Clana Episode 9.08: "Image"

[carolus]

Dozens of people had gathered in midtown Metropolis when the time came for Sacks’ press conference at three o’clock. Clark and Lana silently slipped into the crowd, watching as the district attorney glad-handed the police chief and various members of the city council before the deputy mayor introduced him to the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, speaking into the cluster of microphones on the podium, “District Attorney Sacks.”

“Good afternoon,” Sacks said as he took his place behind the podium. “Thank you all for joining me.”

Scanning the crowd assembled in the blocked-off street before him, the district attorney confidently smiled before extending a hand in a supposedly welcoming gesture as he said, “If you’re out there, Blur… come.

“Come join me at this very podium,” he continued, still outwardly smiling as he gestured to the space next to him, “and take your place as a role model in this great city of ours.”

Sacks’ address became sterner as he said, “A true hero would not hide. He would show himself, and take responsibility for the mistakes he’s made.”

Clark and Lana inwardly fumed at the dilemma that Sacks had placed them in. If no one responded to his challenge, then the district attorney would brand the Blur a coward. But if they stepped up, Sacks and his cronies would spare no effort in investigating them, putting their families under a microscope. It was the textbook definition of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Sacks wouldn’t have been so confident in his challenge if he had known that even if the man he was challenging wasn’t inclined to incinerate him with a hard look, there was still the matter of a Kandorian soldier who at that very moment had the district attorney in his crosshairs.

The soldier in question, one Jer-Em by name, was snuggled up behind a Russian-made Dragunov SVD 7.62x54mm sniper rifle on the thirtieth floor of a Metropolis high-rise a quarter of a mile from the site of Sacks’ press conference. At that distance, lying prone as he was on a table three feet away from the open window, no one on the street would able to see the rifle before Jer-Em fired -- if in fact it became necessary for him to fire, that is.

Jer-Em dearly hoped that it did become necessary. Enough intelligence on Sacks had been conveyed to him as part of his briefing for this assignment that he had developed a thorough contempt for this particular human. Like the majority of his fellow Kandorians, he was most perplexed by many humans’ obsession with financial gain as a measure of status. And this human, Sacks, who publicly judged the rightness of Kal-El’s acts while privately subverting the principles of his office for mere material gain and endangering his constituents in the process -- he was an affront to Jer-Em’s sensibilities.

Back at the press conference, Clark was seriously considering answering Sacks’ challenge. Looking over at her boyfriend and seeing the expression on his face, Lana was grabbing his upper arm to warn him off that course of action when the Kryptonian’s attention was abruptly seized by something else -- a piercing, high-pitched whine directed solely at himself.

Clark grimaced, clapping a hand to his left temple in pain as the ultrasonic beacon bored into his consciousness. He hadn’t heard that sound since the day of the second meteor shower, when he’d reunited the Crystal of Air and the Crystal of Fire in the hidden chamber in the Kawatche caves.

Seeing her boyfriend’s distress, Lana worriedly asked, “Clark, what’s wrong?”

“Have to… get to the Fortress,” Clark gritted out through the pain.

“Okay,” Lana acquiesced, letting him drape an arm across her shoulders. Turning both of them around, she began guiding him back out through the crowd.

Encountering Clark and Lana as she not-so-gracefully pushed her way through the crowd, Lois’ conviction that her colleague was the Blur was shaken by the look of very real pain on Clark’s face. She’d seen people fake illness before, but it didn’t look like Clark was. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We think it’s a migraine,” Lana explained, still partially supporting Clark’s weight. “I’m taking him to get some help.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t wanna listen to this guy if I had a headache either,” Lois sympathized before she went back to pushing her way through the crowd. Even if Clark wasn’t the Blur, her objective hadn’t changed any.

“Out of my way. Excuse me. Move it or lose it,” she ordered as she made her way to the stage, glaring at those who attempted to block her path.

“No, it’s all right,” Sacks told the plainclothes officers nearby as Lois stepped up on the platform. He was interested in what the Blur’s biggest supporter in the press had to say. “Let her through.”

“Zip it, counselor,” Lois muttered to Sacks as she moved to stand behind the podium. Resting her hands on it as she leaned forward to speak into the microphones, she looked intently at the crowd before she saying, “I’m Lois Lane from the Daily Planet, and I’m here to tell you that I know the Blur.”

There were murmurs from the audience at this, and a plainclothes officer moved toward Lois, only for D.A. Sacks to raise a restraining hand to the man, saying “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Up in Jer-Em’s sniper perch, the Kandorian was about to pull the trigger on Sacks when he heard a voice through the earpiece of his headset.

// “Dev-Em, hold your fire,” // Basqat ordered in Kryptonian. // “The major wishes to see how this situation plays out.” //

// “Aye, sir,” // Jer-Em replied as he carefully eased his index finger off the trigger of the Dragunov, rankling as much at the reference to Zod’s presumed rank as to being addressed as Dev-Em.

He and his follow Kandorians were not truly the people that they remembered being before their donors’ blood samples were taken on Krypton; they were merely copies of those people. Therefore he had privately taken a new first name -- Jer, from an old Kryptonian word for “echo.”

Back at the press conference, Lois told the crowd, “The D.A. says that a true hero would come forward. Well, the Blur can’t.

“It’s because he knows that the best way to protect you and me is to steer clear of all of this political hoopla,” here she briefly shot a scathing look at Ray Sacks, who stood off to her right, “and remain the one thing that you and I need most -- a light in the darkness. A symbol for us to believe in when all other hope is lost.”

Pausing for a moment, Lois went to say, “I’ve looked into the Blur’s heart, and I can tell you that his intentions are good.”

She concluded by saying, “Let the Blur be the hero he needs to be.”

Looking back as he and Lana walked down the street, Clark smiled as he heard the thunderous applause from the crowd following Lois’ speech before the two of them superspeeded out of Metropolis, heading for the Arctic.

Up in his perch, Jer-Em allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction at the crestfallen look on Ray Sacks’ face that he had glimpsed through his telescopic sight as he heard Basqat’s command: // “Stand down and prepare for withdrawal, Dev-Em. Major Zod has decided that there is no need for intervention at the present time.” //

// “Aye, sir,” // Jer-Em replied as he engaged the safety on his rifle, then removed the magazine and carefully ejected the chambered round before proceeding to ease himself off of the table that he had been lying on and packing up his rifle.

* * * * *

When Clark and Lana reached the Fortress of Solitude, the ultrasonic beacon immediately shut off as they entered the main chamber and found Kara waiting for them. He was impressed by the speed of her arrival, as he had activated their family beacon only a few days before.

Looking over his cousin’s attire, he noted that she wore the same outfit of a blue jacket, red scoop-neck shirt, and black trousers that she’d worn the last time he saw her, plus the little metal pendant shaped like their family crest that she’d shown him before she left.

“It’s good to see that you and Clark are back together,” Kara told Lana, hugging the younger woman before turning and favoring Clark with the sort of amused expression that one might bestow on a distracting younger sibling.

“So what’s so important that I had to take a hyperspatial shunt all the way from the Aquarius galaxy? I couldn’t feel anything for two days -- except for a feeling like I had ants crawling all over me.”

Clark found himself smiling at his cousin’s good-natured complaint. “It’s good to see you too, Kara.” Addressing her question, he said, “When you were here the last time, you said that you heard rumors in the Phantom Zone that Kandor somehow survived Krypton’s destruction. I think we found the source of those rumors, right here on Earth.”

Her expression turning serious at this information, Kara softly asked, “How?”

“It’s something called the Orb of Kandor, a military experiment that was conceived during the Last War, a few months before you were born,” Clark told her. The war with Black Zero had retained that designation because the civil war that Zod had started had barely ended -- and never been officially named -- before Krypton was destroyed.

“It was a project designed to clone an entire battalion of Kandorian soldiers to ensure Krypton’s survival. The Orb was based on technology developed by my father and… altered by yours,” he said

He refrained from using the more accurate “perverted” in front of Kara. She already knew the nefarious truth of Zor-El’s character, thanks to the fact that his replicant had nearly killed her in this very Fortress two years ago for interfering with his plan to wipe out humanity.

“And the Orb’s been activated? There are Kandorians here, on this planet?” Kara asked urgently. When Clark nodded, she inquired, “Which battalion is it?”

Clark hesitated for a moment before replying, “An elite unit called the Sword of Rao.”

“But… that was Zod’s battalion, back when he was a major,” his cousin murmured, her face taking on an expression of dread as she said in a near-whisper, “Then Zod is here. He’s alive.”

“Yes, but he’s depowered,” Clark informed her. “All of the Kandorians are. My father made sure of that by irradiating the Orb with blue kryptonite before it was sent to Earth.”

He pausing before saying, “That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous, though. They’ve already released a Kryptonian virus that made Metropolis look like something out of ‘28 Days Later,’ and God knows what else Zod is planning while they try and restore their powers.”

“So you need me to help rein them in,” Kara deduced. She mulled that over for a moment before acquiescing with a shrug. “Okay. Well, if nothing else, it’ll be good to see James again. I suppose he and Chloe are married by now.”

Seeing her cousin go pale, the Kryptonian girl immediately became concerned. “Kal-El? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Clark swallowed heavily, trying to figure out how to tell Kara that Jimmy was dead -- killed by Davis Bloome after Chloe had separated the ex-paramedic from his monstrous Kryptonian alter ego Doomsday with black kryptonite. His cousin’s crush on Jimmy had honestly slipped his mind when he had decided to activate the beacon to call her home.

He took a deep breath, then looked his cousin square in the eye before saying, “Kara, there’s something you should know…”

* * * * *

While Clark filled Kara in on what had happened since she left Earth, Lois Lane was feeling rather satisfied with herself as she returned to the Daily Planet. Public support for the Blur had skyrocketed, any ill feelings over the blackout having apparently vanished. Quite a few people had pointed out that just because the Blur’s symbol had appeared at the recent rash of clumsy saves didn’t mean that Metropolis’ mysterious protector was involved in those incidents -- a conclusion that Clark had also pointed out to her, but she’d been too full of indignation over not hearing from the Blur to listen at the time.

As she’d expected, her announcement at Ray Sacks’ press conference that she knew the Blur had generated a lot of consternation among the authorities; she had even heard some of them making noises bringing her in for interrogation, to find out exactly what she knew. But nothing had come of it, which surprised her a little, considering how pissed off the district attorney had looked at the end of the conference.

As Lois walked into the basement bullpen at the Planet, her pace slowed as she saw something sitting on her desk: a single red rose in a slim crystal vase, with a small white piece of paper propped up against the vase. Taking the rose from the vase and holding it to her nose, Lois inhaled deeply of the rose’s fragrance before she picked up the paper to read what was written on it.

She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but that didn’t matter, considering the message that the note conveyed:

Thank you. Meet me on the roof.

Still holding the rose, Lois sighed, her mouth widening in a smile as she headed to the elevator. She was finally going to meet the Blur, face-to-face.

The brunette was still smiling when she stepped through the roof access, but that smile quickly faded, the rose dropping from her slack fingers to fall to the ground by her feet as she caught sight of who was waiting for her -- the last person she expected or wanted to see right now.

Namely, District Attorney Ray Sacks, who was smiling like the proverbial cat who just ate the canary as he leaned up against the low wall framing the elevated area of the rooftop that ended at the ledge.

“You know, when you said you had looked into the Blur’s heart, I had no idea how close a relationship you had,” Sacks commented in a deceptively conversational tone.

Lois swallowed before tersely replying, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Oh, the safety of this city is always my business, young lady,” was Sacks’ rejoinder, his tone growing a tad more threatening as he added, “Now, tell me the true identity of the Blur, and I’ll overlook your annoying antics.”

“You talk a good game, counselor, but you don’t believe a word of it,” Lois refuted. Stepping forward to stand a few feet away from Sacks, she continued, saying, “All your shady backroom deals with organized crime have just come home to roost. I’ve even picked out a nice little font for my exposé: ‘Shady Sacks sucks the city dry.’”

“Well, well, well,” Sacks replied, momentarily pursing his lips in a mock-impressed look at Lois’ imagined title before he said, “I actually… had another headline in mind.”

As he came away from the low wall that he’d been resting against to stand face-to-face with Lois, Sacks’ mouth widened in a smug, ugly smile as he leaned forward and said, “And you’re standing right on top of it.”

Turning to follow Sacks’ gaze, Lois saw a ten-foot version of the Blur’s “S”-shield drawn in white chalk on the paved surface of the rooftop.

“‘The Blur murders Lois Lane.’ Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?” Sack gloated as Lois stared at the symbol.

“Nobody will ever believe you,” Lois protested, not turning around.

“Honey, when the Blur decided not to come forward, he put the ball back in my court,” Sacks proclaimed, prompting Lois to turn and face him. “I can make him whoever I want him to be. It just takes a little doubt.”

“You don’t give people enough credit,” Lois scowled, pissed off by the corrupt D.A.’s shallow opinion of the public. “Why would the Blur suddenly turn into a murderer?”

Sacks laughed at that, genuinely amused as he explained how he’d gotten the idea for this little setup.

“Because you just announced in front of millions of people…” he said before his voice and expression turned deadly serious, “…that you are the only person who knows his true identity.”

Deciding to make a break for it, Lois lunged for the rooftop door, but the door opened and two thuggish-looking men in black leather jackets stepped out onto the rooftop, grabbing the reporter by the arms before she could reach the doorway.

“You’re the one hiding in the shadows, not the Blur, you coward,” Lois shouted at Sacks, struggling as his goons dragged her back across the rooftop.

“Unfortunately, that’s a story you’re not gonna get to write,” Sacks casually commented as his men forced Lois up to the ledge, then threw her over the parapet, screaming as she went.

“All right, let’s get out of here,” the D.A. told his thugs, briefly fussing with the knot of his necktie before the three of them strolled across the rooftop to the metal door that admitted access to the stairwell.

Unbeknownst to Sacks, his men hadn’t used quite enough force when they threw Lois off the roof, and she had managed to grab hold of a flagpole projecting from the side of the building about ten feet below the parapet.

As she hung there, literally holding on for dear life, Lois hoped the Blur would get to her before she lost her grip -- whether he was Clark or not.

* * * * *

[Nick of kandor]

Well Carolus, yet another suspenseful and awesome update! I'm truly happy that Kara has returned and finally reunited with Clark and Lana. I must say that I am truly proud of Lois for sticking up for the Blur (Clark) the way she did. Finally, now with Kara here things may go easy for Clark in regards to forming friendly relations with Zod and the Kandorians. Please post more soon and God bless you! Nick

[Kirk]

First of all, I want to thank Nick for correcting me on Lana's reasons for leaving. I forgot to take into account that she felt that she was holding Clark back at the end of season seven. I loved how Lois stood up for the Blur in that spontaneous speech she gave. It just demonstrates to me again that at some point, Clark should strongly consider bringing her into the fold. I couldn't help smiling when Kara arrived at the Fortress. I always loved her character on Smallville. She's a strong woman who's just as heroic as her cousin. A lot has happened in the past year since she left. Doomsday was unleashed and Jimmy was killed. On a happier note, Clark can fly now and Lana's a part of the Kryptonian family. I wonder how Kara would react to that news? My final query is on Lois dangling from the Daily Planet. Since Clark and Lana are at the Fortress, the Wonder Twins must come to her rescue. I'm looking forward to the next chapter!

[Nick of kandor]

Kirk, you are very welcome for that minor correction. I also truly loved Kara on Smallville as well. Aside from Lana, she is one of my all-time favorite characters who I greatly respect due to her willingness to save/protect innocent lives as shown when she stood up to her father Zor-El in Blue. And just as you stated, she is a strong woman and equally heroic as Clark. In regards to Lois, it is Wonder Twins to the rescue! Finally, looking forward to the next chapter as well!!

[Skyhawk17]

It's been a month since the last update, so where are you?

[Nick of kandor]

Month long wait.

It's been a month since the last update, so where are you?

Sky, I feel the same way you do. Carolus is probably just really busy and hasn't had time to update just yet. But, don't worry I'm sure we'll get one soon. God bless you!, Nick

[carolus]

Sorry for my long silence. Between a case of writer's block and other developments, I just haven't gotten much written lately. I hope to have something out next week, though.

[Nick of kandor]

Carolus, I completely understand. It is great to hear from you regardless. I will check back next week for the new update. God bless!, Nick

[carolus]

Sorry for the longer wait; real life has been waaay too hectic. Posting now.

[carolus]

“…and that’s about it,” Clark finished, roughly around the time that Lois was heading to the elevator for her trip up to the rooftop of the Daily Planet. Looking over at Kara and seeing the somber expression on her face, he said, “I suppose you blame me for what happened too.”

Kara considered what she was going to say before replying, “No, I don’t. You knew how to deal with Doomsday, but Chloe and Oliver Queen second-guessed you.”

She briefly paused before saying with downcast eyes, “If anything, I blame myself. I should have been here helping you, not out there searching for Kandor.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Clark reminded her. “When you left, we honestly thought that Doomsday’s murders were committed by a meteor-infected kid named Randy Klein.”

“But that’s not important right now,” Lana cut in. “A few days ago, we found one of the Kandorians. Or to be more accurate, he found us -- right here in Smallville. And he’s related to you and Clark.”

“One of our relatives?” Kara replied, startled. Thinking quickly, she asked, “Is it Van-Zee or Gem-Zee? They were our great-aunt Kalya’s sons, and I know they both served under Zod during the Last War, though they publicly disavowed any loyalty to him after he turned against the Council.

“I always wondered if what happened to our second cousin Thara was a consequence of that,” she added bitterly. “She was killed in a bombing in Kandor perpetrated by Zod’s disciples a few weeks before Krypton’s destruction.”

Eighteen-year-old Thara Gem-Zee hadn’t just been Kara’s cousin, she’d been one of her best friends. They’d celebrated Thara’s recent engagement to a nice young engineering student named Ak-Var only a month before the younger girl died.

“No. I found their crests in Novia Scotia and Georgia, but I didn’t find them,” Clark replied, remembering the appearance of their first cousins’ house insignia as he had found it burned into the ground in those places.

The House of Zee’s crest took the form of an equilateral pentagon framing an H-like shape whose legs were slanted instead of parallel to each other, angled away from each other at their tops, and which were joined by a rounded crosspiece whose curve extended up toward the pentagon’s uppermost point.

According to his hazy recollections of his doppelganger Kal-El’s studies of Kryptonian history, the design had been adopted by the House of Zee millennia ago after a turning point in an old feud between two prominent families, the House of Gax and the House of Ilv. They had been on the verge of annihilating each other before Ran-Zee had exposed the fact that an arms merchant named Zy-Kree had been covertly selling weapons to both families. In fact, Zy-Kree’s entire family had profited in one way or another from the feud, going all the way back to his great-grandfather Vo-Kree, who had helped instigate the feud in the first place by assassinating Ror-Gax and framing Teg-Ilv for the crime.

After the feud’s resolution, the House of Zee had taken their new crest to symbolize their commitment to keeping the peace on Krypton -- by diplomacy, and in times of war, by force.

Bringing his train of thought back to the present, Clark said, “No, the Kandorian we found isn’t either of them.” He took a deep breath before he looked Kara in the eye and told her, “I think it’ll be easier to show you who it is than to tell you.”

Kara was having trouble fathoming what was going on in her cousin’s head at the moment. He seemed to want her to meet this mysterious Kandorian, yet for some reason he also seemed afraid of what would happen if she did.

Making her decision, she met Clark’s gaze evenly as she said, “Then take me to them.”

“All right,” Clark nodded. Looking from Kara to Lana, he said, “Let’s fly.”

Kara initially assumed that her cousin had been speaking metaphorically, only for her heart to swell with almost sisterly pride as Clark slowly rose off his feet to hover in midair -- and then she just stared, her jaw dropping and her eyes widening in shock as Lana did likewise.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Clark asked, smiling a little at his cousin’s expression. “Last one to Metropolis is a rotten egg.”

That said, he and Lana both smoothly pirouetted in midair so that they almost seemed to be reclining horizontally in midair before speedily flying out of the Fortress. Kara briefly wondered how Lana had acquired the ability to fly -- and as fast as a Kryptonian, no less -- before deciding the answer could wait until later as she quickly took off after them.

* * * * *

“Thanks for being so patient,” Clark told Kara a few minutes later as the three of them rode the elevator up to the penthouse apartment in Queen Tower.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t have just landed on the balcony,” Kara pouted as the elevator car reached its destination.

“Too risky to do that during the day -- especially when we have no idea how many of Zod’s people are in Metropolis,” Clark replied as the red elevator door rose up and he slid the metal grate out of the way.

Kara’s brow furrowed as she stepped inside the penthouse and caught sight of the pale-haired man who sat with his back to them on the couch near the balcony as he played a game of chess on a laptop computer. She could understand why a Kryptonian would be attracted to the human game; it was superficially similar to the Kryptonian game kelsem, which was played with three levels of hexagonal boards to create an element of three-dimensional play.

Pausing the game, the man turned to face the three of them as he rose from the couch, and Kara’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of his face. His hair was gray rather than the snow-white that she remembered, and his features weren’t as lined with age, but it was definitely Kal-El’s father, her uncle.

“Jor-El,” she murmured, instantly grasping why her cousin had been so reluctant to divulge the identity of the Kandorian that he had found.

After all, she herself had told him that their fathers hadn’t spoken to each other for decades -- a situation that had only worsened after she and her father Zor-El had been unceremoniously removed from the family estate in the middle of the night by the Martian bounty hunter that her cousin knew as John Jones.

An action that she now knew had been prompted by the fact that her father had tried to kill Jor-El so that he could have Jor-El’s wife Lara for himself.

“You would be Kara, of course,” Jor-El surmised, cocking his head slightly as he looked his niece over and mentally compared her appearance with that of his late sister-in-law. His gaze briefly lingering on Kara’s silver cuff bracelet, which he recognized as the same one that he had given Lara when they had officially become betrothed, he went on to say, “You definitely take after your mother.”

Alura In-Ze had been a compassionate, dedicated scientist that Jor-El viewed as too good a woman for his narcissistic, power-hungry younger brother.

“Better her than my father,” Kara commented as she remembered how her father had concealed his true plans from her -- even using Kryptonian technology to suppress her memories of the time that she had followed her aunt Lara to Earth to visit the Kent farm eight months before Clark had been born.

“No matter what transgressions Zor-El may have committed against me, they are his and his alone,” Jor-El informed the young woman. “I do not hold them against you. And Kal-El has told me that you defended both he and the humans from the machinations of my brother’s replicant.”

“Thank you,” Kara replied gratefully. Her uncle had always struck her as distant, uptight -- even a bit cold, at times -- but now she realized that impression was largely a product of her father’s biases against his older brother and of the limited contact that she’d had with Jor-El on Krypton.

Before any of them could say anything more, though, Clark looked toward the balcony as his super-hearing picked up a cry coming from somewhere outside: “Help! Somebody help!”

Turning to her cousin, Kara asked, “Is that--”

“Lois,” Clark confirmed, looking more than a bit annoyed as he strolled over to the glass door that led onto the balcony and walked outside. “I wonder what she’s gotten herself into this time.”

As he scanned the city in the direction of Lois’ voice, telescoping his gaze to locate his colleague, Clark’s eyes suddenly widened as he got a fix on her position.

“She’s hanging onto a flagpole just below the roof of the Daily Planet,” he told the others as he walked back inside the apartment.

“Somehow, I doubt she’s doing it for the exercise,” Lana commented dryly.

Clark sighed as he turned to his father. “I gotta go take care of this. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll come with you,” Lana volunteered.

Clark nodded, and the two of them took flight, quickly soaring off the balcony toward the Daily Planet.

“Hmph. Typical of him,” Kara observed with a mixture of amusement and irritation as she gazed out the window after her cousin and his girlfriend. “He always tells me to keep a low profile, but the second that Lois is in danger, he goes zooming off to the rescue.”

Jor-El didn’t miss the expression of distaste that crossed his niece’s face as she pronounced Lois’ name. “You do not approve of this Lois Lane.”

“How can I?” Kara replied, her hands clenching into fists at her sides as she recalled all the occasions when she’d seen Lois casually put Clark down. “He’s a good, kind man and a credit to the House of El, but just because Kal-El’s best friend Chloe happens to be her cousin, she thinks it gives her the right to treat him like drotho droppings.”

“I see. We will have to have a discussion with Miss Sullivan about this matter,” Jor-El said seriously.

“Yeah, we will,” Kara solemnly agreed before her expression turned more chipper as she asked, to Jor-El’s confusion, “So, seen any good movies lately?”

* * * * *

Landing a half block from the Daily Planet, Clark and Lana supersped into the newspaper building and up dozens of stairs onto the roof. Lana chose to hang back while Clark raced over to the edge.

Bracing his hands on the parapet, Clark looked to see Lois hanging on to the flagpole for dear life. Gazing down at the crowded street below them, he could see dozens of flashbulbs going off as various people in the crowd took pictures. He could also see an emergency response crew setting up one of those huge inflatable cushions that they used to catch stuntmen in the movies, but it would probably be a few minutes before it was ready, and he wasn’t sure that Lois could hold on that long.

Briefly shooting a glance at Lana over his shoulder, Clark came to a decision. He had to save Lois, even if it risked exposing his powers to her.

“Lois, hold on,” he called to her as he began to carefully climb down to an exterior ledge located about five feet below the parapet. “I’m coming.”

“Clark, help me,” Lois cried desperately as the Kryptonian stepped down onto the ledge, then carefully lay flat on the ledge.

Reaching out to Lois, Clark told her, “Lois, grab my hand.”

His terrified colleague tried, but Clark’s outstretched hand was just a few feet too far away. “I can’t.”

Spying a rectangular piece of ornamental stonework below him, projecting out from the wall barely enough to serve as a ledge, Clark said, “All right, hold on.”

He eased himself down to the stonework -- and almost fell as his foot slipped on the stone. There was a loud, collective gasp from the crowd below at the perceived near-tragedy.

Gritting his teeth as he thanked God that his strength and a careful application of his ability to defy gravity had helped him keep him on the impromptu ledge, Clark again reached out to Lois, who took her right hand off the flagpole to try and grab the proffered limb. It was closer now, but she couldn’t quite touch his hand.

“Come on, stretch,” Clark urged her. “You can reach.”

“It’s too far,” Lois gritted out as she strained to grab the Kryptonian’s hand. After a few seconds of effort, fatigue in her shoulder forced her to lower her right arm, leaving her hanging on to the flagpole solely with her left hand.

“Lois!” Clark cried out as his coworker dangled above the pavement, holding on to the flagpole practically by sheer force of will.

Lois had held on this long by looking up and focusing on the sky, not on how far she was from the safety of terra firma. But now, looking at the pavement forty stories below, she could feel her grip on the flagpole growing more tenuous.

* * * * *

Over at Watchtower, the ladybug that had eavesdropped on the conversation between Clark, Chloe, and Jor-El before Ray Sacks’ press conference alighted on the floor near the couch under the large circular stained glass window before resuming her normal shape in a burst of violet radiance.

“Hey, J,” Zan greeted his sister as he came out of the bathroom. “So, what’s going on?”

“The Blur’s in even deeper now, and it’s all our fault,” Jayna reported glumly.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Zan demanded as he walked over to stand face-to-face with his sibling.

“Well, we can’t just ditch Chloe. We promised her we’d lay low till this all blows over,” Jayna pointed out.

“She said sometimes you need to save a hero -- even from himself,” Zan reminded her. Seeing the conflicted expression on his sister’s face, he went on to say, “Dad always used to say we’re stronger when we stick together.”

It was advice that had served them well over the last seven years.

Seeing Jayna slowly smile in agreement, Zan grinned triumphantly as the two of them brought their clenched right fists together, violent light flaring between them at the point of contact as they said, “Powers activate.”

* * * * *
Back at the Daily Planet, Lois slowly looked up from the ground to Clark as she made a decision, the fearful expression morphing into one of grim determination as she calmly told him, “Let me go.”

“Lois, that’s insane,” Clark argued.

“You can’t reveal yourself to the cameras,” Lois volleyed back, shaking her head in negation of Clark’s attempt to save her no matter the cost to himself. “You mean too much to the city. To the world.”

Her voice turning a bit gentler, she said, “Clark, I know you’ve been living two lives and having to lie to me about it every day.”

“Lois, you’re not making any sense,” Clark replied, trying to reason with her. Then his eyes widened as a huge bank of thick white fog billowed seemingly out of nowhere, concealing he and Lois from the crowd’s sight.

“It’s gonna be okay. Just hold on,” Clark told Lois, realizing this must be the work of the male of his two metahuman imitators, trying to give the Kryptonian a hand with this improvised smokescreen. But how could that kid become something this big?

Unbeknownst to Clark, one of the facets of Zan’s ability to shapeshift into any form of water was that the boy could assimilate all the water in his vicinity -- including the water vapor in the air -- to add to the mass or volume of whatever form he took.

Thinking back on all the times that Clark had helped her and other people, Lois said, “I’ve always known deep down that you were a hero.”

Listening to the two as she stood on the roof above them, Lana scornfully remarked, “About time you admitted it, Lois,” too softly for any but Clark to hear.

Her fingers slipping as the strength in her arm gave out, Lois lost her grip on the flagpole, disappearing into the fog as she plummeted toward the ground.

“Lois!” Clark shouted before he dove off the side of the building and flew after her, using his X-ray vision to locate the falling reporter in the fog. He quickly grabbed her and ferried her to the ground, setting her gently on the pavement before he retreated back to the Daily Planet.

Having expected her next sight to be something along the lines of Saint Peter as she stood in front of the Pearly Gates after splattering on the pavement, Lois was surprised to find herself lying completely undamaged on the sidewalk.

“What?” she whispered, amazed, as she quickly got to her feet, scanning her fog-clouded surroundings for any sign of Clark. Catching sight of the outline of the Daily Planet in front of her, she smiled broadly in relief. Somehow, Clark had pulled it off.

Behind Lois, Ray Sacks had decided that it was time to leave while he still could. If he hurried, he could make to his private airfield just outside Metropolis and hop a plane to the Caribbean before the police came after him.

Opening the door of his limousine and clambering inside, the corrupt D.A. said, “All right, let’s go,” as he turned to face the driver, then froze as he found a nasty-looking rottweiler with a silver heart pendant on its studded collar sitting on the seat opposite him, looking like it was ready to tear his throat out.

As the animal growled, then began barking at him, Sacks lunged for the limo door and flung it open, scrambling out of the vehicle, only to be confronted by what appeared to be a life-sized, animate ice sculpture of a young man blocking his retreat.

“Sorry, Mr. District Attorney, but you’re not getting away that easy,” Zan said as Sacks gaped at the bizarre sight before him. “Time to put you on ice.”

And with that, the young metahuman hit Sacks solidly in the jaw with a glacially hard fist, knocking him back against the limo. As Sacks sagged against the vehicle, then slowly slid to the ground, Zan looked with satisfaction from the D.A.’s unconscious body to a nearby alleyway where Sack’s two thugs lay on the ground where the young man had ambushed them when they made their escape from the Daily Planet.

A smile crossing his icy countenance, Zan walked over to the limo and opened the door to let the rottweiler inside out.

“Time to get going, sis,” he told the dog as it leaped down from the car to the pavement. “Our job here’s done.”

With that, the rottweiler morphed into a less conspicuous tabby cat that scampered off into the mist while Zan’s icy body transformed back into mist, mixing with the bank of fog that he’d shed when he took a more solid form to confront Sacks and his minions.

* * * * *

Lois was wandering through the now-thinning fog looking for her savior when she heard a welcome male voice behind her. “Lois?”

Spinning to face her coworker, the female reporter saw Clark and Lana striding out of the mist toward her as the Kryptonian said, “You’re alive.”

Overcome by joy, Lois grabbed Clark in a fierce hug, saying, “Thank you.”

Deciding to take the out that Zan had provided him with, Clark gently extricated himself from his coworker’s embrace after a moment, saying, “I’m flattered, Lois. I wish I could have been the one to rescue you, but I-I’m not that fast. I took the elevator.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Lois replied, hurt and disappointed by Clark’s denial that he had saved her. “Even after all this you still can’t tell me?”

The three of them stood there in silence for a moment until suddenly Lois’ cellphone went off, playing “Holding Out For A Hero.” The reporter froze, then fished the phone out of her coat pocket to look at the caller ID. Sure enough, the phone’s display read THE BLUR.

But Clark was standing right in front of her, and so was Lana, whom she suspected of being the Blur’s partner. How could the Blur be calling her now?

She shot a confused look at the Kryptonian before she hit the “accept” button, brought the phone to her ear and said, “Hello?”

“Next time you take on the D.A. of Metropolis, remember to watch your step,” said a familiar male voice -- the voice of the Blur.

Flustered, Lois began, “But that was just--”

“Hope I made up for not calling,” the Blur apologized before he hung up.

“Lois, who was that?” Lana asked.

Standing there stunned as she slipped her phone back in her pocket, all Lois could reply was, “The Blur.”

Clark and Lana looked at each other questioningly, having overheard the person on the other end and wondering who had called Lois using the exact same voice modulation that Clark used on his Blur phone.

* * * * *

[Kirk]

I'm positively ecstatic to see the latest chapter. So Clark may have more relatives out there? That would certainly make for an interesting confrontation later on. I enjoyed seeing Clark and Lana showing off their flying to Kara. Speaking of Kara, I'm glad she got to meet up with Jor-El. Considering their limited interactions on Krypton, perhaps they can form a deeper bond on Earth. Neither one of them grew up on Earth. Perhaps Kara can help him adjust to life on Earth. Kara's beef with Lois is certainly justified, but I know she would change her tune if she found out the truth. If I remember correctly from this episode, Chloe was the one who covered for Clark with that phone call. Considering that Lois uncovered the truth about Clark less than a year later, I wonder if its worth the effort. She's the only close friend in his life who doesn't know the truth about him. Plus, would she really be fooled by that phone call considering everything she knows about Clark at this point? She knows that the Blur disguises his voice over the phone. If she really thinks about it now, who in her life would have the technical skills to help cover for him. Anyway, I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

[Nick of kandor]

Kirk, I am also happy for this latest chapter as well! I have a great sense that things will be getting more interesting especially now that there may be more members of the House of El within the Kandorians. I also loved the meeting between Kara and Jor-El and that hopefully they will be able to bond more on Earth then they did on Krypton. Finally, in regards to Lois I have a feeling she will find out the truth eventually. We'll just have to wait and see. God bless you! Nick

[Skyhawk17]

Thank You. I hope to find out what happens next and a preview of the next episode.

[carolus]

The next morning found Kara in the kitchen of the Kent farmhouse, carefully toasting the Pop-Tart in her hand with her heat vision as she leaned against the kitchen’s center island in a red plaid shirt and jeans with her long blonde hair gathered into a braid on either side of her head.

Hearing footsteps coming down the staircase from the house’s second floor, the Kryptonian girl paused in heating up her morning pastry as she turned to see Clark and Lana walk into view, the latter dressed in a sleeveless light gray blouse and dark slacks for her day at the Isis Foundation, and the former dressed in a long black coat over a black T-shirt with the “S”-shield of the House of El in white on the chest, black denim jeans, and black riding boots.

“Good morning,” she greeted the two before she resumed toasting her Pop-Tart.

“Good morning,” Lana replied, followed by Clark saying, “I hope we didn’t wake you when we got in from patrol last night.”

“No, you didn’t,” Kara replied as she cut off her heat vision before raising her eyebrows as she casually added, “But I did hear some interesting noises coming from your room a few hours ago when I got up to get a glass of water.”

“Oh,” Clark replied as he and Lana reddened slightly in embarrassment. He’d trusted in his and Lana’s super-hearing to warn them if Kara was moving about, but apparently they’d been a little focused to hear her. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to invite his cousin to move back in with them.

Kara smiled, enjoying watching her cousin and his girlfriend squirm a bit as she bit into her pastry before she let them off the hook. “Relax, you two, I’m not offended. In fact, I’m glad to see that you’ve reconnected so well. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that way about anyone.”

“You mean Jimmy,” Clark guessed, but Kara shook her head.

“No, he and I never really had a chance to form that kind of a connection, though I would’ve liked it if we had,” his cousin confessed. “No, I was thinking more of a boy that I knew back on Krypton, a physics student named Augo.”

She smiled, saying, “I think you would’ve liked him. He was cute, smart, funny -- though his jokes tended to be a little… esoteric.” Seeing the quizzical look on Clark’s face, she added, “Hey, don’t ask me to tell you one. You need the equivalent of a B.S. in particle physics and speak Kryptonian like a native to understand the puns.”

“They’d still be better than the so-called ‘humor’ I had to put up with for four years in the boys’ locker room at Smallville High,” Clark replied, his expression darkening for a moment as he recalled some of the vulgar comments that he’d heard his male classmates make about various girls back then. Those boys were lucky that they’d never made those kind of remarks about Lana or Chloe -- or Lois, during her brief time at Smallville -- within his hearing, or he would’ve hard-pressed not to use his abilities to teach the foul-mouthed creeps involved a lesson.

Seeing Clark’s expression, Kara decided to change the subject and gestured at Clark’s Blur outfit as she asked, “So, what are you all dressed up for?”

“Oh, I just need to have a talk with some fans of mine who’ve been using our family crest without asking,” Clark replied. He paused before asking the question that had been preying on his mind since yesterday: “How’d it go with my father?”

Kara’s face grew sad. “It was hard, both for him and me. I had to tell him about everything that happened after the Last War: the death of his father, our grandfather, Yar-El; how my father betrayed him; the years of unrest leading up to Zod’s rebellion; all the criminals who terrorized Krypton before being sent to the Phantom Zone…”

Including those responsible for her mother’s death, she thought before continuing, “And I had to face the fact that Zor-El lied to me about your father. My father said Jor-El was a cold-blooded bastard who was unfit to lead our house, that he was too weak to make the hard decisions for the greater good of our people. That he wasn’t good enough for your mother.

“But he was wrong. It was my father who was the weak one,” Kara concluded, looking down at the floor. “He couldn’t accept that Jor-El was the better man, that Aunt Lara chose your father over him for a reason.”

“Hey,” Clark said as he reached out and put a hand on Kara’s shoulder, causing her to look up and meet his eyes. “Our family on Krypton might not have exactly been the Waltons, but we can build a new one here on Earth with Jor-El -- and his cousins, if he can find them. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kara replied, her expression looking a little brighter.

Dropping his hand from his cousin’s shoulder, Clark said, “Lana and I have to get going. See you around suppertime. We’ll get pizza or something.”

“See you then,” Kara agreed.

“You handled that pretty well,” Lana commented once she and Clark were outside.

“She’s the closest thing I have to a sister,” Clark replied. “It makes it a little easier to understand why Chloe’s put with Lois all these years.”

He pulled Lana into a long kiss on the porch.

“And speaking of Chloe, I need to have a conversation with her after I talk to those kids,” he said once their lips parted, his expression turning a bit more serious. “See you later.”

“See you later,” Lana agreed, giving him one last quick kiss before the two superspeeded away to their respective destinations.

Munching on her Pop-Tart as she listened in on the couple’s conversation before they left, Kara decided she needed to have a conversation with Chloe as well.

* * * * *

“Yeah, the D.A. is TKO!” Jayna triumphantly exclaimed later that day as she and Zan congratulatory exchanged double-handed high- and low-fives before they fell back onto the couch in their apartment, having just read in the Daily Planet that Ray Sacks had been arrested for the attempted murder of Lois Lane.

“And the Blur is back on top,” Zan noted with satisfaction.

“This makes up for everything,” Jayna added happily, just before there was a sudden whoosh of air and an unfamiliar male voice spoke up.

“I have you to thank for that,” the voice said, and the twins looked to see a tall male figure in a long black coat silhouetted in the sunlight coming in through the doorway from outside.

The two of them sitting up straight at the sight of the man, Jayna murmured, “Oh my God,” in awe, followed by Zan’s equally reverent, “It’s him.”

“I put my shield out there to inspire people to step up, be their own heroes,” the Blur explained. “And you did.”

“We believe in you, Master B,” Jayna declared.

“Master B”? Clark thought, the corners of his mouth momentarily quirking up in a smile at the ridiculous nickname as he made a mental note to “casually” ask Lois sometime soon if she’d come up with a better name for his heroic alter ego than the Blur.

“Don’t believe in me,” the Kryptonian solemnly replied, “believe in the shield, and what it represents.”

Moving slightly to his left as he took a step into the room so that the sunlight spilled onto his face and illuminated the white “S”-shield on his shirt, Clark added, “Most importantly, believe in yourselves.”

Zan gaped at the sight of Clark’s face, recognizing him as the guy who’d been on the ledge of the Daily Planet trying to save Lois Lane when Zan had blanketed the area with his fog form. The young metahuman had materialized on the ground in his “iceman” form just after the female reporter had fallen, so he hadn’t actually seen Clark catch her as the Blur.

“But we’re not the hero -- you are,” Zan protested as he and Jayna got up from the couch. He’d seen how ready this guy had been to expose his identity as the Blur by using his powers to save Lois Lane.

Considering that statement, Clark replied, “That depends on you. Metropolis doesn’t need more Blur fans. It needs people who are willing to do exactly what you did yesterday.”

He paused for a moment before commenting more pointedly, “But you do need to be more careful. Heroes don’t get second chances, and people need you to make life-and-decisions every day. There’s no room for mistakes.”

Like the one he’d made when he’d let Chloe stop him from sending Davis Bloome to the Phantom Zone, or when he’d accidentally overlooked the convict that escaped during that bus crash in April who had gone on to murder John Corben’s sister.

Clark turned and started to walk out when Zan spoke up.

“Ever?” the young man ventured, a little intimidated by the enormity of the responsibility that the Kryptonian was charging them with.

Stopping and turning back to face the teenagers, Clark solemnly replied, “Not when the world is watching,” before disappearing out the door in a blur of superspeed.

Walking to the doorway to see if they could catch another glimpse of their idol as he left, Zan and Jayna grinned as they saw a black-clad figure rapidly ascending into the sky in the distance.

* * * * *

“I am happy to see that you’re alive, Lois, after what I saw on the nightly news,” Dr. Evans told the female reporter as they sat in the therapist’s office the next morning. “And if you hadn’t mentioned it in passing the last time we met, I never would have guessed that your mysterious caller was none other than Metropolis’ famous Blur.”

“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Lois said, castigating herself as she considered the events of the last few days. “I must have been crazy to look at Clark through Blur-colored glasses.”

“Lois, you are not crazy,” Dr. Evans reassured the reporter with a friendly smile. “That’s the point of therapy -- to learn about yourself.”

“But just looking at the facts, what’s easier to believe?” Lois persisted. “That there was some phone glitch… or that the farm boy who sits across from me every day is a superpowered hero?”

Even as she chuckled ruefully at the now-patent absurdity of the latter notion, she wondered if thoughts like that were the reason why the late, unlamented Lex Luthor had ever bothered befriending someone like Clark in the first place, only to later become his enemy.

Maybe Lex had become convinced that all the weird stuff that Clark kept getting in the middle of then and surviving meant that in his mind, the farm boy had to be more than human -- and then his paranoia had led him to think that Clark was a threat.

Still smiling, Dr. Evans said, “It’s only natural, Lois, to project the heroics of the unattainable men you tend to fall for onto someone close to you.”

“It would be so much easier if they were the same person,” Lois admitted, thinking, Even if he’s with Lana right now, before she went on to say, “When I heard the Blur’s voice again, something stirred inside of me.

“But my thoughts…” she paused to emit a brief sigh, “…they keep going back to Clark… that scared guy who stepped out onto that ledge to save me.”

She chuckled again at her earlier assumptions as she remembered the look of panic on Clark’s face yesterday as he’d climbed down to her, especially when he’d nearly slipped. If Smallville was the all-powerful Blur, who from the more recent reports was not only strong, fast, and bulletproof but could fly to boot, why would he be afraid of falling?

Even as she smiled, though, Lois’ thoughts turned more serious as she confronted the fact that Clark was just as unattainable in his own way as the Blur was. He and Lana had been back together going on close to nine months now, stronger than she’d seen them when they dated the year after high school, or when they’d lived together after Lana had divorced Lex. She was starting to get a real inkling of how Chloe had felt since tenth grade.

The question was, what was she going to do about it?

* * * * *

As he pored over the contents of the dossier that his soldiers had compiled on Clark Kent, Major Zod had to admit to a certain grudging respect for Jor-El’s son. The young Kryptonian appeared to have done very well academically (by these humans’ relatively primitive standards, anyway) until he had been forced to terminate his studies to manage his human adoptive parents’ farm -- an enterprise that Kal-El apparently still took some part in addition to his primary occupation as a journalist.

Reading over a sample of Kal-El’s articles that had been published in the Daily Planet, Zod found the young man’s work to be thoughtful and concise, with little of the hyperbole that so many of his human colleagues seemed prone to. It was doubtlessly a trait that Kal-El had inherited from Lara, who had not only been a rising star in the artist guild, but a promising historian as well.

Though he had to admit that Kal-El’s choice of career had probably been influenced by Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane, Zod thought as he began to read through the brief biographies of Kal-El’s closest human associates that his soldiers had included in Kal-El’s file. While Miss Sullivan seemed to be have been a well-educated, competent journalist until she changed careers more than a year ago, Lois Lane seemed to tend more toward sensationalism, with a focus on achieving celebrity through her work -- a disappointing trait for a member of a military family, the major thought with a frown. He had never had any tolerance for glory hounds who sought to elevate themselves at the expense of their comrades.

Even her spirited televised defense of Kal-El’s alter ego the previous day could very well be a tactic to keep the human authorities from “stealing her thunder,” as it were, before she saw fit to make a name for herself by exposing Jor-El’s son herself.

As he scanned the biography on Kal-El’s human consort Lana Lang, Zod’s lip curled in contempt as he noted that she had very briefly been married to Tess Mercer’s now-deceased employer Lex Luthor before the two had divorced, citing “irreconcilable differences.” These humans entered into and dissolved marriages so casually compared to what he was used to on Krypton, where the arrangement of a life union had been a very serious affair, and divorces were granted only on rare occasions. It had been more common on his world for married couples who were going through what humans would call a “rough patch” to declare a formal separation for several months to a year while they took stock of their lives. Why Kal-El would choose to mate with such a fickle woman was beyond his comprehension.

Reading the biography on Kara Kent, Clark Kent’s purported cousin from his adopted father’s family in the human territory known as Minnesota, Zod readily noted the resemblance to Jor-El’s sister-in-law, Alura In-Ze. She had to be Kal-El’s partner, the one that the human newspapers had taken to calling “Dynamo.” He wondered a bit at the content of the young woman’s backstory, which had obviously been fabricated given that despite Kara Zor-El’s still-youthful appearance -- doubtlessly attributable to the rejuvenating effects of the yellow sun -- she had to be almost forty-three years old as humans measured time. Why claim a connection to Kal-El’s adoptive family now, after hiding for the better part of twenty years on Earth?

Unless…

Once he had become aware of Kal-El’s existence, Zod had attempted to determine when the younger Kryptonian had arrived on Earth, naturally fixing on the date of Smallville’s first meteor shower on October 17, 1989. Upon further research he had initially been perplexed by the later occurrence just over four years ago of the second meteor shower, which like the first must also have been composed of fragments of Krypton, given the high percentage of kryptonite in the composition of the debris.

That discovery had convinced him that Jor-El had indeed been telling the truth about Krypton’s fate; there was no other way to explain the meteors than the utter destruction of their homeworld. First Kal-El’s ship and then a second vessel must have inadvertently pulled part of Krypton’s planetary mass through hyperspace to Earth. Going by that reasoning, it was possible that Kara’s ship had somehow become lost in hyperspace for years before finally arriving on Earth -- which, if true, meant that Zor-El’s daughter had only known Kal-El for a few years at most. She could be turned to serve his vision of a new Kandor on this planet.

Leaning back in his chair as he contemplated the information in the file, Zod recalled what Jor-El had related to him of Earth after the young scientist had returned from his year-long visit to this planet decades ago. There had been wars on several continents, much of the populace lived in poverty, and crime had been rampant, according to Jor-El -- problems that from Zod’s observations of this world had only worsened.

It was a far cry from Krypton, where his people had lived for the most part in safety and comfort. The Last War had been the first large-scale armed conflict on his world in several centuries, and violent criminals tended to be the exception rather than the rule -- though those exceptions wrought horrific damage on Krypton’s citizens, Zod thought, his expression darkening as he recalled the Butcher of Kandor, who had preyed on the city during the final year of the Last War.

The enigmatic serial killer had confounded scores of Kandorian justice officers and terrified the city’s female populace with his inexplicable ability to rape, mutilate, kill, and then elude the authorities without leaving any viable witnesses or much in the way of forensic evidence. In fact, Zod had learned from one of his wife Xera’s last communiqués from Kandor that she had lost a friend that she’d known since childhood to the Butcher’s rampage.

In a bit of grim irony, the same nuclear missile that had annihilated Kandor had been apparently halted the madman’s seemingly unstoppable reign of terror, as no new murders fitting the Butcher’s grisly modus operandi had occurred anywhere else on Krypton after the city’s destruction.

Turning his thoughts back to the present, Zod decided that while he appreciated Kal-El’s desire to protect these humans from their destructive natures, the younger man’s approach was inefficient and naïve. Even with the vast power granted by Earth’s yellow sun at their command, two Kryptonians could not bring peace to an entire world. It would take an army of their people to do that -- an army that only a dedicated leader like himself could command.

* * * * *

“Hey,” Chloe greeted Clark as he came through the stained-glass double doors at Watchtower, still wearing his Blur outfit. “Cheers. For earning another stripe yesterday.”

“Where did you get that?” Clark asked as he stopped and focused on the object that Chloe was holding in her outstretched hand as she sat on the couch under the big circular stained-glass window. It was a yellow ceramic coffee cup with the emblem of the House of El printed on the side in red.

“Oh, from the street vendor on the corner. He started selling them this morning,” Chloe replied. “It also comes in T-shirts and key chains. I had to be the first one on the block to get the superhero swag.”

Repressing his discomfort at the commercialization of his family crest, Clark remarked, “Next thing you know, your wonder twins will be a household name.”

“Thanks to the fog-and-dog duo, Sacks is on his way to the slammer,” Chloe told him as she got up from the couch and walked toward Clark. “You know, with some training they may be able to give the Blur some much-needed backup in the halls of justice.”

“I guess I have more backup than I thought,” Clark replied, his reference to her telephonic intervention the day before earning a slightly chagrined expression from Chloe before he asked, “How’d you pull off the whole Blur impersonation thing?”

“Just your typical sleight-of-ear stuff,” Chloe replied as she walked over to one of the freestanding computer stations. “Now you hear it, now you don’t.”

She began typing on the keyboard, and a moment later a voice issued from the computer’s speakers, sounding exactly like the voice modulation on Clark’s Blur phone: “Hello, Lois. Pay no attention to the blonde behind the curtain.”

“Relax, Clark. I’m not exactly the great and powerful Oz,” Chloe said, seeing the mildly concerned look on Clark’s face as he listened to the synthesized voice. Gesturing to the computer, she elaborated, “I just created a program where everything I type comes out Blur.”

“But how’d you know when to make the call,” Clark wanted to know, “and how’d you know what to say to convince Lois?”

Not to mention the question of how she’d rigged her call so that the caller ID on Lois’ cell read it as if the call had been made from the burner phone he used as the Blur.

“I hacked into the security cameras on the rooftop, and I’ve been monitoring all cell communication in Metropolis, which is how I managed to clone your Blur phone,” Chloe explained as she walked away from the workstation.

“Then you’ve been eavesdropping on to my calls to Lois as the Blur, haven’t you?” Clark realized aloud.

The anger edging into the Kryptonian’s voice stopped Chloe in her tracks, and she turned to meet Clark’s furious gaze as he said, “Chloe, there’s keeping a bird’s-eye view of things, and then there’s playing Big Brother with people’s private lives.”

Her hackles rising as much as at Clark’s censuring tone as at his unfavorable reference to George Orwell’s 1984, Chloe’s tone and her expression turned icy as she defensively replied, “Easy on the dress-down, Clark, okay? If I hadn’t stepped in, Lois would still be beating down the ‘Clark is a superhero’ door.”

Clark opened his mouth to argue that he could’ve handled it without her intervention, but Chloe didn’t give him the chance, saying, “And believe me, once the bloodhound Lois is at your door, you better find a better way to disguise your superhero scent. Just a piece of friendly advice.”

There was a sudden whoosh of air before a female voice said, “Funny, that ‘advice’ didn’t sound very friendly to me.”

“Kara,” Chloe replied, her tone becoming a little subdued as she looked past Clark to his cousin, who was standing in front of Watchtower’s double doors with her arms crossed over her chest and a serious expression on her face. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

She and Kara had never really gotten along, partly because of the female Kryptonian’s attitude of superiority and partly because of her crush on Jimmy, and right now Kara didn’t look very happy to see her.

That impression was confirmed when Kara replied, “Well, I was intending to have this conversation with you later, but I changed my mind after hearing you act like a condescending know-it-all with my cousin just now.

“Kind of Brainiac, now that I think about it,” she continued contemplatively. “Are sure he didn’t leave part of himself in that human brain of yours?”

“Kara…” Clark warningly began in instinctively defense of his best friend, only for his cousin to shoot him a quelling look.

“No, Kal-El, this needs to be said,” she rebutted, her tone and her use of his Kryptonian name indicating that she would not be gainsaid in this. “Everything I’ve heard since I returned says that the tragedies that happened three months ago are because she prevented you from sending Doomsday to the Phantom Zone.”

“I was trying to save Clark from being sent to the Zone,” Chloe argued. “Davis was going to take Clark with him.”

“And Lana would’ve stopped him if you hadn’t incapacitated her,” Kara shot back. “You tried to save that monster because you thought you knew better than Clark, and Jimmy is dead because of it.

“In fact, that’s your entire problem,” the blond Kryptonian postulated. “You always think you know better than anyone else. Just like my father did. Just like Zod.

“Just like Zol-Zu,” she concluded, her voice quavering as she recalled the man whose arrogance had set in motion one of the greatest tragedies in her family.

“Who’s Zol-Zu?” Clark asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

Kara sighed. “He was a scientist on Krypton who lost a friend and student when Kandor was destroyed by Black Zero. From what I understand, Zar-Al wasn’t just his student; he was like the son that Zol-Zu never had. He became obsessed with bringing the boy back.

“So Zol-Zu began experimenting heavily with temporal physics,” she continued. “He thought that with the right technology, he could open a portal through time back to before Kandor’s destruction and pull Zar-Al through it to his time, eight years after the war. And he succeeded -- at least in creating the portal. But the young man that came through wasn’t Zar-Al, but one of his classmates, Tor-An.”

“What’s the problem with that?” Chloe queried, not getting the point. “So he got the wrong guy on his first try.”

“The problem was, Tor-An was far from a normal student. He was a brutal serial killer nicknamed the Butcher of Kandor who terrorized the city during the Last War. There aren’t words for the atrocities he committed against women,” Kara said, glaring at Chloe. “If not for Zol-Zu, Tor-An’s reign of terror would’ve ended in the same nuclear holocaust that destroyed Kandor.

“But he overpowered Zol-Zu after he came through the time portal and continued his rampage. He killed sixteen more women before he was caught and sentenced to the Phantom Zone -- including my mother, Alura In-Ze,” she concluded bitterly.

When the Martian Manhunter had probed Tor-An’s mind, the reasoning behind his murders had been revealed. The madman had been from a family with a high incidence of empireths -- Kryptonian with psionic abilities who cropped up throughout the planet’s history. After Tor-An started hearing people say things about him when he could see that they weren’t actually speaking, he assumed he was an empireth with the power to hear people’s thoughts, when in fact he was experiencing the onset of paranoid schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations.

Tor-An’s voices told him that his professors and friends thought that he was a worthless nobody, that the women around him were all better than him. They talked until the young man snapped and started stalking and brutally killing young women. And if he had only been mentally ill, he would have quickly caught after a few murders. But Tor-An’s true empireth talent was the ability to telepathically shield himself from observation. That power kept justice officers from finding him, even if they were looking right at him. It had taken J’onn J’onzz’s superior telepathic gifts to penetrate Tor-An’s shield and bring him to justice.

Zol-Zu hadn’t escaped punishment for his misdeeds either, as she recalled. The Ruling Council had banished him to the Zone as well after several of the temporal physicist’s further attempts to bring his dead protégé back had resulted in the disappearance of at least half a dozen Kryptonians who were never seen again, flung into distant eras of the planet’s past or possibly even into future timelines by Zol-Zu’s temporal displacement technology. Either way, he had effectively killed those people as far as the Council was concerned.

“Oh my God,” Clark murmured. Remembering where Brainiac had sent Kara after the hostile Kryptonian computer’s abortive attempt to murder Clark on Krypton in the past, he haltingly asked, “When you were in the Zone, did you…?”

“Run into Tor-An? No, thank Rao,” Kara shook her head. “For all I know he was killed by another prisoner before I got there.

“But his punishment widened the divide between my father and Jor-El,” she pronounced. “My father and mother weren’t especially close, but he respected her, and he blamed Jor-El for cheating him of the justice that he thought my mother was truly owed.”

Bringing the conversation back to the present, Kara said, “The point is, you’re in no position to lecture my cousin, Chloe, so I’d watch my step if I were you.”

And with that, the blond Kryptonian exited Watchtower in a whoosh of superspeed, leaving a thoughtful Clark and a somewhat abashed Chloe behind.

* * * * *

The next day at the Daily Planet, Lois was returning to her desk with some copy for a follow-up article on Ray Sacks’ indictment when Clark came back from lunch. The brunette absently said, “Hey, Clark” as the Kryptonian walked into the bullpen -- then did a double-take as she realized that he was wearing a large pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. “Hey, Smallville, what’s with the new specs?”

“You were right, Lois. I was hiding something,” Clark conceded as he pushed the glasses up onto the bridge of his nose with the middle and index fingers of his left hand.

“I’ve been getting nearsighted lately,” the Kryptonian went on to explain. “I was blinded for a few days after a jewelry store robbery years ago in Smallville, and I guess the damage is starting to catch up to my eyes. I was trying not to wear them, but…”

Assessing the way Clark looked in the glasses, Lois said, “They’re very… Clark Kent.”

She went on to admit, “I guess you’re not the only one who’s a little shortsighted. It’s just… sometimes I feel like I see a whole other side of you than anyone else.”

Before Clark could reply to that, Lois said, “It’s okay. It’s my hero complex to resolve. I take the nicest guy I know and I weigh him down with all this shining armor.

“And it’s not fair,” she conceded. “No one can be two different people.”

“Sometimes I wish I could,” Clark confessed. It’d be easier in some ways if there were two of him -- one to just be Clark Kent, reporter, and one to be the Blur, hero of the Metropolis. But the last time that he’d been split in two hadn’t gone so well.

He paused before gesturing to his glasses, saying, “Is this your long-winded version of saying that you hate these?”

“Personally, I don’t mind the bump in your geek factor,” Lois admitted, “but professionally, there are these newfangled things that you can try. They’re called contacts.”

“Tried ‘em. They made my eyes itch,” Clark prevaricated.

Snorting, Lois lightheartedly whacked the Kryptonian on the arm before she teasingly said, “Don’t worry, Smallville. I’ll only call you ‘Four Eyes’ every once in a while.”

The female reporter was about to sit down at her desk when a sudden, uncontrollable impulse seized control of her, causing Lois to turn and grab Clark, whereupon she proceeded to passionately kiss him.

Clark was taken aback by the sudden kiss, but before he could extricate himself, Lois broke it off first, her eyes fluttering closed as a series of images began to flash through her mind, all of them seen through a filter of red light…

Herself standing in the streets of a devastated Metropolis as she stared up at a blood-red sun in a crimson sky…

Herself again, naked as she sat atop an equally naked Clark…

Her and Clark naked again, with him stretched out on top of her, their limbs intertwined as their mouths met…

Then a heavily bearded Clark in a blue jacket and shirt being forced to his knees by a dark-haired woman and a black man, both of them wearing long black coats, black trousers boots, and black shirts with a white “Z”-like symbol in the chests made up of two “L” shapes framing a white diagonal slash…

A leather-jacketed figure wearing a stocking cap and a mask over the lower half of their face, aiming a raised crossbow as they stood in a wood-paneled room, then firing…

Two towers connected by a short bridge from which hung a red flag with a black flowerlike symbol composed of four diamonds inside a white square whose corners pointed north, south, east and west, with a brilliant red beam surging into the sky from the top of the left tower…

The bearded Clark, his face bloodied as someone dragged him face-up by his feet along the ground…

And finally Chloe, lying facedown in the street in a widening pool of blood, her sightless eyes staring to her left…

“Lois? Lois!” Clark became alarmed as his coworker went into some kind of seizure. Looking around, he cried, “Someone call 911!”

Coming soon… “episode” 9.9, “Harbinger”

[Kirk]

It looks like Kara is in the perfect position to act as a mole in Zod's organization. If he's looking to recruit her, Clark could find out what's going on inside Zod's organization. Of course, going undercover presents it's own risks. This is something Clark and Kara should seriously discuss in the future. I was quite impressed by the speech Clark gave to the Wonder Twins. It reminded me how he's grown into his role as a mentor and beacon of hope to the world. The confrontation between Kara and Chloe took me by surprise. Kara was quite right in calling out Chloe like that although she didn't need to be quite so blunt. But, then again maybe Chloe needed to be shaken up a bit. She's withdrawn from the world and needed to be reminded about her proper place in it. As for Lois, those future flashes we've seen paint a dire picture. Since Clark and Lois are clearly involved at that point, it stands to reason that Lana is dead. There was no sign of Kara either. As I recall, by the time Lois returned to the present, everyone was dead. Obviously, this future needs to be avoided at all costs. Perhaps, with Kara's help, Clark can find a way to peacefully integrate the Kandorians to life on Earth. As for Zod, he only sees humans as barbaric savages. Clark should make it clear to him that he wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue when he helped lead Krypton to its destruction.