Clark stood absolutely still as he stared across the room at Zod, flanked by his loyal Kandorian soldiers obediently kneeling. But not for Zod, as he knew from his glimpses of the future they would otherwise be. No, now they knelt for Kal-El.

Already, the dark future he'd glimpsed in Lois's memories appeared to be changing. But Zod was no simple opponent. Clark knew that the Kandorian leader was probably mentally putting into play a contingency plan he'd had ready for the day they eventually met.

All Clark could hope was that the path he pursued now would forestall the horrors of the future he'd seen.

Brow lowered uneasily, Clark surveyed the roomful of men and women. Without meaning to, his eyes lingered briefly on the lowered head of the ruthless assassin, Alia.

"Does she please you?" Zod asked silkily. Alia quivered at his words and tilted her head enough to send a contemptuous glance toward Clark out of those unearthly blue eyes.

Clark didn't acknowledge her obvious hatred, but he suspected his own stony expression wasn't promising. He knew he had to keep Zod off guard. "None of these pleases me," he ground out.

Zod's expression shifted from ingratiating to angered, then, as quickly, was wiped clean.

"What do you mean, my lord?" Zod asked, stepping closer to Clark with a jingle of his dog tags.
Clark consciously unclenched his hands and sought to smooth out his own expression. There was no use attempting to reach out to Zod if he only gave offense. But with Lois' memories of what Zod had done to him in the future still fresh in his consciousness and the bone-deep knowledge of Zod's involvement in the destruction of Krypton, Clark found it difficult to do so.

He dropped his chin and tried again. "There are no lords here, Zod. I'm offering your people an opportunity to make a fresh start here on Earth. If we work together with the people of Earth, we can do great things."

Zod smiled and, without a backward look, ordered his soldiers to rise. "To work together for a fresh start is exactly my plan, as well, Kal-El. You will forgive this rough soldier if he doesn't know all the ways of Earth as you do. I have not had your, er, advantages, shall we say."

The last phrase emerged through clenched jaws as Zod appeared to struggle with his emotions. Clark kept his own face expressionless. There was no need to let Zod know how clear it was to Clark the amount of resentment that the Kandorian leader was bottling up. Then, again, that might have passed by him had Clark not benefited from Lois' glimpse into the future.

Clark spared a glance to the bright yellow sunlight coming in from the window behind him. He figured it was best to turn the conversation from anything touching on Clark's powers and the Kandorians' lack of the same. "Being raised amongst the people of Earth has shaped me and my perspective, that's true. But there's much I don't know about Krypton. If we work together, talk together, maybe we can help each other."

"That's precisely what I'd hoped you say, Kal-El. Work with us. Show us what you know about humanity and Earth. Help us to find our place in this new world."

Zod gestured at the soldiers behind him in the dank, featureless warehouse they used as their headquarters. "We are here to serve you."

As Clark opened his mouth to protest, Zod interrupted. "Kal-El, I'm afraid you don't understand the ways of a soldier. We train all our lives to serve: whether it's a superior officer or the Ruling Council. My soldiers need a purpose: someone to follow. If you had not come to us, I would have continued to do my humble best to fulfill that role."

Zod stepped forward and clasped one hand on Clark's shoulder. "But now that you are here, I'm happy to relinquish that responsibility. You may deny the title, but to my men and women, you are like unto our king. And we will follow you, even to the end of the world," he vowed.

As Zod's eyes glistened intently in the bright light, Clark was suddenly unsure about who was really in control of all of this, anyway.

Oliver and Chloe exchanged worried looks as Clark breezed out of the Watchtower. "Only the big boy scout could come to this conclusion after seeing Zod pretty much destroy the world and kill everybody in it, himself included," Oliver said with a laugh that was obviously feigned.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Welcome to the Clark Kent show. He'll either drive you mad or you'll learn to work around it."

Oliver's grin became less forced. "Anything for the work-around, then?"

Chloe's own smile became positively incandescent. "I'm zeroed in on what has to be our Kandorian hideout. More importantly, I think I can tap into their data feeds since they're piggy-backed off of Tess's systems."

She tapped determinedly at the keyboard and a flurry of interfaces opened up. "I got these off of Stuart," Chloe explained as she logged into one. "When Tess shot him, she pretty well shot herself in the foot. Her own IT guy's now handed over all her corporate secrets. I've got a backdoor now into all of Tess's systems."

Oliver's eyebrows rose and he came over to stand behind Chloe, leaning in over her shoulder to see what was on the screen. "By Tess's systems you mean mine, don't you?"

Chloe was the one to turn with an amused expression on her face. "While you were drinking yourself into oblivion, Tess Mercer branched out a lot on her own. There are at least three subsidiaries that no longer report directly to you and your board. Whatever she's been doing with Zod? That's probably pulled off into some of these businesses. Maybe even deeper. We'll need to focus there."

Oliver frowned heavily. "So, less Green Arrow and more 'Oliver Queen, International Man of Business."

Chloe leaned back in her chair. "It looks like. Anyway, I promise you'll still have a chance for some fun once we get enough information. I'll call in Victor, A.J., Bart and Dinah, too, once we have a bit more to go with."

Oliver sat back against one of the desks, his arms crossed and a determined expression on his face. "Who knows? Maybe we'll even get Clark to see the error of his ways!"

Chloe's snort said more than words. "Right now, I think the only chance we'd have to do that is through Lois."

She watched Oliver's expression grow thoughtful. "Don't even go there," Chloe warned more seriously. "You and I know that Clark will have to tell her someday but if we tried to get her in on this, her reporter's instincts would kick back into high gear. And if we got her into trouble, let's just say that I'm pretty sure that's one decision of ours that Clark would never understand."

"Smallville," Lois said happily. "Where've you been? It shouldn't take all day to report on the ground-breaking ceremony at the new sports centre!"

Clark smiled an uncomfortable acknowledgment that he had been away from the paper longer than the two hours he'd expected. But swinging by the Kandorian's hide-out, and leaving on a completely different tangent in hopes of covering his tracks had taken more time than he'd expected.

"I wanted to make sure I covered all of the angles," he offered weakly as he dropped his notebook beside him on the desk. Beside it he laid a portable voice recorder. "I think I got a few good statements."

Lois rolled her eyes as she continued to type at her own computer. "Let me guess: 'We're so happy to have been a part of this wonderful project!' 'The children of Metropolis will benefit greatly from our city's new sports centre that our company has been proud to sponsor!"

Clark sat down in his chair, pulling it closer to his desk. "Don't be so cynical, Lois. Sports add a great deal to a city, especially its children."

Lois grinned impishly as she peered over her monitor at her partner's serious expression. "I know. It's just fun to get you going. Anyway, get your story in. Deadline for copy's in, eep!, thirty-seven minutes."

The buzz of a newsroom rose up around the pair as they focused on their assignments. Uncharacteristically, Lois finished first, submitting her copy with a flourish of keystrokes just a few minutes after her comment to Clark. She sat back in her chair, fiddling with a pen while she watched Clark carefully consult his notes (dorky glasses now perched on his nose) and add a bit more to his story.

Watching him smile as he wrapped up his own copy, Lois bit her lip and realized she'd been staring for much too long. "Look, fun as this has been, I've got to run."

Clark looked up from his monitor with surprise and Lois shrugged sheepishly. I managed to snag an appointment with my hairdresser is all. She's got a spot for me so I'm off there."

Spotting Clark's sceptically raised eyebrow, Lois rolled her eyes as she grabbed her handbag and rose out of the chair in one smooth motion. "Look, I'm getting my haircut and going home to eat a boring, healthy dinner so my blood sugar doesn't crash. Then Chloe will make me watch the latest reality show before we both crash. Boring, boring, boring."

With a satisfied smile, Lois skirted their desks to give Clark a peck on the cheek before sauntering off to the elevator. "See you tomorrow, Four-eyes."

Clark rolled his eyes as she left. He knew she was up to something but he also knew that her hair appointment was for real, having overheard her make the call after they'd gone out for coffee.

Once she was in the elevator, Clark stood up and circled their desks. Her desk was surrounded by unsteady towers of file boxes from the paper's archives. It looked as if Lois had been researching something to do with building permits. That didn't seem too troubling, but Clark looked further. There, in the the imprint of the notes that she'd scribbled on the pad by her phone was a phrase gave him pause. Her brief reminder to look into "RAO Corp" as a lead was enough to send Clark into full alert.

Clark logged into the paper's online system and pulled down the few mentions of RAO. All came in conjunction with Tess Mercer during her recent weeks of work heading up Oliver's interests in Metropolis. Every story also mentioned the revolutionary eco-friendly structure the two groups were cooperating on. The architectural sketch reproduced with the story looked frighteningly like the building Clark had seen in Lois's memories of the future. Apparently Zod and his soldiers were moving along at a faster speed than Clark, Chloe and Oliver had expected.

Once he submitted his story to the city editor, Clark bade a casual-seeming farewell to some other co-workers and headed for the stairwell. Within an instant, he was miles away, heading back to the Kandorian's compound, looking for explanations.

Even with the limitations of human technology, the Kandorians had been able to engineer a host of devices, most of them aimed at speeding up the construction of the solar converter. A few continued to work with the green meteor rock as a power source despite the failure of the test installation in the human subject, John Corbett. Those closest to the major's inner circle worked on trying to track down the suddenly elusive Tess Mercer or to fill out his dossier about Kal-El and his human identity.

"Kent," spat Zod disdainfully as he laid down a sheaf of papers on the metal table. "He has the power of a god and hides it behind the guise of some human farmer's family name. He works as a reporter and lets no one know the truth of his abilities. Not even the human woman he seems to be attached to: another reporter. How. . . mundane."

Alia fixed her leader with a hard stare. "We could change that: leak word of his powers and identity. Force him into the open."

Zod spun on his heel to stare her down. "And how would that profit us?"

Alia opened her mouth to speak but shut it instantly at Zod's impatient gesture. "We need to use the information we have, but strategically. He says he wants to work with us and teach us more about the humans: good. We'll use that to our advantage, certainly. But we have to keep him off guard. We need a distraction."

A whistling breeze was all the warning the Kandorians had that Kal-El had returned. Smoothly, Basquet picked up the detailed dossier they'd assembled on him off of the table and carried them with him out of the room while Zod greeted Jor-El's sober, suspicious son.

"You grace us with your presence again," Zod began, but Clark cut him off.

"Zod, you've been lying to me."

With an assessing tilt of the head, the Kandorian leader stepped forward. "We may not have told you everything, Kal-El, but we have ever been straightforward in pursuit of our goals."

Clark gestured behind him toward the windows of the warehouse that looked out upon an open stretch of land being filled with cranes and a crude framework of steel. "This, these towers that you're building. What are their purpose?"

Zod strode past him to look toward the skyline. "They're Kryptonian technology, being adapted to Earth needs, Kal-El. Before we found you, here, we were dependent upon ourselves for our survival. We chose to make, er, alliances in order to make improvements."

Clark stepped beside the shorter man and looked with him toward the construction site. "And this is an improvement?" he asked.

Zod nodded. "Yes. Our agreement with Queen Industries was to bring clean solar power to Earth. Your technologies are inferior. Destructive, even. We can change that entirely."

Clark looked over to the other man with narrowed eyes. "These towers, then, are entirely benign."

With widespread hands, Zod ventured an engaging smile. "Of course they are, my lord."
Clark's hand shot out angrily. "I told you, don't call me that! I'm not fooled by your flattery, Zod."

Before the major could speak, Clark fixed him with an intent glare. "I'll give you one last chance, Zod. Show me all of the plans for your building. Show me the science and capabilities of these towers. Show me how they can help to serve the people of earth. You have a week. Then, I'll help you and everyone else here. I promise. But if you don't? My friendship ends here."

Zod's brow lowered but before he could make any response, Clark was gone.

With an animalistic growl, the usually calm leader of the rogue Kryptonians turned to glare at his followers. "We must double, no!, triple, our speed. Bring all of our resources to bear. We must have the towers operational as soon as possible. Then Kal-El will be in no position to threaten us."

Basquet, who had been standing quietly in the shadows, leaving through the sheaves of paper, stepped forward beside Zod. "Major?" he asked politely. "I think this might be of use to us."

His finger tapped a note in the file beside a picture of a darkly glowing chunk of red stone. "This red kryptonite appears to be a particular weakness of Kal-El's."

Zod grabbed the file and rapidly flipped through the pages. "The research notes that it reduces or removes his inhibitions. If we give him something else to focus on and infect him with the red kryptonite. . ." Zod's voice drifted away as he considered, one by one, the women in the room.

Again, Basquet demanded the other man's attention. "Simpler yet, major. We use this human woman for whom he already has an attachment. If we lure her here and set a trap to expose him to the agent, he'll likely be too involved to interfere as we finish the converters."

With a curt nod, Zod grinned. "And if that fails to distract him, we already know what the green variety can do." Zod pulled a small, deadly knife carved out of glowing kryptonite, and held it up before the assembly's gaze.

"You'll rot in hell, Zod," Lois Lane vowed as she stumbled from the push that sent her reeling into the dimly-lit room.

"Charming, Miss Lane," the slim and dangerous man noted. "Your snooping here at our site was laughably easy to detect. So we'll put you away somewhere, erm, safe, while we finish our solar converter."

Lois spun on her heels, her bound hands in front of her wriggling against the rope restraints. "The Blur'll find me," she vowed.

Zod smiled over his shoulder as he closed the door. "I'm counting on that."

With a heavy clang, the metal door slammed shut. On the other side, Lois could hear a heavy lock being clapped shut and then the muffled sound of boots striding quickly away.

Lois looked around to gauge how long it would take her to break free of Zod's prison. The windowless room was lit by one bulb overhead and the walls were sloppily painted with a glittering red pigment. There was nothing but a bed in the room: incongruously heavy and draped in blankets. Maybe this had been Zod's retreat, Lois mused to herself.

"Would-be crazy dictators always decorate as if they've come out of a 'Dr. Evil' School of Design'," Lois sneered as she paced the small chamber.

There weren't any telltale camera or fittings into which a lens could fit from what she could see. No observation, she noted with satisfaction: Your mistake and one I'll take full advantage of.

Lois sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling the thick mattress sink beneath her and began to work at her bindings.

"No one keeps a Lane down for long," she muttered and she twisted her wrists against the rope, manoeuvring them far enough apart that she could start to work them loose. "Amateurs," Lois pronounced as she managed to loosen the ropes enough to free herself.

Hands freed, she ran to the door and tried the handle but it rattled helplessly against an exterior padlock. A determined tug on all the legs of the bed couldn't disassemble the heavy furniture, much as she tried. Shoving the bed under the one air vent didn't give her enough height to reach the small opening. Even then, Lois doubted she was slim enough to fit in the small space. But pounding and yelling for the Blur's aid gave her nothing but the beginnings of a sore throat so Lois worked to shove the bed frame up on one end, hoping to give herself enough height to crawl into the vent.

Before she could upend the piece of furniture, the door handle rattled loudly and then the entire lock assembly ripped apart, blowing the door in on its hinge and raising a cloud of sparkling red dust.

"Lois?"

"Clark?" Lois gasped, rising from the crouch to see what seemed to be her partner standing in the doorway.

"Lois," Clark gasped, then was instantly at her side, examining her carefully. Lois coughed as the red dust coalesced around them.

"How in the heck did you come to my rescue, Smallville?" she asked doubtfully, looking up at Clark's large form.

It might have been a trick of the light, but it seemed as if his eyes flashed briefly red and with an uncharacteristically wolfish grin, Clark leaned in to rest his lips against hers.

"Surprised?" he breathed.

"Scared as hell," Lois said sharply, attempting to pull out of his grip. "Look, I don't know how you got in here. Did the Blur help you or whatever?"

As Clark seemed ready to reply, Lois spoke over him, leaning heavily toward the open doorway. "That Zod guy is crazy, Clark. Purely loco. He's got some plan he thinks'll give himself superpowers like the Blur if he finishes building these towers."

Her fruitless tugs against Clark's iron grip got her nowhere, so Lois stopped leaning away, scowling at Clark's seeming amusement.

He stared at the luxurious bed with a smirk. "What is this?" he asked. "His Majesty's bedchamber? I should remember to thank Zod."

"Look, what's gotten into you?" Lois demanded angrily. "We've got to stop him before whatever happens. I don't even know if it's possible to give yourself superpowers though I've seen enough meteor freaks to guess otherwise. Come on!"

Clark finally seemed roused to action but not in any constructive way. His thumbs played along her arms and Lois shivered in arousal, then in ire. "Snap out of it, Clark," she growled and spiked her heel down on the arch of his shoe.

The pain didn't faze him but Lois sneezing on a waft of red dust opened her eyes to see his pupils widen and a red light flash across the iris.

"Meteor rock," she said in sudden understanding, remembering that Chloe had said pretty much everyone in Smallville was affected by the fall in some way or another. This red dust must be meteor rock, though why Zod would have coated the walls with it and why exactly it affected Clark, she didn't know.

He pulled her close against his body and Lois sought to keep her focus.

As Clark leaned in for a kiss, Lois braced herself to resist his overtures. "Come on, Clark," she whispered against his lips. "Fight this, whatever it is."

She sighed as his lips opened up against hers. It wasn't as if she didn't want to give herself over to the moment. Well, at least if it wasn't the end of the world or the threat of the same.

Somehow she pulled herself away from his embrace. "Come on, Clark. Do this. For me," Lois implored.

Clark rumbled something incoherent but released his grasp on her shoulders. He closed his eyes tightly once and then seemed to have a bit more control. "Okay, but be quick about it," he said.

"We need to take care of this Zod before he does whatever he's planning," Lois explained. "He's told me he was counting on the Blur to come and rescue me. He's planning to take out the Blur, I know it."

That last seemed to break through Clark's fascination with her. "Why do you say that?" he asked.
"Because when Zod threw me in here and I said that the Blur would come for me, he said he was counting on it," Lois explained.

The red tone seemed to reappear on Clark's eyes and he turned his head toward the open doorway. "Wait," Lois demanded. "There's more. I know what Zod's doing. I know what his plan is."

Clark's attention returned to her. "What?"

"He's building these towers. The ones his company started with Tess," Lois said.

"That was hardly news," Clark snorted derisively. Lois glared at the comment. Since when had Clark known anything about the story she was pursuing? As soon as she opened her mouth to bawl him out, though, Lois felt the anger fade away, remembering that this had to be Clark's meteor infection speaking. Still, she needed her partner to understand the urgency of the situation.

"Well, I found out that they're going live this afternoon. So whatever craziness he expects to happen is going to start soon and we need to figure out how to stop it and fast."

Clark's hands dropped her arms instantly and Lois fell back on the dusty bed as a tornado roared through the room and left her alone.

"Clark?" Lois called. She blinked as her brain processed what had just happened, then, with a determined glare in her eyes, vaulted the pieces of rubble in the doorway to set off in hot pursuit of her partner, her maybe-soon-to-be-very-ex-boyfriend because the only thing in the world that could explain what just happened was that Clark Kent was, in spite of his very many and repeated denials, the Blur.

Lois stood in the doorway of the Kandorian compound, turning toward the nearby construction site of the RAO Corporation's towers that had brought her to this impasse. A faint red glow was starting to emerge from their peaks, sign that whatever device that Zod had concealed within was firing up.

Her heart in her throat, Lois raced forward then stopped as a shockwave emerged, almost visibly from the skeletal forms of the towers. One of the metal forms ripped from its moorings and inexplicably hurtled straight up into the air, speeding away from gravity's pull as if a rocket fuelled its flight. The other then crumpled inward, warping neatly around its core until just a twisted shape of metal remained in the shape of an "S".

Lois couldn't help but smile at that touch, the clearest sign that everything was going to be all right. But stumbling out of the dusty wreckage ahead of her was a familiar figure: Zod.

Exhausted, possibly injured, he still moved with impressive speed and his focus was entirely on her. "How could this happen?" Zod roared, racing toward Lois with murderous intent. Lois eyed his rush carefully and took a defensive stance, ready to counter his attack, but before Zod could engage, another violent rush of wind divided them.

"Don't touch her," Clark warned, "she's mine." Lois could still see signs of the red glow in his eyes, but Zod had changed trajectories to intercept Clark.

"You could have been our ally, our saviour, our king," Zod raved. "But you betrayed us all, just like your father."

As the smaller man leapt forward, Lois saw him pull a greenly-glowing knife out of the sheath.
Instinctively, she launched herself at Zod, tackling him around the midsection and diverting his aim enough that the weapon skittered out of his grasp and only grazed Clark.

Zod's head hit the ground with a sickening thud and Lois, content to see he was down for the count, turned to look at Clark. His clothing, now ripped and torn, was filthy with dust, but it was the painful contortions of his face as he clutched his arm, bleeding profusely where the green blade had cut him that worried her. His face was touched with sweat and he seemed to be more in pain from proximity to the blade than to anything else.

Lois glanced at the odd weapon and with a strong arm, flung it up and over a pile of construction materials. With an audible sigh, Clark's agonized expression eased and the cut visibly healed before her eyes. Even more reassuringly, when he opened his eyes, they were a familiar bright blue again.

"Clark," Lois said, kneeling down beside his body, unsure whether or not she wanted to wallop him or hug him. Now that she knew he was the Blur, though, she was pretty sure that the walloping would only hurt her, not him, and settled, not unhappily, for a profoundly grateful hug.

Clark laughed awkwardly as he returned her embrace.

Lois leaned back a bit. "Now, don't think you're off the hook, Clark Kent," she warned. "Or, should I say, 'The Blur'? And there I thought you were just suffering from some meteor-rock sickness, back there."

She glared at him intently. "You weren't, though, were you? This is all tied up in your powers and whatever Zod was trying to do to get his own."

Clark nodded. "I'm sure I'll be paying for this for days, but you've helped me to stop Zod's plan before it could come into being. I knew what he was planning, but I thought it was months away from completion. Then he infected me with red kryptonite in hopes of derailing my investigation."

"And kidnapped me to finish the deal," Lois finished. But then she stared at Clark quizzically. "So, what exactly is red kryptonite and why does it turn you into a horndog."

"Lois," Clark exclaimed in embarrassment as he sat upright. "It, just, well, removes my inhibitions. At least until the influence burns out with green kryptonite."

"Ah," Lois said knowingly. Then, with a touch of real annoyance, she added, "so that's what hit us that one Valentine's Day."

Clark nodded and levered himself up from the ground. In a step, he'd picked up the unconscious Zod, slinging the man over his shoulder. "Look, I need to get him put away: probably at Belle Reve. And then I have to round up the rest of his crowd. Their hopes of superpowers are over, thanks to you, but there's still a lot of damage they can do."

Lois hoisted herself up purposefully and crossed her arms. "Okay. I have a story to file back at the paper. People are going to want to know what happened with these solar converter towers and why the Blur had to stop them. But, after that?"

Clark winced in anticipation. "Yes?"

Lois smiled in a purely evil way. "You have a lotta 'splaining to do, 'Your Majesty'."

Clark groaned and felt a flush of embarrassment colour his face. He knew he was never going to live this one down.