Chapter Fourteen: Up, up and Away

He was falling.

Beneath him, the ground was starting to loom large and though Clark Kent knew that he would most likely survive the impact, he couldn’t be sure that he would come out of it in any shape to fight Zod. Being injured did not frighten him. However, being too injured to help Lois terrified him beyond belief. Zod had gloated as he zoomed past Clark, heading towards the house, heading towards Lois with the satisfaction of knowing that Clark as in no position to pursue him.

As the wind rushed through his hair, billowing through his clothes, Clark felt furious that he was caught like this. He was a Kryptonian and he should know how to fly! He should! Not for the first time, Clark swore at himself for not taking the time he should have had to train with Jor-El, to learn about his heritage or at the very least, learn the extent of what he could do. Seeing the Luthor mansion beneath him, Clark used his enhanced vision to seek out Zod and Lois.

God! Zod was closing in on her.

“LOIS!” Clark let out a scream of anguish at his inability to warn her.

He couldn’t lose her! Not now and it wouldn’t be like losing Alicia. It would be a thousand times worse than that. He and Alicia’s relationship had been driven by like minded insecurities because of their abilities. He was able to be himself in front of her because of her own secrets but with Lois, there was never any of that pressure. She had accepted him for what he was, for no other reason than he was Clark Kent, exasperating farm boy. Even after what he had done to her as Kal, Lois still loved him.

And Clark loved her.

Completely, without hesitation, with the utter certainty that she was the one that Martha had promised was out there for him. Even with Lana there was never this doubt that it would not work out with them. After he had finally admitted how he felt about Lois, Clark couldn’t begin to imagine looking back at Lana and now he couldn’t imagine how he would ever live without Lois.

The ground was getting closer; he could see trees appearing against the verdant green below him. Closing his eyes, Clark forced himself to focus. He could fly. He knew it. He had done it. As Kal-El, he had been able to fly, Martha had seen him do it and that time when he had found himself on the highway, he had flown. All Kryptonians could and better or for worse, he was Kryptonian and he had to learn!

Now.

Clark didn’t have much time, less than a minute or so he estimated before he plunged to the ground for what was certain to be a painful landing. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself down and dredge up memories that he had tried so hard to bury. He had told the truth to his parents that he didn’t remember anything about being Kal-El during the three months that he was missing. However, something had happened to him when he first discovered the fortress. Jor-El had attempted to train him then and during the aborted process, he had been assailed with a myriad of images, a kaleidoscope he still couldn’t make complete sense of.

However, what it did shake loose were clearer memories of that period of time following his emergence in the cornfield where Lois had found him.

It was easy. He knew that much. Zod had taken to it without any trouble at all. The girl Kara had done the same. It was just a matter of will and right now, as Clark saw the fissured driveway of the Luthor mansion rushing up to greet him, Clark had he had found plenty of will. Focusing all his energy into believing he could fly, into knowing that he was capable, Clark’s aching jaw clenched, his teeth ground against each other.

The wind was rushing at him, blowing through his hair, shielding him from nothing. He could feel it against his skin, the currents rushing defiantly past him, refusing to stop, refusing to give him what he needed. Clark opened his eyes and saw the concrete below coming to claim him and instinctively, folded his arm’s, protecting his face from the impact when suddenly, the rushing air past him stilled.

Blinking twice, Clark lowered his hands and realized that he wasn’t falling. He was barely a meter off the ground but he was still off the ground.

Hovering.

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

Chloe should have done this. She really shouldn’t have.

Lois had told her to carry out her part of the plan and leave but when she saw Clark and Zod gaining altitude and then the General leaving Clark to fall, Chloe was spinning the wheel of her car and speeding towards the mansion. There was only one place he would head to if abandoned his fight with Clark and that had to be back towards the device. The same device Lois had sneaked into the mansion to disable. Although Chloe felt some concern for Clark, she knew he was pretty indestructible, he’d survive the fall.

Lois, however, wouldn’t survive an encounter with Zod.

And neither would you, her inner voice reminded as Chloe made her way through the ruined mansion, trying to decide what it was she attempting to accomplish here. She couldn’t answer that question but did notice that the building was not longer shaking and shuddering around her nor was the ground tearing itself apart with violent earthquakes. Lois must have stopped the alien hard drive somehow.

Zod couldn’t be too happy about that.

Just how unhappy he was became known to Chloe when she stepped into what was left of Lex’s parlor and saw Zod’s hand clenched around Lois’ neck while dangling her off the ground like a marionette puppet. Chloe’s stomach lurched as Lois continued to kick violently, trying to break free of a grip she had no hope of escaping before realizing with horror that her cousin was losing consciousness. Driven out of fear, Chloe picked up an iron poker that had spilled out of is stand in the tremors and crept up behind Zod before smashing the cast iron rod against the arm choking the life out of Lois.

“Let her go!” She demanded.

In retrospect it had about as useful as trying to defend oneself with a baked bean against charging rhinoceros.

The rod vibrated hard in her hand as she had attempted to wrap it around a steel girder. Shuddering, it forced Chloe to drop it against the floor, making a loud clattering noise as it landed. Wide-eyed with fear, Chloe retreated, remembering that one blast of heat vision could end her life and everything she ever dreamed of being. Worst of all, she’d die being unable to be of any help to Lois at all.

“That is quite a request,” Zod half turned and fixed his high-powered gaze at Chloe, a small smile crossing his lips. “How nice to see you, Chloe.”

That she knew her name surprised her.

Chloe quickly reminded herself that this was Oliver Queen’s body and no doubt, Oliver’s memories were at Zod’s disposal. “Let her go, please,” Chloe demanded, uncertain why she was making the request. Perhaps it was because he was speaking to her almost politely that made her try. She had nothing to lose.

“As you wish,” his green eyes lingered on her and for some reason, Chloe felt her skin crawl. Unclenching his fist, he let Lois collapsed to the ground. She didn’t move after piling on the debris covered floor in a heap.

“Lois!” Chloe hurried to her side to see if she was alive. Zod’s powerful handprint against Lois’ throat created an ugly discolored bruise and Lois’ breathing was labored. Chloe wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.

“I have been waiting to meet you Chloe,” Zod’s hand grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from Lois.

“Me?” Chloe didn’t understand as she stumbled to her feet. “What do you want with me?”

Zod produced an almost serpentine smile. “I want to give you the chance to save your cousin. Give me what I want and I will let her live instead of the painful death she so richly deserves for plotting against me with Kal-El.”

“What about Clark…?” Chloe stuttered, stalling for time.

“There is nothing you can do for Kal-El,” Zod’s expression hardened. “His fate is sealed whatever your decision. Hers is not however.”

Chloe was genuinely puzzled. Her contact with Oliver Queen was infrequent at best. Of course they ran into each other Clark’s barn every now and then but other than that, she barely knew him. What possible impression could she have left in his mind that engendered Zod’s interest?

“What do you want?” She asked finally, feeling this nagging fear in her pit of her stomach that was growing in intensity.

“An heir.”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding?” Her exclamation was one part shock, disbelief and plain bewilderment. “Why me?”

In a small way Chloe was flattered, the way a baby seal was flattered just before some seal hunter staved in its skull for a Park Avenue fur coat. Keeping calm her obvious horror, she played the game for now because somewhere out there, Clark Kent was going to come to their rescue them and she had to keep Lois alive until then. Zod had no reason to keep her alive and every reason to kill her.

Zod’s hand brushed against her cheek and Chloe fought the urge to flinch, even though she was terrified out of her mind. “I will establish the bloodline of Zod on this world. You will be my consort and the mother of my children. You have intelligence and spirit. Qualities my sons will need. In exchange, I will let you keep a select number of loved ones alive for your amusement.”

It was almost surreal and years of hiding her feelings for Clark Kent was probably the only reason why Chloe managed to hide her horror at what he was suggesting. “Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.” She swallowed thickly, glancing at Lois. It concerned her to no end that Lois still wasn’t moving.

“A wise piece advice would be not to,” Zod warned.

“Then I won’t,” Chloe was sweetly, trying not to shake. “Now let me help her, please...”

“I need one other thing from you first,” Zod lowered his face to hers. His lips inches away from hers.

Chloe shuddered, “what?”

“Your laptop.”

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

In actual truth, Lois Lane was very much awake.

She had been listening and not only had she been listening, her hand was clenched firmly around the crystal that she had retrieved from the fortress. When Chloe had come to check on her, she had slipped it into Lois’ hand to keep it from Zod. While she listened in horror at what Zod was proposing to Chloe…major gross factor here…she wondered where Clark was. Chloe was supposed to meet Clark once Lois had shut down the device. The plan was to distract Zod long enough to shut the thing off and bring Zod here, giving Clark enough time to meet Chloe and get the crystal.

However, it had gone wrong because Clark had not come. So where was he?

Wherever he was, Lois couldn’t let Zod get to that laptop.

Waiting until Zod’s back was turned while he dragged Chloe out of the room, Lois got to her feet and tried to reach the General. Her throat was still burning with pain but she had to move. All their lives depended on it. Grabbing his arm, she slammed Jor-El’s crystal against his bicep praying it would work. Zod turned around, eyes widened as he stared at her. It only took him a second to see what she was pressing against his flesh.

Eyes widening with fury, Zod snapped his arm against her with enough force to send Lois flying across the room. Lois uttered a sharp cry as something sharp tore through her shoulder and started to bleed onto her chest.

“LOIS!” Chloe screamed. “You son of a bitch!” She struggled to break free as she saw her cousin impaled with one of the jagged edges of the torn up floorboards.

Suddenly the wall behind them both shattered and Clark smashed into the room, splitting Lex’s heavy oak table in two as he sped through it like a streak of red. Pausing near Zod long enough to get Chloe free and throwing a powerful uppercut against the General’s chin and sent him through the ceiling away from Lois and Chloe.

Dropping to the floor, he saw Jor-El’s crystal amongst the debris and retrieved it, preparing to go after Zod when Clark saw something that froze him to the spot.

“Lois…?” The word escaped in a strangled whisper.

He saw blood, rivers of red running down her shoulder, spreading across her shirt and the sharp point of wood that protruded from her flesh. He saw the bruise on her neck as Chloe ran to her, weeping in fear.

Oh God, Lois.

“Clark, we have to get her to a hospital!” Chloe cried, uncertain whether or not to move her. She was already reaching inside her jacket, trying to find her cell to call an ambulance if it was even possible to do so.

So much blood.

Clark was at her side in a second but this time, Lois did not stir. He could see the wooden shard through her skeleton, could see the broken bones that was not visible to the eye.

Please let her be alive. Please don’t take her away from me.

“Lois,” Clark looked at Chloe with anguish. “Lois, say something.” His voice pleaded with her. He needed her to say something, anything. Clark wanted to wake up and tell him to quit panicking, to smirk at him in that way she had, to call him Smallville. Clark needed to hear her voice or nothing he did ever did in this life would matter. Nothing.

“Clark she’s out of it,” Chloe raised her eyes to him and implored, seeing his panic. This hit too close to home after what happened with Alicia. “We need to get her to a hospital now!”

However Clark was no longer listening. Not since seeing Jonathan die had Clark Kent felt such deep, terrible despair. In his hand, Clark was still clenching Jor-El’s crystal in his palm. He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes narrowing as he slid the object into the pocket of his jeans. Barely aware of anything but his fury, Clark Kent leapt into the air screaming his enemy’s name.

“ZODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!”

Clark flew through the ceiling, raining mortar and debris down against the ground before soaring through several floors before exploding out the roof of the Luthor mansion. Roof tiles broke around him as he reached the open sky and found Zod waiting.

“Is she dead yet, Kal-El?” Zod sneered as he hovered not far above the mansion.

Clark did not respond.

He kept flying. He had learned how to fly out of desperation but now hatred was helping things along considerably. Like a projectile, Clark slammed into Zod and kept going. They left the mansion far behind them again but this time Clark was no longer the novice. True, he was not as adept as he would like but his rage gave him focus and his adrenaline made his senses sharper. In mid air, he threw another punch at Zod, sending the General spinning through the sky. Clark didn’t let him come to a rest until he sped up to Zod again, delivering another powerful blow, one after the other.

The ferocity of the boy’s attack took the General by surprise.

And something else had changed. The boy wasn’t holding back. In all their previous bouts, Zod had detected the slight hint of resistance because the humans who raised him had crippled him with senseless moral values that had no place in a true son of Krypton. However as Zod fended off Clark’s blows, taken back somewhat by the savage punches, he knew that moral code was the farthest thing in Kal-El’s mind now. The boy hadn’t been fighting to kill before.

He was now.

Clark couldn’t see anything but Lois lying there, covered in blood. Zod had destroyed Krypton, had threatened to destroy everything and everyone that he cared about. This couldn’t continue. Zod would keep coming back, over and over again until he got what he wanted, until Earth was destroyed. Clark couldn’t protect Lois all the time against this animal, against this aberration wearing Oliver’s face. Using his super speed, Clark pounded Zod with such fury that the General had little opportunity to shield himself.

Grabbing Zod while the man was disorientated, he flew across the landscape, marveling at how he could have denied himself this pleasure for so long. Driven by will he did not think he possessed, Clark flew to the waters of Crater Lake and plunged beneath its murky surface. It occurred to him then that this terrain would be completely alien to Zod if everything he knew about Krypton was correct. Diving straight to the bottom of the volcanic lake, Clark could feel the heat of magma churning beneath the lakebed.

He could see Zod trying to accustom himself to the terrain but Clark would give him no such time. Using his heat vision, the water began to boil, creating even more confusion for Zod to overcome. Steam, heat, bubbles created a confusing mixture that Clark was accustomed to after way to many games of Marco Polo with Pete and Chloe over the years. Once he had created enough chaos, Clark went in for the kill again, attacking Zod until his limbs ached. Until he started to see the water discolor with red and realized that Zod was bleeding.

Good.

By the time Zod had been born, Krypton’s surface had become so crystallized due to the rapidly changing environment that complete immersion in water was almost impossible. Water was too strictly rationed for it to be used for so frivolous a purpose. Of course at that time, the possibility, that Rao the native Kryptonian sun was going nova, never occurred to anyone and was responsible for much of this climatic changes. However, little of that mattered now because Zod was seeing his blood in the water because Kal-El, fueled by rage, fighting with the advantage that came with hatred, not to mention raw, youthful talent had been pushed too far.

No!

He refused to be beaten by a child! He would not be. Zod attempted to swim out of this alien environment but a hand wrapped around his ankle and proceeded to beat him against the lake bed. Swinging back and forth, slamming him into the hard bedrock, Zod began to see more red staining the water.

It was time to finish this. Clark swung Zod around and threw him towards the surface before following the General as he was flung out of the water. Flight and speed making it easy for him to catch up with Zod’s landing site, Clark landed on the soft sand. Zod was barely able to fight back, still reeling at the thrashing he had received beneath the water and Clark saw him for the first time, bleeding, broken, and ready to be killed.

Helpless.

It would be so easy to end him now. To finish him once and for all. If Clark was at all sensible, he would kill Zod and be done with the General and any lingering threat to Lois and his family. This animal had hurt Lois, had tried to kill her! He couldn’t bear to lose her, not after losing Jonathan. It was too much. He couldn’t go through the pain of losing Lois, like he had Jonathan.

Jonathan.

The memory of the man who shaped his life returned to Clark at that moment, as if even in death, Jonathan Kent had one last lesson to teach. The man who gave him everything of value in his life, who taught him the lessons that would follow Clark to the grave had only ever asked one thing of his son. To be a good man.

And good men didn’t kill.

Closing his eyes, Clark blinked away tears and knew he could not do it. No, not could... would not do it.

The fury of Lois’ injury was subsiding and he wanted to kill Zod badly but if he killed Zod then he would become the very thing that Jonathan Kent had tried so hard to prevent. He would become a killer. Opening his eyes as Zod’s fight had left him, albeit temporarily, Clark decided that it was time. Reaching into his pocket, he produced the crystal.

“NOO!” Zod’s eyes widened at the doom approaching and tried to jump up but Clark slammed a boot down against his chest and held him in place.

“I WILL KILL YOU KAL-EL! I SWEAR IT! EVEN IF YOU SEND ME BACK! I WILL FIND A WAY TO REUTRN AND I WILL DESTROY YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU HOLD DEAR! I WILL TEAR THIS WORLD APART BECAUSE OF YOU! BECAUSE OF YOU!”

“It’s over Zod!” Clark barked and kicked him in the jaw before lowering down long enough to press the crystal displaying the family crest of El against the man’s cheek. “Send my regards to other prisoners in the Zone.”

“NOOOOO!!!!” Zod continued to scream, fighting the inevitable as the crystal began to glow.

Clark stood back and watched dispassionately as Zod began to writhe and scream, fighting against the power of the crystal that was tearing his essence away his briefly acquired host. Their eyes locked in the instant before the Zod’s wraith like body ripped itself free and in his departure, Zod hissed.

“You have won nothing. This is far from over…!” Zod hissed before his words broke into mindless screams of agony as he was pulled out of Oliver Queen’s body. However, his freedom from flesh was short lived because the glowing crystal was soon dragging Zod back into his prison. Clutching wildly at the air with fingers he no longer possessed, Zod’s intangible form disappeared into the trap created by his greatest enemy.

Screaming words he could no longer understand, Clark stared with an expression of stone as the crystal stopped glowing and fell from Oliver’s cheek, leaving a burn that would vanish soon enough. Oliver’s eyes flew open and he sat up, making contact with Clark for a second before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Walking across the sand, Clark kneeled down next to Oliver and retrieved his family crest before slipping it back into his pocket. The danger was over but the aftermath remained and Clark had a lot of work to do. Chloe would have gotten Lois help already but Clark was leaving nothing to chance, he needed to get back to her. Also he would have to come up with some way to explain to Lex what he had seen. Clark had an idea of sorts and it was a scenario that seemed to work well over the last six years.

There was no reason to believe it would be any different now.

Picking up Oliver, Clark Kent took comfort in one good result to come out of all this. Leaping into the air, Clark Kent, not Kal-El flew into the air, eager to greet the sky.

A/N – The scene of Clark’s hovering over the ground is just my little homage to Superman Returns and the barn scene.

PART FIFTEEN