Chapter 279 - Ch: 243-247

Ch: 243-247

243 Magic Is Magic

"Damn." I whispered at a teenager having the body to pull off Zatanna's outfit.

Zatanna's eyes that were looking around at everything around her, focused on me. She gave me a once-over and smiled knowingly. "Are you enjoying the show, handsome?"

"I could ask you the same thing." I answered. Even though I was only wearing faded jeans and a t-shirt, they fit well and I looked good.

"I claimed dibs first!" Green Fairy suddenly said.

Lisa Drake barked a laugh. "You tried to." She said and nodded at Zatanna. "He even offered her a hand to shake."

Green Fairy opened her mouth to refute that and then sighed.

Zatanna looked impressed. "You must have a lot of magic potential for a fairy to refuse a freely given offer to share."

"He does." Rose Psychic said. "His first accidental apparition was at eight years old and he travelled halfway across the country."

All three young women whistled, clearly impressed.

"Your parents must have been pissed." Lisa said and Zatanna nodded.

"How long did it take you to get back?" Green Fairy asked.

"Only a few minutes. He saved someone first and apparated back home afterwards." Rose told them.

"You seem to know a lot about that." I commented and tried to poke into her head with a very light telepathic probe. It was firmly rebuffed by her husband, whom she somehow shared a body with.

"None of that now. My secrets are my own." Rose admonished me.

"I wanted to know how you knew." I responded.

"You can ask." Rose said with a smirk.

I sighed. "Why? You'll give me the same answer."

"Yes, I would." Rose said and motioned for Zatanna and myself to follow her. "Usually, if someone is too young to handle their magic and it goes out of control, we try to assign a mentor of sorts. In Zatanna's case, we didn't need to. Her father quickly stepped in to help her handle the magical energies her body had access to."

"And in my case?" I asked as we walked across the quad towards a building that looked like it had apartments inside.

"After careful observation of your... ahem... many many apparitions..." Rose gave me a look full of judgment and she found me acceptable. "...you didn't do anything that needed the immediate help of a teacher."

The building's doors opened on their own.

"We also couldn't find an appropriate person to fill the role, considering the types of magic you were using." Rose said as we entered. "The dorm is co-ed and also split between the sexes and species, so you're on your own for keeping your personal space personal."

I sighed again. "I only just moved out of the house on my own and now I have to share a room with someone?"

Rose patted my shoulder. "It won't be that bad. You'll see."

I highly doubted that as she brought us into the male wing of the building. We went up the stairs two floors and down a hallway to stop at the third door. She knocked once, waited for a breath, and opened it. Floating in a seated position was a smug looking young man wearing sunglasses indoors and my danger sense blared at me about both him and the thick book he held.

"Sebastian Faust, meet your new roommate, Clark Kent." Rose introduced us.

I didn't hesitate and unleashed my full powered heat vision upon the book. It incinerated almost instantly, as did the young man's hands, his guts, and then his spine. Faust screamed for the second it took for me to raise my gaze to his face and his head disappeared.

Zatanna gasped and Rose sighed as she gave me a sad look.

"Was that really necessary?" Rose asked me as she waved her hand and reversed time in the room. My heat vision was still on, so I did the book again and then his head. "Clark, stop that!"

"You want me to bunk with a future villain that's planning on sacrificing several virgins for more power." I argued as she reversed time again. I did his face first this time.

Rose shut the door and reversed time again. I burned the door down and killed him again.

"We're trying to save him from that!" Rose spat and glared at me.

"You're doing a terrible job of it if he's still alive and thinking those thoughts." I countered.

"Private thoughts are supposed to be private, Clark." Rose said and didn't try to reverse time again. She realized she was just causing Faust to suffer as she tried to save him. "Just because he's thinking of killing someone, that doesn't mean he will."

"He's not killing them. He's sacrificing them. The demons he's going to summon to empower himself will do the rapes and murders, so he's mostly guilt free." I explained and Zatanna gasped.

Rose looked disappointed with me. "You need to be a bit more accepting of people to properly help them."

I gave her a stern look back. "If you've kept an eye on what I've been doing for the last few years, then you know I am perfectly fine with helping keep someone on the right path."

"Yes, so why are you..." Rose started to ask.

"I have an inherent danger sense that's telling me he's evil. It's not hinting at it and it's not warning me he could be evil. He's just evil." I interrupted and answered her.

Rose sighed and crossed her arms. "I need some time to find you another dorm assignment."

"Why? This room's fine." I said and motioned behind her. "I removed the danger."

"I meant I wanted to get you away from here to restore him." Rose said.

I shrugged. "I can hit him from anywhere, so making me leave won't save him."

"You are causing him to go down the dark path faster!" Rose tried to argue.

"To gain more power to defeat me, yes?" I asked and she nodded. "Then I'm right and he's a constant danger to those around him he knows are stronger than him. How many people will he have to kill before you decide he's not worth saving?"

Rose opened her mouth to answer, paused as she listened to something, then sighed. "Let's just get Zatanna settled into her dorm for now. We can come back to this later when you've cooled off."

I wanted to argue that I wasn't angry and her pointed look stopped me. "Sure. I'd like to see where the daughter of a stage magician is going to live and what kind of monster you're pairing her with."

Five minutes later, we were in the female wing of the dorm and standing outside Zatanna's room.

Rose knocked on the door and waited for a breath, just like she had with my room, and opened the door. "Pia Morales, this is your roomate, Zatanna Zatara."

Again, my danger sense went off, only it felt different this time. It wasn't as demanding or pervasive, so she was a threat, only a minor one or could be a huge one in the future. Her thoughts on the other hand... I pushed Rose out of the way and walked into the room, ignored the woman's protest, and put a hand on the young black woman's shoulder.

"You are not your power, Pia." I said and she looked shocked. "If that was true, I'd be a mindless entity roaming the cosmos looking for two brain cells to rub together, without realizing I had been solving the problem I had without knowing I was."

"Wh-what?" Pia asked me as her black eyes were full of confusion and locked onto mine.

"Entropy. It's easily bypassed by shifting to a new dimension." I said and she still looked confused. "That doesn't matter right now." I said and paused the world.

Rose gasped behind me and I glanced back and saw her head turning around and looking at the greyed out world with wonder.

I went back to what I was doing and added Pia Morales to my party as a temporary member, then spent the Karma Points I gained from killing Sebastian Faust on taking her Necromancy power and giving a healing power similar to what I had given to my mom in Worm.

I only gave her the basic tune-up package and not Vicky's powerset, since that wasn't something Pia needed in her life. I somehow gained a ton of Karma Points from that and laughed, making Rose behind me speak up.

"Clark what is this place and why are you laughing?" Rose asked.

"I've apparently solved a huge future problem without realizing I was." I said and paid the points to remove Pia from my party without consequences.

"You don't mean Sebastian, do you?" Rose asked me.

"No, he's just evil." I said and unpaused the world.

Pia caught her breath and stared at me as she felt the changes she had undergone.

"I'm sorry for barging in like this, Pia. I just saw your sad face and knew I had to say something." I lied and she narrowed her eyes at me. I smiled and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "You should have an easier time of things now."

Pia nodded, knowing I was telling the truth that time.

"Being cute helps." I said and she blushed, because she knew I wasn't lying. "It was nice to meet someone that's going to become one of the best healers in the world."

Pia looked embarrassed and stepped back, removing my hand from touching her, and she frowned slightly at losing the feeling.

"It's not fair to compare." I whispered and walked back out of the room.

Rose gave me a look that said we needed to talk. "Zatanna, go on in and pick a bed. Your other roommate..."

The bathroom door opened and a sexy goth girl stepped out wearing only a towel. "Great, you're giving me another whiny bitch of a roommate to deal with?"

"June Moone, this is Zatanna." Rose introduced her.

"I prefer Enchantress when in this form." The goth girl said and stopped beside one of the beds and looked over at me. Her face changed from annoyed to interested. "Who's the hunk full of yummy magical energy?"

"He was just leaving, as was I." Rose said and turned around and shut the door. "You might want to avoid her."

I gave her raised eyebrows and she didn't elaborate. The thing was, my danger sense barely tingled. Either Enchantress was much more relaxed about things or she was very good at hiding how evil she was. Maybe that was why Sebastian Faust set me off so much? He didn't bother trying to be less imposing magically and was too dangerous to ignore?

Rose took my arm and led me back down the stairs and out of the building. We passed someone riding a Pegasus as they landed and sauntered around a crowd of relaxing students. A few of the girls barely looked at the horse and the guy riding it let out a disappointed sound and kicked the flying horse into action and flew away.

"It takes more than a pretty horse to impress a girl at a magical academy." Rose informed me.

"Was it a manifestation, a summon, or a familiar?" I asked.

Rose paused walking to give me a searching look, smiled at my genuine curiosity, and brought me into the main building. "It was a summon and a familiar, which will make things a little awkward for him during class."

I chuckled at the thought of trying to have the Pegasus perch on the guy's shoulder.

Rose brought me into her office and sat me down in front of her desk. She walked around it and sat down herself. She didn't say anything as she stared at me and looked deep in thought.

"You're going to keep reacting like that, aren't you?" Rose asked me.

I gave her a blank face back. "How long did you say you had surveillance on me?" I asked and she didn't respond. "About that, if you knew I had magic, why didn't you send a letter or something when I was eleven?"

Rose scoffed. "Thanks to those books, everyone thinks magic manifests the best at eleven."

"It doesn't?" I asked and she shook her head.

"You proved it yourself that you can be any age to have magic appear. Some are born with it, some need to mature for it to appear, and some need to wait a specific time before their magic settles and can be trained in its use." Rose said and smiled knowingly. "In your case, it's been exactly seven years."

"Seven..." I paused and thought it over. It really had been exactly seven years, from 8 years old at the end of August, to 15 years old and the end of August.

"Seven is a magically significant number." Rose said and folded her hands under her chin and rested her elbows on her desk. "Now I just have to decide what to do with you."

"Well, you're married, so the options are limited to academically." I joked and she huffed. "You could..."

A glowing orange circle appeared on the right wall and interrupted me. The center filled in and swirled with an unnatural darkness. A man dressed in a villain costume styled like a Victorian era Egyptian Pharaoh ripoff stepped out of it and his hands were glowing orange, probably to maintain the magical portal.

"What has happened to my bastard son, Doctor Psychic? I can no longer feel his magical resonance!" Felix Faust asked, angrily.

I wasn't one to miss an opportunity when it was handed to me. My heat vision burned through the side of his head and melted his brain before he could cast any more spells. I thought about casting a stasis spell on him and chose not to, in case Rose reversed what I just did and the spell wouldn't take. I cleaned up the mess by burning up the rest of him, too.

Rose sighed and gave me an exasperated look.

"What? He's pure evil." I said to defend myself and my actions.

"My pocket dimension is supposed to be a safe haven for all magical beings." Rose said.

I stared at her for several seconds and didn't laugh in her face. Barely. "You believe that."

"It's one of the main tenets of running this university. All of the staff have to uphold it as well." Rose said. "Otherwise, we couldn't have professors like Xanadu and Frankenstein teaching here."

I was taken aback hearing that. "Do you mean the man or the monster he created?"

Rose smiled. "Most people assume I mean the monster, even if he wasn't really one."

That gave me some very important information about Rose Psychic. She either could use her powers to the point that she could portal into the past or she could access dimensional analogs where time either ran differently or events happened to ensure certain people still existed.

"Is he or she a descendent?" I asked and Rose's smile grew, which meant she wasn't going to tell me. I looked down at the small pile of ashes on the floor by the wall. "Are you going to bring him and his son back?"

"Yes." Rose said and didn't say anything else.

"Then you need to understand that all of the deaths they cause from that point forwards, will be your fault." I said and she caught her breath. "They are gone and done with now. There is no more danger to anyone, especially me, and you want to restore them and let them murder more innocent people?"

It was my turn to give her a disappointed look and she knew she deserved it.

"I don't think I can learn anything good from an institution run by a woman whose morals are so corrupted that she can condone so many future crimes against humanity." I said and stood up. "Do we need to head back to the quad for you to send me back home?"

Rose sat there and didn't respond as she stared at me.

After a minute, I shook my head at her and walked over to the door to her office. "I'll just go say goodbye to my new friends while you enable the deaths of so many people."

Rose stayed behind her desk as I left the office and I went out into the quad. I saw Zatanna, Enchantress, Lisa Drake, and Green Fairy surround Pia Morales as she healed an overweight kid in a wheelchair. I went over to them to say goodbye and to tell them about what was possibly the shortest enrollment of all time in any university.

244 A Resounding No

"I didn't think she could be that big of a bitch." Lisa Drake commented after I told her what happened and the other girls gave her odd looks. "I mean, I barely know her personally; but, she's the headmaster of a university full of magical beings of all kinds. How could she approve of her students planning and executing evil plans?"

My danger sense went off a little and it was wavering, just like it had with Pia when we met. The girl and her group approaching us were threats and might become a huge one later.

"I think she's a perfectly fine headmaster. She stays out of things and lets the students handle their own problems, just like responsible adults should." A pretty young woman said. Her long dark hair framed her face and the group of girls behind her had blank faces. They all gave me a similar danger sense.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Melissa, the Queen Bee herself." Enchantress said, her voice full of derision. "What made you leave your ivory tower at the Thriae Society Sorority?"

Melissa looked right at Zatanna. "A potential pledge to my society has appeared."

My danger sense went off as I saw something like pollen float off of the girl. I did a wide spread of my heat vision that barely did anything except burn away the nearly invisible pollen.

"Why are you assaulting a fellow student with a mind controlled substance?" I asked and the girls not part of the sorority reacted by taking a step back. I did a quick mind probe on the girls behind the queen bee and was horrified to hear their mental screams as their bodies were not under their control at all.

"Is that why I was denied when you tried to recruit me and then treated me like garbage?" Enchantress asked. "I was resistant to your control and wouldn't fit in?"

"The better question is, can I kill you without making your drones go crazy?" I asked and her eyes widened as she stepped back and the girls of her sorority surrounded her to protect her. I didn't want to touch her and take her powers, because transforming into a giant bee and converting my followers into bees as well was a stupid power.

"What's going on here?" Rose asked as she stepped out of her portal distortion.

"I've found more proof that you're too morally bankrupt to run a school." I said and pointed at Melissa. "You've allowed a student to mind control and convert these poor girls into mindless giant bee drones for years."

"Why do you care? They're drones and their lives don't matter." Melissa said, as if defending herself.

"You're causing the depopulation of Homo-Magi." Zatanna said. "All of our lives matter, not just yours."

"You'll feel differently when you join my colony." Queen Bee said and released another pollen wave, this one much stronger. It was also within the girls she was controlling, so I couldn't use my heat vision, even on the lowest setting.

I produced a ghostly Glaistig Uaine behind her and then Valefor. "Command her to stop her actions and release her drones from her control."

Valefor did so and Melissa stopped producing pollen, then she stood there and did nothing. She doesn't know how to release drones. It's never been done before.

"Doctor Psychic, slow down time for the sorority girls." I ordered and nodded at Glaistig. A delicate ghostly hand touched Queen Bee and the young woman died and collapsed to the ground.

The girls of the sorority started screaming and changing into giant bees.

I glared at Rose for not doing as I asked and she looked horrified as the girls shredded their clothes as extra legs grew and giant wings popped out of their backs. "Command them to sleep."

Valefor did and the giant bees dropped to the ground, their bodies stopped mid-transformation.

"It seems to work better with Homo-Magi because of their potential for animagus transformations." I said and knelt by the closest bee-girl.

"I really hate those books." A man's voice said and I looked over to see Rose had become Richard, or Doctor Occult.

"They might use silly names for things; but, nearly everything they mention is true." I told him and placed a hand on the bee-girl. I winced at the damage she was suffering, because I was wrong. It was more like a werewolf transformation instead of an animagus transformation, because she was losing her mind and was full of pain as she changed.

"We don't allow coerced spirits on the campus, Mister Kent." Doctor Occult said and pulled out a talisman.

I felt how wrong it was and was instantly beside him and grabbed his hand, and not the talisman, and crushed both.

Richard yelled and pulled his ruined hand away from me and I let him. The brief bout of pain also let me get a glimpse into his mind and I knew what he was going to do.

"Don't you dare try to exorcise part of my powers, you arrogant hypocrite." I spat at him and looked over at the manifestations. "Thank you for your help."

Both Glaistig and Valefor nodded and faded away.

"What... what was that?" Green Fairy asked.

"Part of my power is to summon ghosts of people with powers." I told them and they looked shocked, except for Enchantress. She looked hungry. I ignored her and knelt by the closest bee-girl and closed my eyes as I touched her neck. It took me a few minutes to find the mental trigger for transforming and turned it off. The poor girl had been a bee for too long and would always have it as an alternate form.

I couldn't find anything that would make her become a queen bee, either mentally or physically, so all I could do was restore her back to her human form. I also took out a blanket from inventory to cover her as her bee features faded away and revealed her normal and quite naked form.

"How are you doing that?" Pia asked me.

I smiled and motioned for her to come closer as I moved over to the next girl. "Put your hand by mine and you'll see for yourself."

Pia gave Enchantress a look and the goth girl nodded, so she walked over and knelt beside me. She placed a hand by mine and her other hand gripped my muscular arm. I didn't comment on that, because she visibly relaxed as she did so, and I started fixing the second girl. Pia sucked in a sharp breath and closed her eyes and seemed to wallow in what her power was showing her.

"Will I ever be that good at this?" Pia asked as the girl under our touch reverted back into a human form and I covered her with a blanket.

"You'll be better, because it's solely your power. I have so many that I can't specialize." I explained and she gave me a disbelieving look. "I'll only guide you with the next one and you can work with your power for yourself."

"O-okay." Pia said nervously and we moved to the next girl and I did as I told her. I only 'showed' her what to look for, what to change, and how to initiate the reversal of the transformation. When I covered the girl with a blanket, Pia leaned against me with a smile on her face. "Marry me."

Lisa Drake laughed and shook her head. "Geez, Clark. You're gathering up all the hot and horny girls and you're not even trying to."

Zatanna saw the slightly red faces of Green Fairy, Enchantress, and Pia. "I think I'll back out of the competition before it gets heated."

"Only because you don't know enough magic to fight for real." Enchantress said and it was Zatanna's turn to have her face go red.

"I'm not staying, so there's no competition." I said and nodded at Pia to touch the next girl. "I'll only observe this time."

Pia nodded with a confident look on her face and I followed along as she did a similar procedure as the last two times, adjusting it for the slightly different biology of the girl. That was something I didn't tell her to do and I nodded with approval as she finished with the girl reverting back to her human form.

We split up and did the last four girls separately, two each, and that was that.

We stood up and Doctor Occult was Doctor Psychic again and her hand was fine, as was the talisman. She put it away and glared at me.

"These girls are your responsibility, Doctor. I hope you have a great time breaking it to their families that you let another student alter their DNA and made them into mindless giant bee drones." I said.

"I didn't know..." Rose started to say.

"Before you keep lying, you have clairvoyance powers, as does your husband. If you checked everyone as closely as you did me, you should have known what your students have been doing and will do in the future." I said and she closed her mouth. "Was Queen Bee right? You thought they were already drones, so their lives were already worthless? Why help them when it won't actually help?"

Rose didn't say anything, because she knew any response she gave would damn her. She just didn't realize that not saying anything was also a response.

"You really are a bitch." Lisa Drake said with a chuckle. "That's good to know."

Zatanna gave the girls on the ground a sad look and then looked at Rose. "I don't have any choice about being here. I need to get my father back from Lleh and I need to learn how to control my magic to do that."

"Same here." Enchantress said. "The choice between some help and none is easy to make."

"I... ah... me, too. I came here to learn how to use my healing powers... and..." Pia looked at me. "I wish you could stay and keep teaching me."

I shook my head. "My views are as unwelcome here as my actions against those that harm others while under the so-called protection of the headmasters, that only seemed to apply to the more evil-inclined students and leaves the good ones to be preyed upon."

Rose looked guilty and didn't refute my words, because she knew it was true. She was so focused on helping the people she knew were going to end up evil that she was almost ignoring the good ones that actually wanted her help. Those thoughts gave me an insight that I realized was why she didn't like those books.

"You're filling the role of Albus Dumbledore." I said and her eyes widened. "You're willing to sacrifice all the good people in the world to save the few villains that don't want to be saved and didn't ask to be."

The girls exchanged looks and looked back at Rose.

"Yeah, I definitely don't want to learn anything you have to teach me." I said and motioned to the spot where the distortion that brought me here had appeared. "Could you send me back, please? I have greenhouses to build and a farming business to start."

Rose nodded and walked over to the spot and a distortion opened up. Since I didn't trust her, at all, I clamped my hand onto hers and copied her power. She gasped as she felt my own influence on the portal and it changed locations to where it was supposed to be and the time differential reset to normal.

"Nice try, Doctor Psychic." I said and crushed her hand. She screamed and I let her pull her mangled hand out of mine. "Interfere like that again and I'll make sure your husband is the only one possessing your body."

Rose's hand reformed and she glared at me. "I've seen your future, Clark. I'm trying to help you."

I smiled and waved a hand at her hand, letting it become crushed again and she screamed. "We all know what you stepping in to help means, Doctor Psychic. You want evil to flourish and then be redeemed."

All of the girls except one gasped.

Enchantress let out a soft moan and gave me a sexy look. "Call me."

I gave her a little wave before I stepped through the distortion. I reappeared back on my farm, right in the same position I had left from, and not into the middle of the town where tons of witnesses would have seen me appear and given away that I had powers. The distortion disappeared and I nodded.

"Some alterations to my ward scheme seem to be in order." I said out loud, just in case someone was listening in or watching. I knelt to start adding in a new detection grid when my clairvoyance power told me Rose had just brought Sebastian Faust back to life. A second later, Felix Faust was brought back as well.

I knew time moved much differently there, so I waited for a full thirty seconds before I opened a portal and yanked Sebastian Faust out of the pocket dimension and shoved a blade made of disintegration magic into his face. A second one went into the book he held and then I opened another portal and his father fell out. Another blade to the face and another portal, this one to the sun, and it was done.

I wasn't surprised when I didn't gain any more Karma Points for both deaths, since I had already been rewarded for them the first time. I smiled at not being able to so easily farm points by killing someone purely evil a bunch of times and resurrecting them.

A smug feeling touched me and I nodded, because I was sure it was Death that was letting me know I was never going to abuse their hospitality like that.

*

Over the next three months, Zatanna practised her magic as much as she could, failing miserably most of the time, and her growing feelings for Sebastian were starting to interfere with both her studies and her personal life.

Why did the arrogant asshole have to be so damn enticing? Zatanna asked herself as she sat in her room and studied an old tome of magic that her mentor found on Logomancy, or speaking spells backwards. She hadn't thought she was someone to fall for a bad boy and now she had the feeling she was hooked. She didn't have it as bad as her roommates, though.

Both Pia and June were besotted after their brief encounter with the powerful mage named Clark Kent. June because of his magic and Pia because of his body. They both claimed he was perfect, for different reasons, and always brought him up whenever they could. She couldn't hold it against them, though. She was getting just as bad as she brought Sebastian into their conversations just as much.

June suddenly transformed into Enchantress and let out a soft moan. "He finally did it!"

"Did what?" Pia and Zatanna asked at the same time.

"He dealt with the asshole." Enchantress said and weaved a spell circle into the air and viewed what happened.

Zatanna and Pia stared as Clark murdered Sebastian without a word and then murdered his father, shocking the three of them, then a bright portal opened inside the view and almost blinded them. Enchantress ended the spell and the room fell into darkness as the three young women blinked their eyes to try and get the spots out of their eyes.

"What was that thing?" Pia asked.

"I don't know." Zatanna said.

"I do." Enchantress said and laid down on her bed. "It was the sun."

"The... the sun?" Pia asked, nervously.

"Yes, the spacial coordinates on the portal's magic match the location we worked out in our astronomy class." Enchantress said and weaved another spell, this one full of numbers. "The first was to Sebastian's room, the second to Faust's castle in England, and the last was the star in the center of our solar system." She said, awe and desire in her voice.

"He can make portals almost a hundred million miles from Earth?" Zatanna asked, her own voice full of awe.

"Yes, isn't he deliciously powerful?" Enchantress asked and let out another moan. "Come on, Clark. Call me. I'm waiting."

Zatanna didn't say anything in response and thought about that. Clark was ridiculously powerful if he could open and maintain a portal across a solar system. Maybe... just maybe... she could convince him to open a portal into a particular realm that she absolutely needed to enter to save her father.

It was a thought that drove her to study harder. She needed to control her magic if she wanted to have any hope of rescuing her father from the fiery pits of Lleh she had accidentally sent him to.

245 Farming A New Way Part One

I spent several minutes reworking my ward scheme on paper, since I had more to do than just changing the detection enchantment. I figured, since I was redoing them anyway, why not add a small time component? It couldn't be much, since I didn't want to accelerate my own physical growth too much, which meant I also needed to add in an off switch for both planting and harvesting.

I could even plant crops that normally wouldn't grow in the bread basket of the country, since the greenhouses could double as hothouses as well. It made me wonder if I could break into the tropical fruit market and should use one of my greenhouses to plant fruit trees. I would need to raise the roofs for them to fit, however.

Then again, with the thought in my head that I needed more space, I remembered my expanded trunks and backpacks. I also remembered expanding several rooms using similar tricks and knew what I could do with my greenhouses as I was building them. Since I already had the supplies delivered, all I needed to do was transfigure some appropriate metal strips to line the rooms and add the runes.

I was also checking in on the girls of Mystik University every 30 seconds and saw how upset Enchantress was becoming the longer I didn't contact her. I sighed at her not understanding the time differential, so I created a note that was short and sweet and portalled it onto her pillow. Another 30 seconds later saw that another 6 months had passed and she looked less angry.

I also checked with my clairvoyance power to see neither Sebastian nor his father had been brought back to life. That was a relief, because both of them had known who I was and would have come after me for revenge for their deaths. That also meant I needed to deal with Doctor Psychic and Doctor Occult somehow. How? I had no idea. It wasn't like there was any kind of authority I could report them to.

There wasn't really much that could be done if there was, since a 4 year academic term would only be about 8 minutes long, assuming they were full years and had scheduled semesters with summer and winter breaks. Did they still celebrate holidays there if the normal seasons were essentially stopped until they returned to a normal timestream?

I hadn't gotten much information while I was there, so I didn't know how they handled those kinds of things. I shook those thoughts off and went around to my ward stones to alter them with the new ward scheme and then went to bed in my trailer. It was late and I was mentally tired, so building my altered greenhouses could wait until tomorrow.

I woke up just before the break of dawn, just like usual, and was slightly surprised I was alone. Enchantress should have shown up last night or this morning and I didn't feel any disturbance in either the wards or with my danger sense. Her education at the university should have ended, unless she stayed to learn more.

That could throw off her plans to visit me by quite a lot, considering the time change. Then again, I was assuming she was from this version of Earth and not a dimensional analog, like Frankenstein was. Oh. She might not even be from the same time period, either.

I sighed and climbed out of bed and had a shower, changed, and left my trailer to jog over to my old home to visit my parents and my little sister. There was lots of work to be done and I wasn't going to slack off on my chores there, just because I had my own farm to get up and running.

I also had to wait until all of my hired workers were going to be free of their own chores before they would arrive at my farm to help build the greenhouses. My dad hadn't quite understood why I offered so much money for wages, probably because he had been young once and hadn't needed so much to get by.

I didn't bother trying to explain the differences in the economies from when he was a kid, since that was a battle I knew I'd lose, just from his sheer stubbornness. My mom Martha understood, though. She fully approved of me trying to spread the sudden wealth I had before it was gone, knowing I would have to pay it all back when the farm started producing.

I ate breakfast with my family and went out with dad to take care of everything. He appreciated the help, even if he could have handled everything himself. He had been doing it alone for years before I came along and I was sure he just liked having someone else there for company. I had been doing that since I was a baby, after all.

I had a quick lunch back at the house and hugged my mom before I went back to my farm. There were several trucks and small cars in my short driveway to the barn, since it was close to the road.

"Clark!" A bunch of guys and a few girls exclaimed when they saw me.

"Hey, everyone." I said and shook hands with the guys and gave a couple of the girls hugs. "I've got the plans in the trailer for marking out where the greenhouses have to be laid out and there's lots of food and drinks in the fridge for everyone."

"We'll handle the food." Lana offered and the other girls nodded. "We brought back the tables you borrowed for the barn raising, too."

"Thanks, Lana." I said and she smiled. I turned to the guys and saw their eager faces. "I know that look." I said and a few of them let out laughs. "You're going to earn your pay, don't worry."

They shared a few high-fives and fist bumps and grinned at me. Just like me, none of then were afraid of some hard work. Also like me, they didn't mind having an audience to show off their skills, and we were really going to show off today.

*

Lana and the other girls really didn't mind being servers for the afternoon. It wasn't for the ridiculous money Clark was paying them for being there, either. Well, that was a factor, and a huge one for a few of their friends. It was pretty much free money, because they would have shown up to be there for their boyfriends anyway.

The main reason was they were allowed to watch a large group of muscular farm boys working their butts off. Their sweat-soaked t-shirts didn't last long and they were soon all bare chested and giving the girls a very delicious show that had them all quietly panting and enjoying themselves as the boys worked their muscles and used their minds as they built the first structure Clark needed built.

The damn things were huge in scale and covered a good portion of the oddly-shaped plot of land he had bought. A few of the guys, and honestly most of the girls, thought he had been foolish to waste his money on such a useless piece of land that was wedged between three other farms. It couldn't be run like a normal farm, because of the size and the shape.

It wasn't until the first giant greenhouse was framed in that they all started to see what Clark was doing. He wasn't going to be farming it like a normal farm at all, not with most of the land covered up. There were also large water cisterns spread around and they had pipes for irrigation, only they were being strung up along the rafters and not run along the ground like normal irrigation ditches.

The boys stopped working when suppertime was called by Lana and they all finished what they were doing and went back to the front of the large barn and had a sit-down meal. Clark hadn't cheaped out and only bought basic things, either. They had a full meal, one that every farm boy in the county would appreciate, and the girls were right there with them.

In fact, the meal quickly became another social event like after the barn raising and they all had a great time. No one asked how Clark had arranged for the group showers like the ones they had at school, either. His suggestion of bringing spare clothes had been an inspiration, too. Music started playing from somewhere and the party lasted for several hours.

Lana wasn't quite sure how she ended up dancing with the high school's quarterback and she didn't question it. He was tall and handsome, was a good guy, and he treated her nicely. When Brad asked her out, she said yes, because it made her happy. She would have preferred his hair was a bit darker to make him look more like Clark, though.

That thought made her pause and she looked into her new boyfriend's eyes. They were similar to Clark's, only not as deeply blue, and she shook those thoughts away. Clark was not someone she had much interaction with, despite living in the same town all their lives. He didn't even go to school and wouldn't be, so why was she thinking about him?

The music faded as the latest song ended.

"Thank you all for your work today." Clark said and walked around to everyone and handed each of them an envelope. "If you don't mind repeating this tomorrow and the next day to get the other two frames up, I'd appreciate it."

"I think we'd all like to keep helping, Clark." Brad said. "Are you sure you don't want help finishing off the first one before starting the other two?"

"The hardest part is getting the bones up to build on. Filling in the rest is almost easy by comparison." Clark said. "There's only a few days left before school starts, too. I don't want to take up the last of everyone's free time."

"I hear that! Let's party!" Someone shouted and everyone laughed.

Clark went back over to the trailer and started the music up again. "Curfew in half an hour!"

"Fuck curfew!" Nearly everyone shouted and the rest cheered.

Needless to say, the party lasted another 2 hours and everyone went home tired and happy.

*

On the fourth day, I looked with admiration at the three large building frames that we had build over the previous three days. They were huge and it almost looked like a forest of bare timber with branches of pipes all over them for watering the crops. They were perfect.

"It was definitely worth the money to have this all built so quickly and no one questioned it." I said and mentally tallied out how long it was going to take to cover the roofs up with tempered reinforced glass. I'd also need to use the tractor and a block and tackle to lift them into place.

For the walls, I only needed to use rolls of white plastic and that would take almost no time at all. A staple gun and a few strips of metal to add reinforcement enchantments and that would be done. Once everything was covered, then I would expand the inside by a large degree and can start plowing and planting.

Once I had them sorted out, then I could head to the back of my farm and start working on building the basement to cover up the fact I was going to keep digging out the place to make the room I needed for my underground factory. As soon as I could get that done, then my plans would really start taking off.

In the back of my mind, I was worried that I couldn't find the girls from the academy. Or the academy. Or Doctor Psychic. I hadn't noticed when my brief checks had stopped working, either. Did someone block me or cast some kind of magic to hide them, or were they cut off in another dimension or timeline? I would need to check on that when I had some spare time.

For now, I had things to do, like ordering saplings of certain trees, plants, and seeds of everything that I wanted to try and grow. Well, I say try, when what I mean is that I'm going to grow them and see if they're viable to sell for a good profit. Year-round cheap strawberries and blueberries should be good sellers, shouldn't they?

*

Martha sat in the truck with her daughter as they watched Clark setting another large piece of reinforced glass into the slots on the roof using the backhoe as an improvised forklift. It was such an easy way to complete a roof that she had been surprised that no one else had thought of it. When she went to the library to ask about it, she was told to check with the mayor's office.

There she learned that Clark had patented the greenhouse design, as well as a few other things, and that he was already making money on royalties and had already paid the first installment of his loan back. She felt so proud of her son for doing things the normal way and wasn't using his powers to cheat to get ahead of everyone else.

Clark was using his brain to make money instead of using his powers, like he had tried a few times with her husband to give their family some extra money. It had been endearing and heart-breaking to see him try and then be disappointed that his little tricks didn't trick his dad at all.

Johnathan was too set in his ways to accept anything like charity. If he didn't work on it and earn it with his own hands, he didn't want it because he didn't feel like he deserved it. It was stupid of him to doubt everything like that; but, his stubbornness had kept their family fed for all these years and he was never going to change.

"MA! LOOK!" Emma said and pointed.

Martha caught her breath when she saw Clark fly up to the roof, glare at the glass panel, then bright red beams came from his eyes and sheared something off. The panel dropped down with a loud thunk and Clark nodded at it, then he leapt back down to the tractor and climbed in.

Before she could say anything to explain it to her daughter, Emma was out of the truck and ran past the barn and over to the large tractor from behind and Clark couldn't see her as the backhoe part swung around to pick up another reinforced glass panel.

"NO!" Martha gasped and jumped out of the truck and ran after her. Her daughter was much faster than her and Martha started crying as the large piece of machinery swung over Emma and then she was gone. Martha stumbled to a stop and dropped to her knees. Her heart felt like it had been torn out of her chest as she stared at the spot where her daughter had just died.

"Ma? Why are you crying?" Clark asked her.

Martha wiped at her eyes to clear them, only it didn't work. "You... accident... Emma..."

Clark chuckled and scooped Martha up like she was a child and was instantly across the distance to where Emma was sitting inside the backhoe's scoop and clapping.

"Again! Do it again!" Emma shouted.

"Anything for the best sister in the world." Clark said and sat Martha beside her. "Hold on tight."

Emma giggled and hugged her mother, whom stared at her daughter like she was looking at a ghost that had just come back to life.

"I'd never do anything to endanger those I love, Ma. I've known for a while that you and Emma show up to watch me when you can sneak away from the farm." Clark said and kissed her cheek. "I'll give you both a swing on the giant merry-go-round a few times and then I can stop working for lunch."

Martha held her daughter tightly and Clark disappeared and then the ride started. It was actually kind of fun, especially since the bucket they were in was spectacularly clean and Clark raised and lowered them so smoothly that it felt like a professional ride they had ridden at the farmer's exhibition last year. The ride stopped and Clark was instantly in front of them.

"I hope you enjoyed the Kent Amusement Ride, patent pending." Clark joked as he helped them out of the bucket. "There's lots of food in the trailer from the last party."

Martha huffed at him admitting the large group of teenagers he had hired had partied afterwards.

Clark grinned at her for that reaction. "It was spontaneous, I swear."

"Every night for three days straight?" Martha asked him and he laughed.

"Yes, because it wasn't planned the first time, it just happened. Then they looked forward to it. I couldn't really say no, not with how they are all starting school again without me." Clark told her.

Martha nodded and held her daughter to her chest as the three of them went to his double-wide trailer and sat at the kitchenette. Clark served them some great food and Martha gave him a searching look.

"I would have asked you to cook if you weren't so busy." Clark admitted.

"Then how?" Martha asked.

"I slowed time down and set everything to cook, then resumed time and went to work with Da. It was done by the time I came back after lunch." Clark told her.

Martha wanted to know he did that and then sighed. "You can't let me do that, can you?"

"Not on your own, no." Clark said and reached into a kitchen drawer and pulled out several papers. "Here are some slow-cooking recipes and I'll give you a new appliance to take home."

Martha looked at the recipes and it was a small range from stews to entire chickens. "Clark?"

"I have lots of ideas." Clark said and started eating. "Lots and lots of ideas."

Martha could only nod and enjoyed a well cooked meal that she hadn't prepared herself. It was such a rare thing that she promised herself she was going to try every one of those slow-cook recipes.

246 Farming A New Way Part Two

When I finally had all three buildings finished on the outside after a week, I had given Emma a dozen more rides on the improvised merry-go-round. Martha had held onto her for dear life after the scare I accidentally gave her. She really was the best mom in the world, because she thought Emma had died and didn't blame me for it. That was more than enough proof of how much she loved me, despite me being adopted.

A lot of my seed and plant deliveries had arrived as well and I stored them in the nearly empty barn under preservation charms. I had the room, because most of my farm equipment was over at the Kent Farm until I had my own farm sorted out. The orders also covered up the things I had stored in my inventory from the different worlds I had visited.

With my work inside my greenhouses mostly hidden from view, it was time to enchant the insides to enlarge them. I had initially thought only a small amount was good enough, then I stood inside one of the giant greenhouses and realized the things were so damn big that it was difficult to see from one end to the other. Making them much bigger on the inside wasn't going to be noticed.

I had pretty much cleared out the local lumbermill of their summer stock, too. It made them all pretty happy, actually. It took a lot of lumber to build a building large enough to cover a good portion of my land and I had built three of them and nearly filled my property. The supports for the massive reinforced glass roof numbered in the thousands for all three buildings and I would need to lighten that load significantly.

I went to work figuring out the best layout for everything and if I wanted the same enchantments covering the entire space or if I should do them in sections. I knew I needed some to cover everything and a few of them that were only good for the specialty stuff. It would be a waste of both time and magic to put them on everything.

So, some overall enchantments on the main supports was required for both maintenance and the time dilation aspect, then individual sections could be built and then enchanted for each crop that would be placed there. I also thought about using a few large mirrors enchanted to always show the sun and set them up in certain areas where constant light was needed.

That thought made me consider making many smaller ones to set up like recessed lighting all over, so the buildings were always lit by natural light and not by florescent bulbs mimicking sunlight. Yeah, making one and then using my copy spell to make hundreds of them was a much better idea than trying to wire the whole place up for lights and light switches.

I would need to add heating and cooling runes to the rafters as well, just to maintain a constant temperature. Sometimes, the bright sunny days could generate a lot of excess heat and regulating it was going to be a priority. I needed to protect all those water pipes, too. Reinforcement runes would need to be liberally applied all over, apparently.

Maybe I could add solar panels in a few areas underneath the glass ceiling to create a power generating station? The technology actually existed here in a stable form and I could probably monopolize the market by making them more efficient and powerful. I added a small pile of them to my list of material orders and moved on.

The more I thought about the things I needed to do, the more things I realized I needed to do. It made me chuckle at all the ideas I had to write down, just so I wouldn't forget to do them. I would need to keep track of which section did what, so some signs and directions were needed as well.

My next idea was to make shelves along one of the walls in the first section, then transfer and create more soil to fill them. Instead of spreading the strawberries out into a large flat area for growing, I decided that using racks upon racks of two foot wide shelves on the walls, that were twelve inches above one another, would increase my growing area for the small crops by a factor of a hundred.

There was only room for ten shelves in the twenty foot tall space; but, I could add aisle shelves as well and marked off a large section for strawberries. Once I had that idea, the next section was set aside for blueberries, blackberries in the next, and raspberries would be planted in the section after that. I wasn't going to get into the different varieties available until the growing model was proven to work.

I allocated the next several sections for the vine plants, like grapes. Again, the aisles would work well for them and increase my growing capacity when put onto standing racks. The next part was set aside for important specialty crops, like cocoa plants and coffee beans. Unlike the berries, those needed to be chosen carefully, because people were very finicky about their chocolate and coffee flavors.

The last part of that greenhouse was set aside for the orchard. I spread out the different varieties of apples, oranges, peaches, and pears. It was going to be quite exciting when my farm started producing those healthy things consistently over the entire year and not just for the specific growing seasons they were normally known for.

I also threw in some nut-producing plants as an afterthought and filled out the area between the orchard and the other crops. When my design was done, most of the first greenhouse was going to be all shelves, racks, and aisles. It would stop everyone from even trying to gauge how big the place was inside, which meant my expansion enchantment could be easily hidden.

The other two greenhouses were a little easier to plan out, since they would be filled with staple crops, arranged in the best and easiest configuration to be planted, harvested, and rotated. It was going to be a working farm and I would need to work out how to make smaller machines for the same jobs the larger ones did for full-size farms.

Reducing them in size wouldn't work, because the crops themselves weren't smaller. The attachments would need to work on any machine they were used with, too. The tiller, planter, and harvester had to have the same capacity while also being smaller and easy to use inside a building.

That was going to take some planning, maybe a few patents, and contacting the company that made the original machines. For now, I'd do everything by hand, just like they did it in the old days before farming machines had been invented. It would also let me keep a closer eye on things, too. On that note, I was going to need to set up some computers to keep track of everything for me.

I would need the basement built for that, since there wasn't room in the trailer for them. Even though it was a double wide one, it was still only a trailer and didn't have a lot of extra space for things like that. Plus, it was going to be used for any guests that visited and I didn't want to put anything sensitive inside that someone else would see or have access to.

Now that I had the layouts for all three buildings, I went to work physically to make the plans become reality. It was going to take quite some time to do up the first one, with all the shelving and planting; but, it was going to be worth the effort. I was going to have the most versatile farm in all of Kansas. Whatever food you needed would be found here and that put a huge smile on my face.

*

Margaret Jessome had been hearing things around town the last few weeks about the Kent boy's farm and she was only a little surprised at the rumors. Parties every night? He was a teenager and was living on his own already, so it was understandable he was enjoying himself. The rumor he already had the three giant greenhouses completed already was slightly unbelievable, though.

It wasn't until she asked the mother of one of the football players that she learned how that was possible. The young genius had hired every other farm kid to help him and the parties had been them celebrating after building each of them. None of their parents admonished them for it, either. They were young and used any excuse they could to have a party.

Margaret couldn't stop her curiosity from running away from her and she left the bank at the end of her shift before supper and drove all the way out of town to where the Clark Farm was. The name made her softly laugh, because no one wanted to confuse themselves by calling it the Kent Farm. It might insult Johnathan Kent, too.

She pulled into the driveway of the large barn and mentally nodded at both the size and the position, because it had the best access to both the road and the fields around it. It didn't occur to her that didn't matter, not with greenhouses taking up most of the plot of land.

Margaret stepped out of her compact car and went over to the double-wide trailer. She was sure Clark was home, because his brand new truck was there and the smell of food was coming from inside. She knocked on the door and started to smile the same fake smile she used at work, then the door opened and her mouth went dry at seeing Clark wearing a frilly blue apron and faded jeans. That was it.

"Oh! Hello there, Margaret." Clark said and smiled warmly and stepped back. "Come on in! I was just putting the finishing touches on the trimmings for the roast."

Margaret nodded and walked inside. She hid her surprise at how home-like the place felt and the smells filled her nostrils. "I didn't know you could cook."

Clark let out a little chuckle. "I spent an equal amount of time at my Ma's hip as I did at Da's." He said and led her over to the kitchenette and sat her at the counter. "Are you only stopping by or are you free to join me for a meal?"

Margaret watched as Clark really was putting the finishing touches on a delicious looking and smelling roast. She decided she didn't want to grab take-out for supper again and her husband wouldn't be home for a couple hours.

"I was stopping by to see what you've done here and to confirm a few rumors I've heard floating around town." Margaret said and smiled slightly at his wide eyes. "I'd be delighted to stay and eat as the subject of the rumors confirms or denies them with his own mouth."

Clark looked sheepish and carried the finished platter over to the dining room table. "I'm not sure I should incriminate myself like that."

Margaret felt amusement at flustering the strapping young man so easily. "I can assure you that there's nothing too bad about the rumors, Clark." She said and saw him visibly relax. She couldn't let him do that, though. "Is it true you've had sex with half of the single girls in the county in your den of depravity?"

Clark seemed to choke on his own spit and sputtered out a half-assed denial, making Margaret laugh for the first time in public. Everyone assumed she was a hard-ass, because she was so difficult to convince to invest the bank's money into failing farms. The reality was that she had a great sense of humor and just hadn't had any chance to exercise it.

Margaret reached over to pat him on the back to help, while also getting a very nice feel of his bare shoulder, then she ran her hand down his muscular arm and pat it. "Are you okay, Clark?"

Clark cleared his throat a couple times before he squeaked out. "M'fine, Margaret. Jus'fine."

Margaret smiled widely and took over the meal as she dished out the food onto two plates, expertly carving the roast to give them both great cuts of meat, and put the right amount of side dishes on their plates to balance the meat and not overwhelm it with too many vegetables or potatoes.

She sat down again and started eating, motioning for Clark to do the same. The pair ate the food and Margaret barely hid how much she enjoyed the meal. She couldn't let the young man think he could influence her so easily by plying her with delicious food. She could be, she just didn't want Clark to know that.

"Well, now that you've fed me, you might as well give me a tour of the place." Margaret said and stood. She wasn't sure why she wasn't being bogged down or felt sluggish after eating so much.

"Sure, Margaret. Let me just put on a shirt..." Clark started to say.

"Nonsense! The blue frilly apron matches your eyes." Margaret joked and Clark stared at her with wide eyes. That just made her laugh and she dragged him out of the trailer.

It was soon time for Margaret's eyes to widen as Clark showed her the inside of the first greenhouse. It had shelves upon shelves of prime soil everywhere and she couldn't really tell where they ended. Clark started to explain what he was doing and Margaret was fascinated at the ingenious idea.

It would take a bit more work to plant it all and to maintain it; but, it really would increase his yield by a significant amount. They walked on to the racks where the vine plants would be growing and Margaret couldn't keep her wonder hidden as he told her how many different specialty plants he could cram into the same space that would only be a single field of wheat.

The wheat was going to be planted in the next greenhouse, as was the corn. Their yields would be almost triple, because there was no growing season inside a greenhouse. All year was when it could be planted and harvested, thanks to the consistent temperature of being in an enclosed environment.

It was the same for the other crops as well. With the extra space the different method of farming provided, and no limit on when the crops could be planted and grown, the Clark Farm was going to be in full production of all the crops he had by the end of October.

The only exceptions were the trees in the orchard. They had to use a golf cart to travel to the end of the first warehouse where the many juvenile saplings had been planted.

"Next year should have them a foot thick, if not more. I think. With no cold restrictions putting the trees into hibernation for half the year, they are going to sprout right up to full size really quickly." Clark told her. "I might play with manure and fertilizer to find the optimum balance to get the most growth potential out of them and my other crops."

"It's like a growing lab." Margaret said, with more than a little awe in her voice.

Clark smiled and nodded as he drove them back to the exit. "That's exactly what I'm doing, Margaret. Once I work out the best procedures for maximum growth potential, I can refine them and produce the best and tastiest crops at an accelerated rate."

Margaret nodded, not realizing Clark specifically worded it that way to plant the idea in her head that his crops would grow much faster than everyone else's. He wasn't going to take over any of the markets, since he only had the one farm. He would end up making them more competitive and would give the local population more options. He might even get a grocery store chain to buy his products.

"You're ambitious." Margaret said and knew Clark wasn't boasting. His business plans had accounted for nearly everything and after seeing what he had already done with one greenhouse, she didn't doubt that his plans were going to work out like he had predicted.

"Is it ambitious if you know it's a sure thing?" Clark asked her with a smirk.

Margaret couldn't help but blush at the innuendo, especially after spending the last hour with the handsome young man. "Yes, it's still ambitious, because you had the courage to go through with it and then put your words into action." She motioned to the greenhouse as the cart came to a stop by the door. "When word of this method gets out..."

"Please don't let it." Clark cut her off. "This is a chance to revolutionize growing practises for certain crops; but, it'll only work if it's proven and not dismissed as a fad or a novel idea."

Margaret thought about that and nodded. "All right, I'll keep it out of any reports I add to your file until after you prove it's viable to reproduce."

"Thank you." Clark said sincerely and led her out of the greenhouse and walked her all the way over to her car. The both of them remained silent until Margaret sat behind the wheel. "Thanks for stopping by, Margaret."

"It was my pleasure, Clark." Margaret responded with genuine warmth before she could stop herself. She felt her face heat up and started the car, backed up without looking at him, and drove out onto the road and sped away.

247 Farming A New Way Conclusion

I watched a flustered Margaret driving away and was glad I hadn't tried to flirt with her. She was married and it was mostly cordial, if not overtly happy, and they had no real problems. They both enjoyed their demanding careers and were busy a lot, so they hadn't had a lot of time to spend together, besides their evenings and a few weekends a month together.

In my opinion, they were technically still in the dating stage of their relationship, despite their marriage and living together. Neither of them had the time to dedicate to a significant other and I was sure that was one of the more attractive aspects of their relationship, because neither would feel neglected while coming into the relationship with the same backgrounds.

I wasn't getting into the middle of that, just like I hadn't tried anything with any of the sexy older women that were all around the town. Why would I try to break up a happy marriage just to have a good roll in the hay? That was where the saying came from, too. Farmers having sex in the hay loft. I haven't tried to enjoy the trope myself, mostly because I knew I was destined for something greater.

I had thought there was potential with Enchantress, then I lost contact with her and a few basic magic probes had been rebuffed and deflected. My clairvoyance power couldn't find her at all, which meant she must have been somehow blocked from being seen in this cluster of the multiverse, or heaven forbid, was dead.

Oh, and there was a multiverse. I had suspected there was, only I never tried to see if I could 'see' into them, because it was dangerous and you could never tell what could see you when you looked at them. My brief glance into one as I looked for Enchantress, had me mentally slapped down by The Spectre.

To be fair, he was protecting me from angering The Green, or the life energy of the planet. Apparently, their version of the Enchantress was the guardian there in that world and my thoughts about dating her would have pissed her off. She hated what humanity was doing to her planet, which I suspected that ours did as well. I stopped trying to look for her after that.

The Swamp Thing had been created here about six years ago, after an unsolved murder case was closed. It had slipped through my own diligence to check on everything going on, probably because it happened around the same time Bruce Wayne's parents almost died. I hadn't been able to hone in on things well back then and it has taken years of practice with Martha to be as proficient as I was.

In any case, I wasn't going to bother Swamp Thing. He was too much of a grouch about being murdered and becoming a mass of swamp fertilizer. That did give me the thought to wonder if he knew what I was doing here, with helping to change how things were grown and adding a little magic when possible.

I dismissed those thoughts and went back inside the trailer and stored the food to eat it later. I had made a lot, like I always did when I cooked, and it saved me so much time when I didn't have it to spare. For some reason, reworking how to grow things took up an inordinate amount of time to figure out and to put into practice.

I went to bed with thoughts of farming and plants going through my head after seeing Margaret's reaction to all of the things I had set into motion. The biggest surprise was that I had a great start with the tomato plants and she looked like she admired them a lot.

Those things had taken to the vine racks like monkeys climbing a tree and were already sprouting tons of leaves and were growing like weeds. It was nice to have confirmation that at least one method was going to be a huge boon to growing something and it was going to make harvesting them a lot easier, too.

On the other hand, the grapes were a struggle to get rooted. I had to keep a constant watch on them, because I didn't want to lose them. If I could get them to grow in large enough quantities, I could break into the market with larger, plumper, and juicier grapes. I just had to figure out the best environment settings to have the damn things grow without constant supervision.

Maybe a quick trip to a vineyard in France would let me figure out what I was doing wrong. It was a thought, anyway. Would they even bother trying to explain it to me? Did they have tours and things for that? A trip into town might be needed to find that out.

The basic crops were easy to plant and get growing, since I had been doing that for years. Adapting them to greenhouse growth took almost no time at all and they were all rooting nicely. The lettuce and cabbages were also having a great time under the optimal growing conditions and were already budding with golfball-sized growths.

My projections had them ending their growth and becoming ripe when they were larger than my head and that was going to be great for both harvesting and for sales. I needed a good selection to bring to the market stands when they opened in the spring, too. With luck, I'd have at least two full harvests of everything by then and could show everything off.

I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face and plans to go into town after lunch. I would have to put the grape vines under preservation and stasis charms until I found the information I needed.

*

Lisa Lasalle was sure that taking a job at the small travel agency in a hick town was a mistake. She needed money, however. Travelling to Metropolis by car was taking longer than she had planned for and her car had broken down on the interstate. The towing fees to the closest town had pretty much cleaned out her spending money and she was stuck in Smallville until she earned enough to get it fixed.

At least, that was what she was thinking until a huge hunk of a man walked into the tiny office. Her hands immediately checked her long red hair, which was prefect. She glanced at her reflection in the window to make sure her blouse was slightly open at the top to reveal some cleavage and saw a look of shock on her own face.

Lisa fixed that by smiling a genuine smile and not the fake one she had been practising for her future modelling interviews. "Hello, welcome to Travel Inc. where your dreams can come true. What can you do for me today?" She asked and then mentally cringed at the slip-up. She didn't try to correct herself, though. She said it and it was out there, so she wanted to see how he would take it.

Instead of looking put-off by the question, the handsome stranger that she really wanted to get to know, smiled a genuine smile right back and even looked a little amused.

"I've had the inspiring idea to tour some vineyards and wondered if you could help me with that." The dark-haired and blue-eyed man said.

"Of course, I can. It's my job, after all." Lisa said, confidently. "Please, have a seat." She had studied the brochures for hours the night before and knew exactly what packages to offer him. "We have two choices for you, actually. One is in France at a popular tourist spot near Bordeaux, and the other is the more well known option in Tuscany, Italy."

"Italy? I hadn't thought of that." The handsome man said and looked thoughtful, then he smiled a smile that should win awards. "I was thinking France before I came in here."

Lisa tried to not show how turned on she was and gently rubbed her thighs together as she dug out the two brochures to hand over. "France is the more romantic option and your girlfriend should be more than happy with the trip."

"Girlfriend?" He asked and shook his head. "I don't have one of those and was planning on going by myself."

Lisa was shocked and couldn't stop it from showing on her face. This guy was single? Really? Was everyone in this town blind or stupid?

He saw her face and lightly laughed. "You obviously have a lot more experience with this, so what would you recommend?"

"Take me with you." Lisa said before she could stop herself. Again, she didn't try to correct herself, even if she felt mortified at throwing herself at him like that.

He barked a loud laugh and set the two brochures down on her desk without looking at them. "I don't even know your name."

"Lisa Lasalle, I'm 18, single, and I'm only working here to get enough money to fix my car and finish my trip to Metropolis to start my career as a model." Lisa said, her mouth spouting out as much of her life story as it could in as short a time as possible.

He smiled warmly and Lisa felt her panties dampen at how much promise it contained. "It's nice to meet you, Lisa. I'm Clark Kent, I'm 15, and I own a small farm outside of town. I graduated high school when I was five and earned a college degree this past June."

Lisa was again shocked. He was only 15 and looked like that? What was he going to look like when he was fully grown? "Wait a second! It took you ten years to graduate college?"

Clark laughed. "No, it only took a year. I didn't attend until I looked old enough to fit in without causing a lot of obvious problems."

Lisa nodded, fully understanding what he meant. If you didn't look the part, everyone questioned why you were there, especially yourself.

Clark glanced at the two brochures on her desk and at her face. "Well, Lisa. If I did accept your offer, which one would you take for the best experience for visiting vineyards and seeing their methods for growing grapes?"

Lisa didn't hesitate as she picked up the one for France. "Your first thought of where to go was the right one. The one for Italy is more for wine tasters than for the vineyard tours."

Clark nodded at the admission and accepted the brochure. He read through it quickly and nodded again. "All right, I'll take the two week package, with the all expenses paid option for two people." Clark said and Lisa caught her breath. "I don't want to worry about carrying local currency."

"Are... are you serious?" Lisa asked. He was her very first customer and she was going to sell their most expensive package without really trying.

"Yes, I am." Clark said, his voice sure.

"But, you don't really know me." Lisa said and then cursed herself silently at stupidly trying to convince the handsome young man to not spend a few thousand dollars on her. His age wasn't really a factor for her, either. She had met men three times his age that weren't as mature as he was, her own father included.

Clark chuckled and handed her the brochure with that award winning smile on his face. "We'll have two whole weeks in the most romantic country in the world to fix that little problem, won't we?"

Lisa barely stopped her reaction to the pleasant shiver that rolled down her spine at the suggestion. She knew then she wanted to keep seeing his smile for as long as she could and wondered what else of his that she was going to see.

"Give me a few minutes to find the information to book the trip for you... for us." Lisa said and turned to the filing cabinet behind her and opened the top drawer. "When would you like to leave?"

"How long will it take for you to pack?" Clark asked, teasingly.

Lisa felt that pleasant shiver again and didn't bother trying to hide her reaction to it. "I haven't unpacked."

Clark laughed and Lisa smiled at hearing it. "If you can arrange a flight out of the nearest airport for the morning, we can both get what we want out of this trip as soon as possible."

Lisa blushed at his words, because she knew what she wanted out of the trip. She grabbed the right folder and turned back to the desk. Her eyes took in his muscles that were barely restrained by his t-shirt and she was really looking forward to seeing those wonderful muscles naked and above her.

"You know, I don't usually do things like this with a guy I just met." Lisa said and opened the folder to find the pre-made trip details and the order code to tell the airline and the hotel in France to apply the right package details.

"Me, either." Clark joked and grinned at her.

Lisa made a snort sound as she tried to suppress her laughter. That would have been just her luck to meet a great guy and have him turn out to be gay. She looked up from the papers again and saw in his eyes that he was mentally undressing her. She had seen that look a lot, not in a good way, and this was the first time she didn't mind that he was doing it.

It was only fair, since she had done the same thing to him only a few moments before. Lisa looked back down at the information and started making the calls. Before she could ask him how he was paying, he handed over a piece of paper with his bank account information and made her job a lot easier.

Plus, she was getting a nice commission from the package sale that would almost be enough to have her car fixed. That was a little disappointing, considering she would have to quit this job to take the trip. It had been easy to do and the pay was decent.

Lisa blinked when a piece of paper was slid over the desk. Call in sick for the next two weeks. It's flu season. She read and looked up. A smug smile was on Clark's face and she smiled right back. Thank you. She mouthed to him.

Clark nodded and Lisa went back to work arranging their vacation in the countryside of France. On a whim, she added a day for a layover when they transferred planes in Paris on the return trip. An extra day wasn't much more expensive and she couldn't pass up seeing the Eiffel Tower at least once in her life.

Lisa glanced up when she spoke that small altered detail out loud over the phone to the airline and saw Clark give her a nod. She beamed a smile at him and enthusiastically confirmed their two week trip was all set and all expenses were paid.

She knew this was going to be a vacation that she was going to remember for the rest of her life and promised herself that she would make it just as memorable for the young man that had suddenly dropped into her life out of nowhere.

"I'll pick you up in the morning." Clark said when she handed over all the details.

"I'll be ready." Lisa promised and watched him leave. It was sinful how his jeans fit him so well and she wondered where he bought them. Her ass would look spectacular if her jeans could fit her as perfectly as those did.

*

It was impulsive and reckless to fly halfway around the world with a girl I just met; but, in my defense, she looked like a younger version of Martha Kent and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity Lisa Lasalle provided. I had been getting antsy a lot more lately and frustrated over the stupid grapes, then I realized it must have been puberty trying its best to wreck my personal life and I needed an outlet.

Lisa was perfect for that, because she was an outsider in town and there wouldn't be any awkward moments with any other girl that lived there if it didn't work out between us. Also, she was dead set on making the trip memorable for me and for giving her something she might never have gotten for herself if her career didn't take off like she hoped.

Surprisingly, Ma and Da were fine with me going off for a vacation for the first time in my life, despite how sudden it was. Well, Martha was fine with it and Johnathan complained about wasting my time, until I told him I was going to study how to grow grapes and he fully approved of it. Making my farm better was more than enough justification in his mind.

I packed a bag, just for looks, and drove my new truck to Lisa's address, the motel at the edge of town. She had been renting by the night and spending more money on it than booking it for a month was at a discounted rate. I didn't mention it, since she was leaving for two weeks anyway, and was also taking her three suitcases along with her.

I loaded them in the back and covered them with a tarp, then helped her into the passenger side. She looked both surprised and amused, so my chivalry achieved its purpose. I climbed into the driver's side and drove away from the motel to head to the next town. Smallville was too small for its own airport and the drive wasn't that long.

We arrived in plenty of time, checked her bags and my single one, and went through security. The tickets were picked up at the counter and we only had to wait half an hour before boarding the plane. We were off the tarmac twenty minutes later and we were off to spend two great weeks in France.

With luck, I'd learn the best way to grow grapes and would apply it to the grape vines back at my farm. Maybe I could even buy some cuttings from their more prolific vines as well. That would definitely make the trip worthwhile on its own.

I glanced at the beautiful girl beside me and I saw the excitement on her face. Even if I didn't learn much and didn't get any cuttings, the trip was worth taking to make someone smile like that.