SIX
Lois Lane had just been transferred from her cell to a medical facility.
"Well, well," said the creepy balding doctor. "Aren't you the pretty one?"
Lois knew a pervert when she saw one. Any minute now he's gonna lick my face,
she thought. He didn't get the chance. Before he could restrain her free arm, Lois slapped him hard and freed herself. Dr. Sparrow picked himself up and lunged at her. Lois put a strategically placed knee to the 'nads and Sparrow crumpled to the floor.
"Now what?" she muttered. " Think, think."
She noticed outside the room other 'doctors', if that's what they were, was walking back and forth. Lois borrowed - stole - a lab coat complete with what looked like an ID card. At least it didn't have a photo, in case anyone got suspicious. She left the room, carefully surveyed her surroundings, and headed left.
More holding cells. Weird occupants, like that friend of Spike's with the skin problem.
And a familiar face.
"Smallville? What are you doing here?"
"Lois?" Clark said.
"Yeah, it's me." She sounded relieved. "Let's get you out of here."
She tried pressing a few buttons. No response.
"Swipe the card," Clark said.
Lois removed her ID and did just that.
"Let's go," Clark said. They headed further left just as the mandatory alarm sounded, past the cells, and hid from an approaching group of soldiers.
"What are you doing here?" Lois echoed.
Clark thought for a moment. Tell the truth, up to a point.
"They thought I was a meteor freak. You remember that silver meteor rock that infected me?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, I think Lex is behind some of this," Clark continued. "He must've told the authorities about that incident because they're the ones who brought me here."
What bothered Clark was the fact that this project's mysterious benefactors knew who and what he was.
"Lex!"
Lex turned around to see an aggravated Amanda Waller.
"Yes?" he said.
"There's been a security breach. One of your patients has escaped."
"I wasn't aware of that," Lex said.
Why do I get the feeling that you're lying? Amanda thought.
"Well, I'm making sure that you are now. A girl, connected with 1138."
"Wasn't the good doctor supposed to be taking care of her?" Lex asked sarcastically.
"She overpowered him," Amanda said.
"That's not surprising," Lex said.
A five-year-old could probably do the same.
"Mrs. Waller," said an approaching aide.
"Not now," Amanda said.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's the..special guest. He's escaped, too."
"Put this compound on alert," Amanda said.
"Mrs. Waller, I think we need to look at the security cameras," Lex said. "I'm curious about this special guest of ours."
Amanda felt trapped. She didn't allow herself to show it.
"Alright," she said. What she thought was entirely different. Dangerous, to be precise.
Chloe and Spike were back at the Daily Planet. Illyria had took off again on some kind of 'instinctive hunt'. Somehow, she could track Faux Spike so she decided to find him. Real Spike agreed to it. "You should make him pay for abusing your appearance," Lyri had said, or something like that before being hypocritical by, paraphrasing Angel's statement, 'looking like the woman she'd murdered' . Spike leaned back in his chair and took a draw off his trademark Morley in spite of some disgusted non-smoking Planet personnel..
"So," Chloe began. "Tell me all about yourself."
Interview with the Real Vampire.
"What can I say?" Spike said. Coming closer to Chloe he said "I'm bad."
Chloe stifled a giggle.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just don't see you as a vicious killer."
"Was, love. Was. Now that I've got me a soul..."
Thank God Angel wasn't here. Chloe didn't need his input into the vampire-with-a-soul scenario.
Which brought up the million-dollar question: Where was bloody Captain Forehead?
"Angel!"
Angel turned around.
Lana.
"You shouldn't be here," Angel said.
"I...wanted to see if you were okay," Lana said.
"Mr. Angel," said one of his 'escorts'. "Mr. Luthor insists that you..."
"In a minute," Angel said. "Lana, I'm fine. If this works out..."
"Wait a minute," Clark said. "I think I hear Lana."
"I don't hear anything," Lois said. "Are you sure tha..."
Clark had cautiously taken off.
"Smallville, wait!" Lois whispered fiercely . Then she could smell it.
"If this works out you'll be normal," Lana said. "There's only one way to find out."
Lana aggressively and passionately kissed Angel.
Angel didn't even show the slightest urge to resist.
"There," Clark said. "I told you I heard her..."
There she was. Not in his arms, or Lex's, for that matter.
Enough was enough.
"What in the hell are you doing?" Lois said.
Clark jumped on the stranger. Angel hit Clark back in defense.
"Boy, you don't want this," Angel said.
"Neither do you," Clark said. He hit Angel again. Hard. To Lois' shock Clark sent Angel through a door. Angel's 'escorts' called for help.
"Clark!" Lana and Lois said. "Stop it!"
"Stop it, Clark!" Lois said.
"Alright," Angel said. "If that's the way you want it."
Angel transformed, again, to Lois' shock.
He's just like Spike.
Clark and Angel continued trading blows. Soldiers came running.
"Get the hell outta here!" Angel said.
Lana grabbed Lois by the arm and ran off.
"You've got some serious 'splaining to do," Lois said.
"Would you care to explain why Clark Kent is in this facility?"
Lex Luthor was watching the security live feed. He'd just missed lois and lana's cameo appearances.
"He's one of your meteor freaks," General Hardcastle lied. "He's exhibited metahuman abilities."
"Only temporarily," Lex countered.
"That still makes him a high risk," Hardcastle said. "We had information that he's still infected."
"That would explain a lot," Lex said, more to himself. Were his suspicions about to be confirmed?
"Mr. Luthor; Sir," a soldier said. "We've located one of the escapees. The boy."
Hardcastle said "We can see that."
"He's on level four with Mr. Luthor's 'house guest'. We have some men on the way."
"No," Lex said. "I have a better idea." He motioned to a female figure.
"What about the girl?" Hardcastle asked. "She's a security risk as well."
"One thing at a time," Lex said. "She can't really do any harm, now can she? She's been cured and she'll try to use that to her advantage."
The female figure left their presence.
"He's a vampire," Lana said. They were about to get out of this god-forsaken place.
God-forsaken was an understatement.
"I figured that out the moment he started with the built-in halloween mask," Lois said.
"Besides, I could smell him."
"You could sense what he was? How?"
Lois told Lana of her recent adventures.
"They cured me."
"They were supposed to have cured Angel, too, though I don't think it worked on him," Lana said. "You saw what happened when he and Clark..."
"Which brings up a very intriguing question. What did these jerks do to Clark to give him superhuman powers?"
"I don't know, Lois. Maybe they exposed him to meteor rocks? It would be the only explanation I could think of."
"Everything's connected to those damned rocks," Lois said.
"What about her?" Lana asked.
A thin woman wearing a velvet flowing dress walked past them. Make that glided. She looked like a Gothic Lana, with her choice in clothing, her dark hair with purple tones, and no shoes. A cabalistic symbol of some sort was tattooed below her neck.What was really weird about her was her eyes. Semitransparent.
"Witchiepoo," Lois said.
Clark was getting the upper fist.
The boy almost reminded Angel of Connor, but this wasn't the time to reminisce. Both had felt the urge to fight; now they felt the urge to kill. For Angel, it was familiar, and something wasn't repressing it this time. For Clark, the guiding voice of Jonathan Kent was replaced
by a familiar inhibition, almost like...
"Separate!" said a thick, Hungarian female voice. Angel and Clark found themselves pulled apart by an invisible force. Witchiepoo raised her hands, glowing with arcane energy.
"Dru?" Angel said. "Is that..."
Both he and Clark succumbed to powerful magicks.
"Good job, Tala," Lex said. He, Hardcastle and some soldiers had followed her.
"Put the boy back in his cage. And put that other freak wearing the Klingon face,
fangs and all, in with him." Hardcastle said.
"Angel is my responsibility," Lex said.
"Not anymore," Hardcastle said. "He's a security risk. Besides, they want him."
What they want and get are two entirely different things, Lex thought.
"You know," Spike said. "I can smell you."
Chloe looked puzzled. Surely he doesn't mean...
"You've been tasted. Think I didn't notice the bite marks?"
"Oh, that." Chloe was relieved. "Are all of you guys like that? Smelly?"
"Pretty much, yeah. Only you and Lois, and those three stupid bints...bloody hell!"
Spike took off, grabbing Chloe by the hand. Some of Chloe's co-workers thought the girl was going for a nooner with Bleach Boy.
"The three girls that bit Lois," Chloe realized. "They're still at large..."
"Are they dead?" a deputy asked.
"Pretty much," a crime scene analyst said. Three girls had been found near Lander's Field,
the victims of something powerful.
Doomsday. He'd sensed the vamps, thought they may have been the two he'd tangled with, and despite their terrified cries he outright killed them.
Butchered was more like it. Vampires were vampires. Not that he knew of such matters. An enemy was an enemy, and such, had to be destroyed. No other way. His existence depended on this one goal. His creators knew that. They'd planned for this, carefully. What they didn't plan for was the fact that he shared various kinships with his victims. This naturally added to his confusion, which in turn, fueled his rage. A chimera of human, Kryptonian, and demon DNA.
There was something else, here. A presence. The same type of presence he'd been genetically programmed to destroy. He would find it. Find it and eradicate it. The tormentor whose image burned inside his brain.
After some time Lois and Lana had made it outside.
Not without difficulty. Lois ditched her scientist coat, and she and Lana acquired the kind of fatigues that the soldiers in this installation were wearing. Another soldier, mistakenly asuming that the girls were new recruits, casually informed them that the 'Fight Club Wannabes' had been subdued and incarcerated. That was before everyone fell in line, got in the van and went out on what was termed a 'recovery mission'. Recovery of what? They would sooon find out.
It was the troops' literally coming out of nowhere that threw the girls for a loop. Once outside, they couldn't find the entrance. It was as if they came from a dimensional doorway.
Not. The entrance was, in Star Trek terminology, cloaked. Where they were wasn't a surprise to Lana.
Lander's Field.
Illyria's quest had led her here as well. Fine was here, somewhere. The earth was still scorched from the meteor shower. Then Illyria heard the sounds of battle.
The soldiers' tasers merely tickled Doomsday. He managed to tear one apart.
"Cease fire!" the commanding officer shouted.
"You!" he said, recognizing Lois. Lois backed up against the van, but not before pushing Lana from harm's way. Then Lois noticed that Doomsday wasn't paying attention to her anymore. Approaching from the opposite side was Fred.
To the shock of everyone except Lois she transformed from a small girl into her hybrid form. Her fist found Doomsday's jaw. Doomsday returned the blow. Illyria picked herself up and did a low sweeping martial arts type kick that Doomsday quickly avoided. He grabbed Illyria by the throat, lifted her up like she had done so many others, and began choking the life from her.
This was worse than the beating Marcus Hamilton had given her.
What kind of creature could best even a former god to a god?
"Lana?"
Chloe was relieved to hear from her. "You're at Lander's Field? We're almost there."
Thanks to Spike's vampiric sense of smell. He could scent out the bints, as well as others, so he said.
"Yeah, and we're not alone," Lana said. She tried to keep the cell phone out of sight. "Look, we're with the troops, so to speak, and there's some kind of weird meteor freak on the loose. Make that two. One of them looks like a Smurf on steroids."
"Illyria!"
"You know her?" Lana said. "Well, she's getting her butt whipped.."
"We can see that," Chloe said. She and Spike got out of her car and were met by military resistance.
"This is a restricted area. And also...Hold it! We have a warrant out for you," the commanding officer said to Chloe. The soldiers trained their weapons on her.
"So bloody arrest us," Spike said."By the way, I'm Professor Fine." To the C.O.'s astonishment he climbed into the van, turned the key that the driver conveniently left in the ignition, put it in gear, yelled at the top of his voice with his head out the window and rammed Doomsday with it. Doomsday dropped Illyria and smashed into the van with a massive fist, but not before Spike jumped from it.
"And that's for Miquot Man!" Spike yelled.
Suddenly a hole opened up in the outdoors. Doomsday went through it. Strange. As if he knew it was a door. Most of the troops followed, forgetting about Chloe in all the chaos. One didn't follow. Spike had grabbed hold of him and threatened him if he didn't show them how to get inside, in case the door closed on them. Weird, considering it was Professor Fine. Then again, this whole scenario was weird.
"Come on," Spike said. "We're goin' after it." Turning to Lois, Chloe and Lana he added "You birds get back to the Planet or wherever the hell it is you go." Seeing Lois' protestive look and Chloe's worried look Illyria said "don't be concerned. I'll protect him."
"What about Angel?" Lana said.
"Angel? He's in there?" Spike said.
"You know him?" Lois said. "Why am I not surprised?"
Not for the first time, and definitely not the last, Spike said "Bloody hell."
"Clark's in there, too," Lois said.
"Clark?" Chloe said. "I'm going."
"No," Spike said. "That thing is dangerous. So's the people behind it. You know that, Chloe."
Seeing her exasperated look he placed both hands on her shoulders and added "I promise ya we'll find 'im an' bring 'im back, safe an' sound."
Chloe kissed Spike. "Be careful."
"Lead the way, Gomer Pyle," Spike said. "Move it, move it, move it!"
"How long can you keep up this deception?" Illyria asked.
"Oh, you mean impersonatin' the Professor? Well, it got us in here, didn't it? And what about you? 'Ere you are lookin' like Fred again, scientist coat an' all."
"At least I look the part. I don't know how much longer I can modulate my form."
"Speakin' o' lookin', this place looks like the Initiative," Spike said. "Upgraded."
Hell, he half expected Buffy or Riley or even Adam to come around the next corner.
With the exception of Buffy he wasn't disappointed when they didn't. As for Gomer, he was turned loose the moment they set foot inside. Naturally they expected him to run to his superiors. He didn't disappoint them. He'd come to the obvious conclusion that the man who threatened him wasn't Professor Fine.
"So they're coming for this Angel?" General Hardcastle said.
"And probably Kal-El as well," Fine said. "As for this imposter, I'll deal with him."
"Inform Mrs.Waller of the situation," Hardcastle said to an aide.
"I'm well aware of the situation. More than you, I imagine," Waller said.
"Yes, ma'am. General Hardcastle's orders."
"General Hardcastle takes his orders from me," Amanda said. "We don't need any more
screw- ups on this project! Now I have more pressing matters."
Turning to her personal assistant she said "Get me Lex Luthor."
Angel and Clark both sat in their shared cell quietly. Neither had said much anything since 'Drusilla' stunned them. Finally Clark decided to break the silence.
"Vampire, right?"
"Obviously," Angel said. "What about you?"
"Alien," Clark said.
"I thought you might be one of their super-soldiers. I had a tussle with some of them. Once."
"Did you win?"
Seeing Angel's annoyed look Clark said "Obviously."
"Your winning streak just ended."
"Doctor Sparrow," Angel said. "I thought as much."
"That's the creep who.." Clark began.
"Extracted your blood sample," Sparrow finished. "Yes, Kal-El, we know who and what you are. And all this time we thought ETs were just an urban myth created by the demon world to cover up their own activities."
"If there are any real demons, it's you and your friends," Clark said. "Speaking of, where is Lex Luthor?"
"I'm right here," Lex said. These interrupting calls were starting to get on even his nerves, even after returning to the mansion.
"Your three bats have bit the dust," said Amanda Waller. "Looks like the Final Sanction is just that."
"That remains to be seen. Don't forget that LuthorCorp is financing this little venture."
"Are you threatening us?" Amanda said. She didn't like the tone in Lex's voice.
"Call it what you like," Lex said coldly. "I'm simply saying that from this point forward, no more limited access to me or my company. We're involved in every aspect of this. Otherwise I just might have to..."
"And we just might have to shut you and your company down," Amanda said fiercely. "We can, you know. The right placement of personnel, the programming of an armed satellite.."
"Meaning death from above?" Lex asked. "You've been watching too much television, Mrs. Waller."
"Maybe. But be aware that we are watching you," Amanda threatened.
"Good day," Lex said. Hanging up on her was just the beginning. Hanging her up to dry would be even better.
"How long have you been standing there?" Lex said.
"Long enough to hear enough," Lionel Luthor said. "Son, are you sure you really want to be involved in this side project?"
Lex rolled his eyes. "Here we go yet again. You're gonna tell me how dangerous and treacherous these people are, right?"
"I'm gonna tell you that their little experiments are even more dangerous and treacherous. More than you could ever imagine."
"And I suppose that's what substantiates your involvement in contacting the former CEO of Wolfram & Hart?" Lex said. He sat down at his laptop and began entering a sequence.
"What about him?" Lionel said.
"The cure you sent him after," Lex said. "So far, it appears to be working. Congratulations, Father. You've apparently succeeded in giving vampires the upper hand in a war that's been going on for ages. A war that we - LuthorCorp - are trying to stop."
"LuthorCorp or Cadmus?"
"Well, lookit who's here," Spike said.
"Doctor Sparrow," Lyri said. The man was talking to a general.
"Right. Time to sort him out."
Spike started off in Sparrow's direction. Lyri restrained him.
"It would be foolish to engage him now," Illyria said.
"What? You're usually the one chargin' in regardless." Spike said.
"We need to find Angel," Illyria said. "And Chloe's friend."
"Then what are we waitin' for?"
"Them to lead us."
"Oh, no. I don't believe this," Angel said.
A familiar figure wearing his trademark black leather duster.
Clark was surprised when Angel identified him as someone other than 'Professor Fine'.
He deactivated the barrier.
"Spike? What the hell are you doing here?" Angel said. He prepared himself for Spike's usual snot-and-curse laden comeback.
"Spike this," said a voice that wasn't Spike's. 'Spike's' arm crystallized into a dark sharp point and punctured Angel's chest. Angel groaned and slumped to the floor in agony. He didn't turn to dust. Spike morphed into Fine. Dr. Sparrow joined him.
"Don't worry, Kal-El. We still need him alive. At least we know that the serum works on his kind," Fine said. He reactivated the barrier.
"That's good to know," Dr. Sparrow said. As he turned to walk away a sharp pain flared first through his back and then his chest. Looking down he saw a sharp blood covered crystalline object sticking out. Sparrow slumped to the floor, his face now a mask of death.
"And this works on yours." Fine withdrew his appendage. "We no longer need you."
In spite of his own pain Angel wasn't sorry to see Sparrow die.
"Tying up loose ends, is that it?" Angel said.
"You should know about that more than anybody," Fine said. This guy had none of Spike's 'charm', if that's what one wished to call it.
"Enjoy your cure, while you can. It won't last. As for you, Kal-El, you should have joined me while you could." Fine turned and left.
"He played you," Clark said. "I mean, they played you."
"I played them," Angel said. " Part of the reason was 1138, sure. The other part was you. Someone...informed me of your disappearance in Honduras. Now I know why. And we're under Smallville, in case you didn't know."
"In a secret base," Clark said. "I figured as much, with all the meteor freak phenomena and rogue Kryptonians, someone was bound to notice. So if we get out of here..."
"If we get out of here, we might be able to stop your Professor Fine, whatever kind of demon
he is."
"He's not a demon," Clark said. "He's a Kryptonian A.I."
"Oh. My informant left out that part. And Clark?"
"?"
"I really don't like you."
"You mean there's been a secret underground government base all this time?" Lois said. "In Smallville?"
Chloe had told her and Lana what she'd found and saved on the flash drive.
"Seems they had one in California a few years back. That's what Spike said."
"Wonder how much Dad knows about this?" Lois said.
"Either nothing at all or enough to get himself killed," Chloe said.
Lana remained silent. Her concern was for Lex, and exactly how much he was involved in all of this.
Fine stroked the Vessel.
"Soon this planet will be the new home of General Zod."
"Not if I have anything to say about it, you git," said a British accent.
Spike stepped out of the shadows.
"So we finally meet," Fine said. He and Spike began circling the Vessel like gunfighters.
"I have to admit, borrowing your likeness seemed to be a logical choice.No one
will miss a man who's supposed to be dead for the past hundred plus years."
Fine's left hand began morphing into a black crystalline spear.
"And no one's gonna miss General 'Sod'," Spike said, putting out his cigarette on the Vessel, as his face began taking on its natural demon features.
Fine's 'spear' lengthened and attempted to pierce Spike's chest. The Gem of Amarra protected the vampire.Apparently no one bothered to tell Fine that Kryptonians were vulnerable to magic.Spike's punch caught Fine off guard and sent him reeling up against the Vessel.
"Your friend wasn't so impervious." Fine said, picking himself up.
"Angel. What the bloody hell have you done to him?"
"Besides stabbing him, nothing. He lived, though I imagine that Hardcastle's men probably have finished him off..." Fine swiftly moved out of Spike's striking range, then fired 'sizzling eye-beams' at the vampire. The Gem of Amarra still protected Spike. That is, until another imposter countered its magic with some of her own.
"Apare, rumpe, solve, revele."
"Dru? What the bloody hell happened to you? By the way, Charmed already has it's quota o' witches."
"I'm not your precious Dru," Tala said.
"Well, this is a Fine place to meet your own counterparts," Spike mused. "Like bloody Star Trek. And what's with the Bela Lugosi accent?"
"Only your cloaking device no longer works," Tala said. "And as for Bela Lugosi, you'll be joining him shortly."
The Gem of Amarra vaporized from Spike's finger.
Fine quickly fired another heat vision blast. Spike did the only thing possible: he grabbed Tala and used her as a shield. Tala instinctively lifted her hands and chanted some kind of barrier spell. It ricocheted the beams, not back at Fine exactly, but at the Vessel itself. The heat energy arced across the Vessel, and in turn, transferred to Fine. Tala was affected as well. She collapsed by being hit with her own magic.
"No," Fine said coldly. "Not this soon in the game." His voice took on a slightly more mechanical quality. That's when both Fine and the Vessel pulled, in Spike's terms,
a 'Doctor Who'.
"Sod this," Spike said with his trademark wave. "And I was lookin' forward to kickin' Brainiac's arse. Least you won't be workin' the mojo on anyone anytime soon," he said to Tala.
Spike went over to a box covered by an old blanket. "Back to basics," he joked, and pulled the blanket over his head before going outside into apparent oblivion.
Nathan Hardcastle met a less-than-honorable death.
He emptied his clip on the weird woman, if that's what she really was. In return Illyria picked him up and literally broke him in half over her knee before entering the containment cell area.
This in spite of her being considerably weakened.
Hardcastle's men trained their tasers on the intruder, to a minimum effect. Illyria simply killed them and punched a hole through the barrier of the containment cell holding Angel and Clark.
"Who is.." Clark said.
"This is Illyria," Angel said. "Where's Spike?"
"He went after the shapeshifter," Illyria said. Examining Clark she said, "This one reeks more than the rest." She fell, her strength spent.
"I think we've got bigger problems," Clark said. "Like him. It."
Doomsday barred their exit.
"The bigger they are..."Angel quoted. He punched Doomsday's midsection and pulled back his own hand in pain.
"My turn," Doomsday said. Angel was picked up overhead and sent flying backwards.
Clark's turn.
"Get her out of here," he said. "I'll take care of this. And Angel. I don't like you either."
Angel scooped up Illyria in his arms. Funny. It seemed like it should be the other way around, and if Illyria had her way, it would be.
Clark began trading blows with Doomsday. Up to this point in his life he'd never faced an opponent such as this. Such unbridled fury. Such hatred, and the overwhelming feeling that it was directed at him.
"Are you the best this world has to offer?" Doomsday snarled. Clark's fist to the midsection answered that question. Doomsday recovered quickly and met Clark's attack head on. The two matched blow-for-blow. Then Clark realized something. Sensed it, actually. Red Kryptonite.
Incorporated into the monster's genetic makeup to make it lose all inhibitions. Clark felt himself being affected in much the same way.But that meant something else. It must have Kryptonian DNA. My DNA.
Doomsday grabbed Clark by the head and started squeezing. Clark fired twin heat vision blasts, striking Doomsday in the forehead. Within moments a blast enveloped the entire area.
Martha Kent thought it was odd.
She just talked to Lois, then Lois' cell phone cut out.
Just lots of static.
Then the television broadcasts did the same thing.
At the Daily Planet, the computers and other media sources went on the fritz.
This fritzberg, as Fred used to call it, was the harbinger for things to come.
"Mrs. Waller," Lex said. No phone calls this time. The almighty woman herself, in the flesh.
"To what do I owe this..."
"Skip it, Lex," Amanda said. "Moments ago, one of Wolfram & Hart's satellites just sterilized the Lander's Field area. General Hardcastle and most of his men perished in the blast. So did our test subjects.We know you had something to do with it."
"Really? Then prove it. Otherwise, get out of my home. Now."
Three of Lex's bodyguards encircled him, ready to draw weapons.
"This isn't over," Amanda said. She turned to leave.
"Oh, you're quite right," Lex said. "It's not over, not by a long shot."
"I'm afraid it is," said the entity formerly known as Milton Fine. He plunged a syringe into Lex's wrist.Lex slumped to the floor in subdued agony. Still, he noticed the electronic tone that Fine's voice had taken, not to mention the greenish appearance his 'skin' now had.
"Unfortunately, this partnership has been based on faulty assumptions," Brainiac said. He left.
Things to do.
No one's found a trace of any of them," Chloe said. "Angel, Illyria,...and Spike." She choked up on the last name. "And that monster. All vanished."
According to Lionel Luthor, that monster was permanently sealed underground, yet thermal imaging satellites and Doomsday's own GPS implant couldn't reveal his location..
"The last thing I remember before the blast was Angel picking her up and carrying her out," Clark said."She said 'touch me and die, half-breed. You all reek of meteor rocks.'"
"So Violence Girl survived," Chloe said hopefully. "Maybe Angel and Spike did, too."
Then she noticed that Clark was in another world.
"Clark?" Chloe said.
Clark sat pondering. Chloe placed a supportive arm around him.
"You weren't there," Clark said. "Chloe..."
"What is it, Clark?"
"For a moment I thought I was gonna die. And you know what's really eating away at me? Knowing that if I ever face that thing again, it'll be the end of me..."
***********************************************************************
SOMETIME LATER
Chaos erupted wordwide.
The Fine/Luthor conspiracy had taken shape.
Kal-El watched helplessly from his myriad prison, unable to do anything.
Dark Thursday had arrived.
Y2K on acid, in Chloe's words.
She and Lionel had just been dragged out of Lionel's limo.
"Mr. Luthor!" she screamed. Lionel was viciously pummeled.
Chloe was next. Pinned down, she screamed "Noooo!" as a man climbed on top of her.
"That's no way to treat a lady," said a familiar British voice. Chloe's would-be assailant found himself knocked backward.
"Step up, there's more than enough Spike to go 'round," Spike said, grinning. "Thrashins' fer all."
He twirled a long metal pipe between his fingers. The pipe hit a couple of guys upside their heads. The rest backed off and ran. Pity. A part of him still wanted to join in the chaos. He'd expected to see a group of demon bikers amidst the carnage. No such luck.
Chloe ran and hugged Spike. Then she kissed him. Really kissed him.
"No thanks necessary," he said. I would'na missed this for the world, luv. Did I tell ya about the time I burned up saving..." He and Chloe supported Lionel and walked off in spite of the chaos.
Lana ran through Metropolis' now-chaotic streets. She'd fought her way to the LuthorCorp Plaza, and made her way to the roof.
There was Lex, standing in defiance like a god over his kingdom.
"Lex," Lana said, "I don't care if this was just one of your tests. I'm here in spite of everything you've had to endure."
Lex/Zod placed his hands on Lana's shoulders and kissed her. Then they both noticed that they weren't the only ones standing atop LuthorCorp Plaza.
"This stops now."
Angel.
"Angel," Lexzod said arrogantly. "Did Lion-El talk to you? Now that Kal-El is gone, are you their savior? Are these humans worth saving?"
" What did you do to Kal-El?" Angel asked.
"What should have been done right from the start," Lexzod said. "He's in the Phantom Zone, and he's not coming back. What about her?" Lexzod grabbed Lana and holding her by the wrist, kicked her feet out from under her, leaving her dangling. "Is she worth saving?"
"Lex, what the hell's got into you?" Lana screamed. She half expected Lex to drop her.
"That's not Lex," Angel said. "Something worse than hell got into him."
Lexzod pulled Lana back and loosed his grip. "Lana, you need to go," Lexzod said. "When this is finished, I'll come for you."
Talk about split personalities. Tearfully, Lana left.
"You still didn't answer my question," Lexzod said. " Are they worth saving?"
"Yes," Angel said. "And if that makes me their savior, then I guess that I am their savior." He threw a punch as things faded to black...
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