Changeling

[jon-el87]

Prologue
”Hey, she’s still alive!” Screamed the man in the back of the van.
“What are you talking about?” The driver asked and turned around. To his shock, he saw movement coming from the body bag in the back. He hits the breaks in his state of shock. It wasn’t possible. Surely, the girl had been dead, when they had picked her up at the morgue. The girl ripped the body bag open from within and got up. She was breathing heavily and disoriented. Asking for where she was. The man in the back of the van attempted to grab her, but the girl pushed him off her with one hand, with ease.
“Shoot her!” The driver screamed, but it was too late. The girl had gotten to her feet and jumped out of the back of the van, ripping the doors of their hinges. Like a wild animal, she ran out into the dark night, heading into the woods.
The driver got out of the van, taking out his gun. The man in the back followed, him too with gun pulled. They were not going to lose the asset. The duo entered the woods and tried to track her with the aid of their flashlights. The freak was fast, no doubt about it. The girl had less than a minute head start, yet they couldn’t see her in the darkness. For over an hour, they engaged in a futile hunt for the girl. They couldn’t find her. It was too dark, and she hadn’t left many traces for them to follow. Eventually, they realized that they had no other choice. The driver got out his cellphone and made the call.
“Mr. Luthor? The package has disappeared, sir.” The driver paused while the person on the other end responded. ”Yes, sir. She appeared to be, when we first picked her up. You did say that this wasn’t the first time this had happened with her. We’re gonna need help to find her.”
Within two hours, another two vans had arrived at the scene, with more men and dogs. Getting the girl’s scent from the body bag, the dogs led the men through the woods. It was difficult to get through. It was still quite dark. The trail ended by a small river. The dogs were useless now. The men persisted. They spread out and continued the search. In pairs, they didn’t want to take any chances. Not after what they had heard about this girl.
Around ten the next morning, two of the men arrived at an abandoned farm. The residents appeared to be away – mailbox was full, but the door on the main house was open. It had been broken down, seemingly by someone had amazing strength. They stepped into the kitchen. There was a recently used bowl in the sink. Someone had been here during the night and eaten. They summoned the other men and searched the house.
The whole house had been ransacked. But the TV and computers hadn’t been touched. So, they ruled out having come across a random burglary. In all three bedrooms, clothes and personal belongings had been spread out – no doubt in search of new clothes and money. The girl had stayed her for a few hours, to rest and get some things, before heading off again.
The men drove into nearby Masonville and began asking if people there had seen any strangers in town. The townspeople had seen four. An elderly man, who took a bus out of town. A young couple on their honeymoon and a teenage girl backpacker, with brown hair. The girl had hitchhiked out of town and the men followed her. Two hours later, they found her. They had been warned to not confront her directly. Instead, one of them got ready with a tranquilizing gun.
The girl was busy getting up a tent in the woods. She didn’t notice them, until the dart hit her neck. She was down within seconds. The men ran in, ready with guns, they restrained her with chains – having seen what she had done with that door at the farm, they weren’t taking any chances. Then they lifted her up.
“Wait.” Said one of them, having seen her face. “It’s not her.”
“But, didn’t they say that she could…?” Asked one of the others.
“Not when she’s unconscious. Release her, we need to get out of here, before anyone sees us.” Replied the first man.
“What are we going to say to Mr. Luthor?” Asked a third.
“The truth. It’s our only saving.” The first men kicked the ground. They had wasted time following the wrong girl. They should’ve followed the old man on the bus. By now, he would’ve probably already been in Metropolis. No way that they would be able to trace the girl there. No, she was gone forever. Tina Greer had managed to slip through their fingers.

[jon-el87]

Chapter 1
One can’t go around x-raying everyone you walk past on the streets. Clark had heard the ticking of a bomb, as he had made his way down the busy Metropolis street. By instinct, he had used to x-ray vision to detect it. After which, he had headed into an alley, changed into Superman and taken care of it. Nothing serious. Just some guy with a bomb in the back of his car – having planned to blow up the bank across the street. With the bomb disarmed, Superman had handed the bomber over to the police.
It had been what he had seen in the crowd that concerned him. While he had been x-raying the area. A pedestrian had a most peculiar skeleton. He hadn’t been able to place it at first. Furthermore, his main concern had been locating a bomb and there’s nothing illegal with having an inhuman skeleton.
It wasn’t until later that Clark had realized where he had seen that skeleton before. It wasn’t possible. She had died ten years earlier. But, by the time Clark had remembered her skeleton, it was too late for him to investigate the matter. The person was long gone. It couldn’t have been Tina Greer. She was dead and there were other shapeshifters in the world. But he couldn’t let it go. As far as Clark knew, this shapeshifter hadn’t committed any crime, but he had to make sure that it wasn’t her.
As Clark Kent, Clark headed back home to Smallville and went to the Cemetery. To the grave of Tina Greer. He looked down and x-rayed the ground. There was no coffin, but an urn. She had been cremated. Perhaps that was just for show? Clark contacted the morgue at the Smallville Medical Center and eventually managed to get some information out of them.
Tina’s body had been recovered by paramedics, after she had died behind the Talon, on that night. The body had been taken to the morgue, where it had been claimed by a family member. A Bobby Greer, her uncle. The coroner hadn’t even had time to perform an autopsy, before a van had come and picked up the body.
Clark’s next step had been to try and contact Bobby Greer but hid a dead end. According to records, Bobby Greer had passed away in 1995. Someone posing as her uncle had stolen Tina’s body from the morgue. The trail ended there. Who could’ve been behind the theft? The usual suspects were the Luthors back then. But, had it been Lex or Lionel? It didn’t matter. Watchtower had access to a lot of the old 33,1 and Level 3 records, so Clark consulted the files.
The name ‘Greer’ had two hits: Tina Greer and Eva Greer – no relation. According to the file on Tina, she had seemingly been resurrected during transport to a research facility and broken out. They had never found her. Given Tina’s obsession with Lana, Clark found it strange that she had never returned to Smallville. If it had been Tina whom he had seen, where had she been the last decade?

[jon-el87]

Chapter 2
Lois hadn’t expected to see her apartment turned into a detective’s office, when she walked in through the door. Yet, there was Clark sitting on the floor with a cup of coffee, with the floor covered in paper. Simply having the information on the computer hadn’t been enough. He needed to have all the information physically in front of him.
“So, what’s going on, Smallville?” Asked Lois, picking up some of the papers.
“I may have seen someone today. Someone who is supposed to have died years ago.” Clark answered.
“Who is Tina Greer?”
“Bit before your time, Lois. She was a meteor infected shape-shifter, obsessed with Lana. She murdered a Marine and a mental patient, tried to kill me.”
“What happened to her?” Lois seated herself beside Clark.
“We fought. She tried to hit me, I ducked. She got impaled on a piece of wood. Thought she had died, but according to the LuthorCorp files, she came back to life mere hours later.”
“Who was the Marine?”
“Lt. Ray McNulty. Tragic story. The murder caused his son to go on a murder spree against the meteor infected, regardless if they had committed any crime.”
“And the mental patient?”
“We never found out that. Figured Tina had killed someone and taken their identity, to get out of the institution. Burning the body. According to the files, that body also disappeared mysteriously from the morgue.”
“Are you sure that it was someone else?”
“Well, they didn’t have time to check dental records, but as she showed up in town a week later…”
“Where she died and came to life within hours.” Lois interrupted.
“You think it really was Tina?”
“Probably. We probably should look closer at her time at the hospital. What are these other papers?”
“After she escaped, LuthorCorp spent years trying to track her down. Had hoped they could give me a clue to her whereabouts. But the search ended five years ago, when Tess took over LuthorCorp and shut down 33,1.”
“So, the last trace of her is ancient?”
“Yes. A report of a girl matching her description in Coast City. She’s here in Metropolis now. But, is she living here or just passing by?” Lois got up. “Where are you going?”
“Gonna see if I can’t find out anything about her stay at the hospital.” Lois grabbed her purse and was out the door.

[jon-el87]

Chapter 3
Ten years is a long time. Lois struggled to find anyone on the staff, who had been working there, while Tina was a patient. Eventually, she found one, who was willing to talk to her. She met with Victor Russo at the Metro Coffee Stop. Russo was a middle-aged stout man, who had worked at the mental institute as an orderly.
“What can you tell me about Tina Greer?” Asked Lois.
“Well,” Russo replied and took a sip of coffee, “it was a long time, you understand. Why the sudden interest?”
“Greer was a metahuman. I’m working on an article about the treatment of metahumans, before they ‘came out of the closet’, so to speak.”
“Is that what they’re called these days? Back then they were called ‘special nutcases’. You just got special instructions on how to handle them. Never explained why. Given experimental meds, that they probably shouldn’t have been given. Many were sent away to other facilities. Don’t dare thinking about what happened to them.”
“Now, about Tina Greer...?”
“It’s a tragedy what that girl had gone through…”
“What do you mean? I mean, she was meteor infected…” Russo burst out laughing.
“My dear, Tina’s issues had nothing to do with being meteor infected. I mean, her mother…” Russo suddenly went silent.
“What about her mother? I understand Tina killed her.”
”By accident. She didn’t mean to. Though, I’m not going to waste tears on that woman, to be honest.”
“Why is that?”
“Tina and I talked sometimes. Her mother wasn’t a very nice person.” Russo paused. “I brought a copy of Tina’s file. You can read about it yourself.”
“Thank you. What can you tell me about Tina’s death?”
“How much do you already know?”
“She set herself on fire in the art therapy room. Though, a source of mine has her in Smallville a week later.”
“It can’t be true.”
“You don’t think it was possible that she killed another patient and stole their identity?”
“Wouldn’t have been possible. I was there, when it happened. Tina was all alone in the art therapy room. All other patients were accounted for.”
“She could’ve impersonated one of them.”
“No, she couldn’t have. Tina was wearing a special kind of bracelets. Guess it was done to prevent her from posing as anyone else. If she did, the bracelets would still be there, and we’d know. The burned body in the art therapy room wore the bracelets.” Russo got up and handed a thick file to Lois. “You’re not going to like what you’re about to read.” He said. He was right.

[jon-el87]

Chapter 4
During Tina’s stay at the institution, she had been a patient of Dr. Chase Meridian. Tina had spoken to Dr. Meridian every day and Meridian had kept detailed records. Lois almost got a hernia from carrying the Tina Greer file, when she got back to the apartment. Clark was gone – out looking for Tina.
Why does a meteor freak go bad? To Chloe it had been simple. Every meteor freak was a ticking time bomb. In the end, they all go bad. The Kryptonite made them go bad. What Lois found in Dr. Meridian’s file on Tina Greer shocked and horrified her. She had to put it down, after a few minutes out of disgust. Once Lois had also bought into Chloe’s idea of meteor freaks. Now, Lois wasn’t so sure about that.
Tina Greer’s life had been a tragedy from the day she was born. Born with a soft-bone disease, she had first been subjected to medical experiments. Then she recovered but gained a gift to turn herself into anyone. Sadly, Tina’s gift wasn’t welcomed by her mother. According to the file, Tina had regularly been abused by her mother. Every time Tina had shape-shift, her mother had responded by hitting her. Tina had just wanted to show her mother what she could do. The physical abuse ended when Tina was six and proved herself too strong, but the emotional abuse continued for years.
At age eight, Rose Greer had caught Tina kissing another girl. Rose responded by sending Tina away to get ‘cured’. At a place where Tina was subjected to more emotional abuse. No surprise that this girl wanted to be someone else. From where Lois was standing, Tina had been a victim.
Lois couldn’t read anymore but went to make herself some coffee. She then sat down on the couch. The papers from the LuthorCorp search for Tina was still all over the floor. Lois picked up some of them. It concerned a suspected sightseeing of Tina in 2005, in New York City. A crazed gunman had broken into a lesbian bar one evening. A patron – an African American woman identified as ‘Janet’ - had stepped in between the gunman and the others. He had shot her in the arm, causing her to transform into a woman matching Tina’s description. However, the woman had managed to take the gun away from him and apprehended the gunman. The woman left the scene, before police arrived.
Lois dropped the papers and picked up some that concerned another incident in Vancouver, 2003. A mysterious woman intervened during a hostage crisis, saving several lives. Lois dove into the papers. Clark had looked at them, for clues to Tina’s whereabouts, not her activities. Largely every incident involved a mysterious person – suspected to be Tina Greer – helping others. How could a girl go from killing a Marine and trying to kill Clark, to becoming the protector of others?
What was it that Russo had told Lois? The metahumans under their care was given experimental medications, that they shouldn’t have been given. As much as it sickened her, Lois returned to Dr. Meridian’s file and looked for the names of the meds Tina had been given. She did a google search and found that three of them had been banned. Supposed to help patients and suppress their abilities but had a devastating effect on their brains. Several test subjects died during their trial.
So, Tina had been on meds, that messed with her mind for months, then burned herself alive. Lois was now working with the theory that Tina had set herself on fire, then healed, like she had after her second encounter with Clark. Lois could only imagine what this would do with someone. Sure, her body healed the burns, but her mind? Lois fetched the phone. She had to contact Clark.

[jon-el87]

Chapter 5
When you look for a shape-shifter, the last thing you expect is the person using their true form. Yet, that was how Clark had found her. He had spent hours x-raying the people of Metropolis, looking for Tina and then he found her. Looking just like herself. She had changed a bit over the years, but having x-rayed her, Clark could confirm that it was her. She was coming out of the Metropolis Star building, right across the street where Clark was standing. Around her neck, Clark could see a press badge and used his telescopic vision to zoom in on it: “Toby Raynes” was the name Tina went by now.
Had Tina killed the real Toby Raynes and stolen her identity? Then why was Tina not using the appearance of the real Raynes? Tina made her way down the street. Clark followed her. Then his phone rang, he answered it, never taking his eyes off Tina.
“Lois?” Clark said.
“Clark, have you found her?” Lois asked on the other end.
“Yes, just about ready to apprehend her.”
“Don’t, Smallville. There is something you need to know. Can you get home?” Clark was reluctant to let Tina go, but now he at least knew where to find her. He ducked into an alley and flew back to his apartment at super speed. Lois was there waiting for him.
“What did you want to talk about?” Clark asked. Lois responded by handing Clark Dr. Meridian’s file on Tina.
“I found some disturbing things about Tina’s past.” Lois handed Clark some of the LuthorCorp reports. “And evidence that Tina isn’t the person you knew anymore.” Clark read through the Meridian file and super speed. What he had just read disturbed him.
“I…I never knew.”
“Guess no one ever thought to look. Abusive childhood. A treatment with experimental meds, later proven to have serious side effects. Possible brain damage from a suicide attempt at the hospital. But, if those LuthorCorp reports are to be believed, she’s changed since you last met.” Lois replied.
“Just like Greg Arkin…” Clark whispered.
“What did you say?”
“Just compared her to someone else, whom I encountered back then. You met him too, three years ago.”
“That Greg guy, who wanted to thank you?”
“Yes.”
“So, what are you going to do about Tina?”
“I…I don’t know. I need to look into something, before deciding.”

[jon-el87]

Chapter 6
Clark’s investigation into Toby Raynes concluded that Raynes had moved to Metropolis three months ago. She had gotten a job as reporter for the Metropolis Star. Prior to that, she had worked for the New York News Express for close to two years. Toby Raynes had a birth certificate, but no evidence that there had ever been a real Toby Raynes, whom Tina was impersonating.
The names of Toby Raynes’ parents led Clark to a dead end. Possibly just two names, who had been put on the birth certificate. As a shape-shifter, Tina would’ve had no problem gaining access government buildings required to construct a new identity for herself. Along with the schools that Toby Raynes’ records claimed that she had attended. Schools where Toby Raynes didn’t appear in any class photos. A check with a few of her alleged classmates confirmed that Raynes was a made-up identity, rather than stolen. No one could remember her.
A week after seeing Tina coming out of the Metropolis Star building, Clark returned to the same spot and once more saw Tina exiting the building. Then Clark noticed Detective Maggie Sawyer coming towards Tina. Had Clark’s investigation exposed Tina’s identity? Sawyer’s approach didn’t startle Tina. Instead, Sawyer’s presence brought a smile to her face. The two women hugged and shared a brief kiss, before walking away, holding hands.
Clark began walking in the opposite direction. Tina Greer had murdered Ray McNulty. But there were mitigating circumstances. Experimental medications, that caused a psychosis. Furthermore, according to the LuthorCorp files on Tina, she had spent, at least, the next five years trying to make up for the murder of McNulty. The first 15 years of Tina Greer’s life and been filled with misery. After her second encounter with Clark, she had redeemed herself, by saving others. Now she was finally happy. No, there’d be no point in turning Tina Greer over to the police. Tina Greer was dead. Toby Raynes was alive and well.

[jon-el87]

Creator Credits
Chase Meridian first appeared in Batman Forever (1995) and was created by Akiva Goldsman.
Chloe Sullivan first appeared in the Smallville TV series episode “Pilot” and was created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
Greg Arkin first appeared in the Smallville TV series episode “Metamorphosis” and was created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
Lois Lane first appeared in Action Comics #1 and was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Maggie Sawyer first appeared in Superman #4 (1987) and was created by John Byrne.
Ray McNulty first appeared in the Smallville TV series episode “Visage” and was created by Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer.
Rose Greer first appeared in the Smallville TV series episode “X-Ray” and was created by Mark Verheiden.
Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 and was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
Tina Greer first appeared in the Smallville TV series episode “X-Ray” and was created by Mark Verheiden.
Toby Raynes first appeared in Superman #9 (1987) and was created by John Byrne.
Victor Russo is my own original creation.
Trivia
The idea of Tina Greer assuming the identity of Toby Raynes comes from an old fan fic idea, I had, that I never ended up writing. There it would’ve been an AU Tina Greer (in a fan rewrite of the episode “Apocalypse”), who came to Earth-1 and allowed to live. Ended up never writing it, as it got too big and too complicated (featuring alternate exists for Lex and Lana. Introduction of an AU Kara, who becomes Power Girl. And some other DC characters. Set up for season 8).
The origin for Changeling was a rewatch of “Visage”, where I realized that there was a possibility that Tina Greer was still alive. She was impaled, but the same episode establishing that Tina had seemingly burned herself to death. The possibility of the latter not being Tina was brought up, but never confirmed. Furthermore, Greg Arkin was seemingly crushed in “Metamorphosis”, then turned up alive in “Homecoming”.
For Changeling, I drew some inspiration from an episode of Without a Trace (2002-2009). Which dealt with the agents searching for a girl, who had lived an extremely unhappy life. Upon finding her and discovering that she was now living a happy life, the agents decide to leave her alone.
Though, I felt that there needed to be more than an unhappy childhood to motivate Clark to not turn Tina over to the police, for the murder of Ray McNulty. He did let Greg Arkin (a man who had murdered his mom, tried to kill Whitney and rape Lana) go. So, it wouldn’t have been unprecedented. However, I decided to add references to her having saved lived, on numerous occasions, since “Visage”. Opening for the argument that Tina’s repaid her debt to society.