Chapter Thirteen: The Hour of the Wolf

It was quiet.

Even though the earth was heaving in protest beneath them, even though each could hear sounds of calamity from distance places, in that moment as they looked upon each other, there was nothing but silence.

It was the silence that came when two armies faced each other across the field, the pause that held each side in place, anticipating the battle to come. It was like the first drop of blood, hanging pendulously in a single drop, waiting to fall and splatter. It is like the moment waiting for wakefulness to become sleep, that small window of time when there was nothing but the silence and men have sold theirs souls just to make it stop.

Some call it the hour of the wolf.

The last time they had faced each other, Clark Kent who had existed his entire life in a safe cloak of invulnerability learned just how fragile he was to someone from his own world. Even though it had been part of an agenda, Clark had remembered how humiliating it was to hear those three words.

Kneel before Zod.

Even now, the memory felt like ash in his mouth and as he stood his ground, waiting for something to happen while around him the Earth was continuing its painful rebirth as Krypton, Clark knew he would never do it again while there was breath in his body.

“I warned you Kal-El,” Zod broke the silence. “I warned you what I would do if you interfered with me again. This time, I will make you pay by killing everything on this Earth that means anything to you. When you betrayed me, you signed their death warrant. Remember that Kal-El when you bury them.”

Don’t.

Don’t let him bait you.

This is what he wants. He wants you to come to him. Don’t give him the advantage.

Clark repeated these words to himself like a chant. He had already tipped his hand by reacting to Zod’s intentions towards Chloe. Clark knew he could only make that mistake once. Lois had told him to keep a cool head. She had imparted to him every iota of useful information she could think of, words that had been branded into her memory by a father who saw her more as one of his troops than his daughter. For once Clark had been grateful to heed the advice.

“That the best you can do?” Clark goaded. “You sound like the villain in a bad movie. What next, you’re going to get me and my little dog?”

Zod’s expression became menacing and without response, shot forward towards Clark, determined to slam into him with the force of a 747. Clark held his ground, watching leaves and dirt corkscrew into the air with the sudden rush of wind. Watching closely, he saw Zod about to hit him in mid sternum when suddenly at the last minute, when Zod’s fists were inches away from him, Clark turned sharply, letting the man speed past. However, instead of letting him fly by completely, the last son of Krypton pulled back his fist and dropped it into the small of Zod’s back.

The power behind his fist stopped Zod in mid flight and drove him straight into the ground. As the General reeled, Clark used his super speed and moved in. Grabbing Zod’s head with both hands, Clark bashed his skull into the ground so many times that each impact against the dirt was little more than a blur. However, Zod was not about to take this abuse without retaliation. As Clark pummeled him overhead, the Kryptonian wrenched himself free by propelling himself upward.

Suddenly Clark felt himself aloft as Zod gained altitude. Not about to be taken on any unwilling flights, Clark let go and tumbled into the ground, creating a small dust cloud when he landed. Zod flew high enough to get free and then he was heading back towards Clark. This time however, the General greeted him with a burst of heat vision that more or less seared the expensive coat Clark was wearing to impersonate Kal, off his shoulders.

Flung back by the intense heat, Clark impacted against a tree, snapping its trunk in half as he tore through it. Zod continued his assault with heat vision, igniting the leaves as the deadly rays advanced towards Clark. Wasting no time, Clark picked up the blackened tree trunk and swung. He had never been allowed to play baseball but Clark did know how to hit. The trunk connected with Zod and sent him zooming through the sky and crashing into garage where Lex kept his fleet of expensive cars.

I hope he lands on the Ferrari, Clark thought to himself.

When Zod did not come out straight away, Clark zoomed across the debris strewn grounds, slowing just before he reached it. Suddenly, a wall exploded outwards as the said Ferrari flew out of the building towards it, followed by the Porsche, the Masseratti and every automobile contained in the garage. Clark dodged the cars flying towards him, swatting some aside and using his super breathe to deflect others from landing on top of him.

In the midst of avoiding the barrage of prestige cars, Clark lost sight of Zod.

Using his enhanced vision as he dodged the vehicles, he scanned the area for some sign of the General. He did not have to search for because Clark looked up just in time to see Zod plunging down on him. Like he had been struck with a pile driver, Clark was driven into the ground, his feet splitting the earth like one of the posts he managed to dig into the dirt on the farm with his bare hand. Clark sank all the way down to his armpits and was preparing to break free at super speed, when Zod zoomed in for the kill.

Throwing powerful right and left cross against Clark’s jaw as the younger man tried to free himself; each blow was hard enough to make a Kryptonian’s teeth rattle. As he suffered the blows, Clark’s rapidly disorientated mind clung to the words Lois had tried to make him remember. Don’t let him get close. Blood filled his mouth as he struggled out to claw his way out of the dirt but Zod’s blows did not stop.

“I did not want this Kal-El,” the enemy growled as he continued to beat Clark senseless. “I would have been perfectly content to let you be my ally but I knew that you are too much your father’s son. Sooner or later, you would betray me. It’s in your blood.”

Lashing out more out of desperation than fury, Clark turned the full force of his heat vision at anything directly before. A gust of heat, like a wind tunnel on fire not only flung Zod away from him but burned every living thing in the area. Vegetation turned into ashes, soil became fused like glass. The superheated air was shimmering before him as Clark hauled him out of the ground. Aching and bleeding, he saw Zod crashing into the tar driveway in front of the mansion, his landing breaking the slab apart.

Inhaling deeply and blowing out sharply, Clark sent another gust of wind at the General, hoisting him into the air as if a twister had ripped leaf from a branch. Speeding ahead, little more than a red and blue blur of colour, Clark went after Zod and jumped. While he could not fly, he was more than capable of reaching Zod in the air and throwing a punch at his enemy. There to meet Zod when both of them were on the ground, Clark continued to keep him off balance, alternating between, punches, blasts of heat vision and super breath, determined not to give Zod a chance to breathe.

“Are you afraid to face me?” Zod hurled at him when the General shattered another wall on Lex’s mansion. “You find like a frightened child!”

Clark refused to let himself be goaded, knowing that could be a fatal mistake. He could feel wet running out of his ears, taste the metallic tang of blood still. He would heal eventually but even Clark Kent had his limits. Zod on the other hand, seemed to become more enraged at the fact that he was being thwarted by Jor-El’s inexperienced son.

“Whatever works,” Clark retorted and snatched one of those pretensions statues framing Lex’s front garden and throwing it at Zod.

Zod vaporized it in mid air, heat vision splitting apart the marble lion figure into tiny fragments. Beneath them, deep fissures began to appear in the cement driveway, running across the concrete like ugly veins while the Luthor mansion continued to disintegrate under the intense seismic activity. A section of the opulent structure started to give way, no longer able to withstand the earthquake or the abuse inflicted upon it by the two warring combatants.

Clark paused a moment, distracted. Unfortunately it was all the time that Zod needed before the General was before him. Taking a cautionary step back, Clark tried to recover his mistake but Zod had anticipated the movement.

“An interesting strategy,” Zod retorted as he locked his hand around Clark’s arm. “Hit and run tactics. Very wise when dealing with a far superior opponent,” Zod sneered as he punched Clark so hard that the young man was driven to his knees. His blow followed another and Clark attempted to block him and wrench free. Instead, the General brought his skull down against Clark’s nose.

Bone crunched as the younger Kryptonian staggered back, bleeding profusely.

”Its strategy I might employ myself,” Zod retorted as he took advantage of Clark’s disorientated state and continue to pound him relentlessly, ensuring every punch was delivered for maximum damage. “I am a general Kal-El. I have done things you cannot even begin to conceive. I commanded Krypton’s armies! I could have brought her to greatness if it wasn’t for weaklings like your father! Scientists and pacifists who could never understand that non-violence is the breeding ground for subjugation! Did you think a simple farm boy like you could even begin to outthink me?” Zod demanded furiously. “Look at your world Kal-El! While you’re wasting all your time with this pathetic excuse of a fight, your precious Earth is destroying itself!”

Clark jaw was almost broken and he was trying to see through a swollen blood filled eye. “It was never about outthinking you Zod,” Clark smiled through the bruises and the blood on his face. “It was always about keeping you busy.”

***************

Chloe was waiting when Lois had finally emerged from the Kawatchee caves.

As it was, she counted herself fortunate that she was able to make it outside at all. The seismic chaos caused by Zod’s device had caused such violent tremors that Lois was fearful she might be buried alive after Jor-El returned her to the cleft in the chamber. Lois suspected that what was at the fortress was not Clark’s dad at all but some kind of information system with the memory anagrams of Joe, utilizing a kind of AI intelligence far beyond human comprehension. Perhaps that was why Fortress Joe was always so cryptic, because he could only say what Real Joe had programmed him within the parameters of its design.

It did not make any real difference because Fortress Joe was more than forthcoming when Lois appeared at Krypton’s last bastion in the universe and brought him up to speed on the plan she and Clark had devised. Okay, she devised it but Clark was the one doing the hard work. Thinking about him, Lois forced the worry from her mind. In the last two days, she had been let in on the secret of the century and was she, Lois Lane, intrepid reporter of the Inquisitor thinking that this could be the most momentous occasion in human history?

No, she was thinking about her boyfriend who might be getting the snot pounded out of him.

Fortress Joe showed her what she needed and then sent her straight back to the Kawatchee Caves which was shaking so badly that Lois had real fear as she raced through the darkened chambers that the roof would come down above her head. When she saw daylight against, Lois did not imagine that there could be anything so sweet. However, she had no time to savor the sensation. No sooner than she appeared, Chloe’s voice snapped her back to the mission at hand.

“Lois!” Chloe hurried to her. “Thank God,” her cousin sighed with visible relief. “I was sure that whole cave was going to collapse. We have to get going. Clark’s at the Luthor mansion. That’s where the tremors are originating. Looks like Zod likes to keep to familiar ground.”

After Lois had gone through, Clark and Chloe had tried to trace the origins of the damaging signal. Unfortunately, with the alien hard drive commandeering all lanes on the information superhighway, that task was easier said than done. Venturing a guess that Zod would use the mansion as his base of operations since his second resurrection, Clark chanced a quick trip to confirm his theory. He had paused long enough to tell Chloe before rushing off to face Zod again. All she could do was wait until Lois returned from the fortress while he went off to distract Zod.

“Okay,” Lois nodded as she returned Chloe’s embrace and started moving towards the car. “You know what to do, make your stops at the mansion and then keep going.”

“What?” Chloe stared at her. “Lois I’m not leaving you there!”

“Chloe don’t fight me on this one okay?” Lois looked at her sharply. “I might get myself killed doing this. I don’t want the same to happen to you. Besides, you heard what Clark said, if we fail then someone else has to be able to warn others, tell them what’s happening. Chloe,” Lois said trying not to sound as melodramatic as she uttered the warning, “you’re our last line of defense.”

***********

Zod had been so enraged by a farm boy challenging him that he hadn’t heard what Clark had, the rumble of a car’s engine just beyond the mansion’s line of sight. He had heard the engine stop but briefly and then resume its course. Knowing that it was going to cost him, Clark made a pretty good show of defending himself, even when he let blows through he could have blocked. Zod needed to be distracted and Clark was all too aware of what was at stake. Lois’ plan was a gamble, a one shot that Clark was willing to suffer because she was right. He had defeated Zod the last time because Clark had been able to take him by surprise.

To only way to do it now, was to surprise him again.

“It was always about keeping you busy.”

Zod’s fist halted in mid air as he hovered over Clark, understanding filling his mind. Turning his head towards the mansion, he saw Lois Lane through the walls, breaking into the ruined structure, moving down the halls of what was left of Luthor’s parlor where the alien hard drive continued to wreak havoc. The girl was moving fast with skill he noted. The farm boy may not be a soldier but the girl…the girl could have been. Searching Oliver’s memories, Zod remembered that Lois was the daughter of Sam Lane, a three star general.

Appropriate, he thought venomously. A general had given her life. A general would take it away again.

“How long did you think you are going to be able to keep her from me?” Zod sneered at Clark.

“Long enough,” Clark blasted heat vision into two focused beams of crimson into Zod’s eyes.

Zod screamed. It was possibly the first time he had actually screamed. The pain seared through the back of his skull and only his invulnerability saved him and his vision. Staggering backward, his eye lids blistering, his visual receptors struggled to compensate for the overload. Clark wasted no time and closed the distance between them. This time, it was Zod’s turn to suffer. Pouncing on the general, Clark flattened him against the concrete floor and drove him into the ground, using his fist like jackhammers.

Taking advantage of his rather underhanded attack on Zod, Clark hit him so hard repeatedly that the concrete beneath Zod cracked. What windows that hadn’t been broken by the earthquakes were shattering one by one by the force of his blows. Like explosions, each time he hit, another crack appeared on the glass. Clark did not recall ever needing to use his strength like this. It felt good to unleash it all; it felt good to not have to hide who he was.

Hell, it even felt good to beat the living shit of out of Zod.

“This is MY HOME!” Clark growled. “You will never hurt anyone here again! Even if I had to send you and Oliver to the Zone! Do you hear me? NEVER!”

Beneath him, Zod’s flesh began to bruise, began to soften like his had. He could feel blood on his knuckles, the ache in his arms as he continued to beat on the General, unleashing all the repressed fury he had been keeping inside of him, the rage he felt because of what he had done as Kal, caused by this animal’s servant, Fine. Fueled by had and frustration at what had transpired the last two days, the indignities and the violence he was committed, Clark Kent allowed himself to feel fury at the injustices of his life of late.

“I can’t believe you thought I was ever going to join you. Earth is my world! All that’s left of Krypton are memories I don’t have. I laugh thinking you actually believed I was going to help you all kill all those people!”

“NOBODY LAUGHS AT ME! NOBODY!”

Zod’s scream of fury was like an animal’s roar. Fingers dug into his forearm as Clark was suddenly surging into the air, leaving the ground far behind him. Zod was flying, taking them into the sky. The General’s blistered face was healing rapidly as they flew up into the clouds. Clark felt the wind billowing under him, felt the cold rushing against his cheek as they disappeared into the thick cumulus. Trying not to feel fear, Clark hung on as the Luthor mansion became tiny beneath him.

“If you can believe anything Kal-El,” Zod growled at him hoarsely, “believe whether you can FLY!”

With that, he released Clark and watched the young man fall.

**************

Jesus Christ on a crutch, Lois thought as she shifted through the damaged ruins of Lex’s mansion, is Lex going to be seriously PO’ed when he comes back. Lois had only been to the mansion a number of times before Clark’s falling out with Lex. However, she remembered thinking how gauche it was that anyone would move a Scottish castle from its ancestral lands to Kansas just so they could use it stroke themselves over the prestige of their lineage.

Still, Lois still had to admit feeling horrified at seeing the mansion in this state.

It wasn’t easy moving through the building especially with the ground shuddering before her and Lois needing to avoid the barrage of falling debris. She shouldn’t be in here but if Clark was risking his life fighting Zod, than she was going to risk her own fulfilling her part of the plan. A support beam fell behind her with a loud crack, covering Lois in dust as she reached the doorway to the parlor. It was the most logical place to start and the one room that hadn’t been completely demolished yet. Knowing Luthor, he probably built himself one structurally indestructible room to protect his sorry ass.

Out of breath slightly when she arrived in the parlor, Lois felt another lurch in her stomach as she saw the destruction inside. An almighty crack had split the floor, leaving a gapping breach half a foot wide across the polished wooden floor. Broken edges jutted upwards like a small row of spears pointing at the air. Almost everything that wasn’t bolted down was on the floor. Shelves, tables and ornaments covered the ruined Persian rug. However, Lex’s desk remained intact as Lois’ eyes was drawn to the spinning amber light that circled the room like the strobe inside a nightclub. It was drawing energy from the laptop, using it as a conduit to continue its rampage against Earth.

It was the epicenter of all the chaos.

Lois ran across the floor, maintaining her footing as the ground shuddered and quaked, making her fight for every inch of space between her and Lex’s desk. She saw the hard drive continuing its turn to transform Earth into Krypton. She couldn’t help but stare at it for a while, marveling the technology. How far ahead was Krypton in comparison to Earth? Was it any reason that Zod and Fortress Joe had such an appreciative view of humans? Compared to Krypton, Earth must be something out of the Stone Age.

Her first impulse was to reach for it but Clark had warned her against it.

“Okay, no smashing you into a thousand little pieces,” she told the thing. “Well do the next best thing then.” Producing the gun Lionel had provided, the one still containing Kryptonite shells laced with lead, Lois took aimed and fired.

Not at the hard drive but at the laptop.

The first bullet made her jump slightly as the laptop exploded beneath her as the casing was blown apart by the impact. There was really no need for the others but Lois wanted to make sure. She almost emptied the entire magazine into the thing, turning it in to little more than a collection of plastic and metal fragments. The hard drive stopped spinning almost immediately. Cut off, the Earth suddenly went still as the tremors abruptly stopped. Like a spinning top suddenly out of steam, the hexagonal disk began to slow.

Suddenly, Lois felt the familiar gust of wind sweep into the room and pause behind her. She prayed it was Clark but somehow, she had really doubted it. Swinging around, her fingers still poised on the trigger of her weapon, she was ready to fire at the first sight of Zod.

“What have you done?” The General demanded glaring at the laptop she had completely destroyed.

It was unnerving to see Oliver’s face staring at her and for a fraction of a second; Lois almost forgot that it was not a Kryptonian megalomaniac standing before her but Ollie, the only man other than Clark she could have loved. She wondered if he was still in there and remembered what Clark had said about Lex the last time Zod occupied a human host.

With that in mind, she did not hesitate to pull the trigger and fire the rest of the Kryptonian bullets into him.

He barely noticed them and seemed almost amused when nothing happened. “You humans are priceless,” Zod closed the distance between him and Kal-El’s female in a blink of an eye. Hand around her throat; he hoisted her off the floor with one hand while crushing her gun in the other. “I’m not going to bother explaining the whole business of Kryptonite only affecting those were who are actually born on Krypton as opposed to the ones who arrive in the manner which I did.”

Lois struggled to break free but she knew it was useless. As it was, his grip around her throat was vise like and she could barely breathe, let alone respond.

“I warned Kal-El what I would do if he betrayed me again,” Zod stared at her mercilessly. “What happens to you now is with his compliments.”

PART FOURTEEN