... It didn't kick in until someone killed me as part of some whole scheme to blackmail my husband."

[clark_luthor]

He nods slightly, and rubs his fingers over his scar. If he pays attention, he can still feel the lines carved into his arm, though far less than he used to. It will certainly take some adjustment, but he certainly doesn't mind.

"So, do we need to discuss payment?"

[reality_warper]

Jeannie smiles, but doesn't bring up that, really, what could he offer that she can't do herself, at least for now. "Right now, we're more trying to get off on the right foot with people we bump into in the Nexus... 'specially with the reputations some of us have."

"Though... if you can maybe not tell Bruce Wayne about the Nexus, if he doesn't already know..." She sighs, "Running into you was just enough of a shock to get my husband over wondering when the other shoe was going to drop and how bad it'd be when it did. Running into Owlman, or Batman, or any variant thereof is something I don't think he's ready for. Not yet."

[clark_luthor]

Clark smiles slightly, like she's said something incredibly obvious. "And give up an advantage like this? I would never. It's like you don't know me at all." He might be joking a minuscule amount.

[reality_warper]

Jeannie laughs. "Well, of course we don't! We've met an Ultraman or two, as well as Superman and other variations. And we've met Luthors. But usually those things tend to be opposing in whichever timeline they're both in. Someone who's both? That's a whole new twist!"

[clark_luthor]

"I do have to wonder why that might be. The decision point between my universe and Kent's is clearly defined, after all."

[reality_warper]

Jeannie shrugs. "Who knows? Pod lands in pre-Second World War Germany, and eventually there's Übermaan... but the division between Superman and Ultraman wasn't as simple as the Nature Versus Nurture debate for our section of the multiverse." There may have been a bit of a joke in there, since the nature versus nurture debate is anything but simple. "Unless you apply it to the nature of the whole timeline... And even then, we may never know just which quantum butterfly got stepped on where."