Chapter 27: Eric Summers
The field trip was supposed to be educational.
"The Lowell County dam generates 340 megawatts annually," the guide droned, leading our class through the facility. "The turbines you see here convert the potential energy of falling water into—"
The sky outside the windows had turned green. Not the green of approaching storms—something else. Something wrong.
[ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY DETECTED: METEOR RADIATION CONCENTRATION ELEVATED. RECOMMEND: DISTANCE FROM METALLIC STRUCTURES.]
The warning came too late.
Lightning struck the observation platform.
Not regular lightning—something that seemed to descend deliberately, hungrily, seeking specific targets. It hit Clark Kent and Eric Summers simultaneously, both of them gripping the same metal railing.
The world went white.
When my vision cleared, Clark was on the ground, unconscious. And Eric Summers—the quiet kid from the back of class, the one who got shoved into lockers and laughed at in hallways—was standing in the center of a scorch mark, eyes wide with shock.
"What—" Eric looked at his hands. Then at the railing he'd been holding.
The railing was twisted into scrap metal. Crushed by a grip that had been normal seconds ago.
"EVERYONE STAY BACK!" The guide was shouting, trying to establish order. "Someone call an ambulance—"
Eric Summers lifted off the ground.
Not jumping. Floating. Rising three feet into the air with no apparent effort, his expression cycling through terror to wonder to something darker.
"Oh my God," someone whispered.
Eric shot into the sky and vanished.
Clark woke up in the hospital, weak as a kitten.
"I can't feel them," he said, staring at his hands. "My powers. They're just... gone."
Kara sat beside him, running tests with her own returning abilities. Her expression was grim.
"The lightning acted as a conduit," she said. "Your cellular energy—the Kryptonian radiation that gives you abilities—it transferred to Eric Summers on contact."
"Transferred?" I leaned forward. "Like a battery switching hosts?"
"Similar. The meteor-enhanced lightning created a bridge between them. Clark's power flowed across that bridge into Eric." She met my eyes. "All of it."
[ANALYSIS: KRYPTONIAN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED IN NEW HOST. PREVIOUS HOST SIGNATURE: ABSENT. TRANSFER: COMPLETE.]
"Can we reverse it?" Clark's voice cracked. "Can we get it back?"
"I don't know. Maybe. The energy bond to Eric isn't stable—it's fighting him. But the longer he keeps it..." Kara trailed off.
"The harder it'll be to reclaim," I finished.
We sat in silence, processing the implications. Clark Kent—the strongest person on Earth, the future Superman, the hero who'd saved countless lives—was now just a teenage boy. Fragile. Vulnerable. Human.
And Eric Summers, bullied and broken and full of rage, had godlike power.
This was going to get ugly fast.
The news reports started that evening.
Armed robbery at a gas station on Route 90. The perpetrator had been stopped—by a flying teenager who appeared out of nowhere, moving faster than the eye could track.
"Local hero," the anchor called him.
Then the details emerged. The robber was in critical condition. Multiple broken bones. Internal bleeding. Eric had stopped the crime, yes—but he'd nearly killed a man in the process.
I watched the footage on Chloe's laptop, studying Eric's face as he posed for bystander photos. The expression there was familiar. I'd seen it on other meteor freaks—the intoxication of power, the loss of perspective that came when you suddenly had strength beyond human limits.
But this was worse. Eric didn't have meteor abilities that would burn out or fade. He had Kryptonian power—limitless, permanent, growing stronger with every moment under Earth's yellow sun.
"He's going to kill someone," Chloe said quietly. "If he hasn't already."
"We need to find him. Talk to him."
"Talk to him?" She stared at me. "Cole, he can bench-press tanks. What exactly do you plan to say?"
"That power doesn't make you a hero. That strength without control is just destruction with better tools." I stood, grabbing my jacket. "I have to try."
Eric's house was a modest ranch on the outskirts of town.
His mother answered the door—a tired woman with kind eyes and worry lines etched deep into her face.
"You're Cole Harrison," she said. "From the Torch."
"I'm looking for Eric. Is he home?"
"He came back an hour ago. He's been in his room since." She hesitated. "Something happened at the dam, didn't it? Something strange."
"Yes ma'am."
"He's always been different. Sensitive. The other kids were so cruel to him." Tears gathered in her eyes. "But now he comes home and he's... he's not the same. Something's changed."
"I know. I'm trying to help."
She led me to Eric's door. Inside, I could hear music playing—something angry and loud, the kind of sound that masked other sounds.
I knocked.
The door opened so fast I barely saw it move. Eric stood there, inches away, his eyes burning with something between suspicion and excitement.
"Cole Harrison." He smiled, and it wasn't friendly. "The meteor freak who thinks he's special."
"I came to talk."
"Talk?" Eric grabbed my collar and lifted me off my feet—easily, effortlessly, like I weighed nothing. "What's there to talk about?"
[THREAT LEVEL: MAXIMUM. OPPONENT POSSESSES KRYPTONIAN ABILITIES. COMBAT: NOT RECOMMENDED.]
"Your power isn't stable," I gasped, my feet dangling above the floor. "It's not yours. It's fighting you—"
"FIGHTING me?" Eric laughed. "It's FREEING me. Do you have any idea what it feels like? After years of being nothing, being nobody, now I can do ANYTHING."
"You nearly killed that robber."
"He was a criminal."
"You broke his spine, Eric. That's not justice—that's brutality."
His grip tightened. I felt my enhanced strength kick in reflexively, but it was like pushing against a mountain. Eric wasn't just strong—he was Kryptonian strong. Orders of magnitude beyond anything I could match.
"You're meteor-touched," Eric said, curious now rather than angry. "I can feel it. Something in you that's different." He examined me like I was an interesting specimen. "But you're nothing compared to me now."
He dropped me. I hit the floor hard, gasping for breath.
"Stay out of my way," Eric said. "I'm going to change this town. Show everyone who laughed at me what real power looks like." He leaned down, his smile terrible. "And if you try to stop me—if anyone tries to stop me—I'll show them what happens to people who underestimate Eric Summers."
He walked past me, through the house, past his sobbing mother.
Then he flew away, leaving nothing but a sonic boom and broken windows.
I pulled myself up, ribs aching, throat bruised.
Twelve percent survival probability, the System had said weeks ago, when I'd first faced the possibility of fighting Kryptonian-level power.
Looking at the shattered glass, feeling the resonance of Eric's rage, I wondered if even that estimate was optimistic.
But I couldn't give up. Clark was counting on me. Kara was counting on me.
Someone had to stand against Eric Summers.
Might as well be me.
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