Smallville: Birth of a New Empire

(This story is rated M for Mature. Smallville is © 2001-2009 CW Network & DC Comics. Trinity Jean Knight is my character but her powers are © 2001-2009 CW Network & DC Comics. Heroes is © 2006-2009 NBC/Universal Studios. Star Wars is © 1997-2005 Lucasfilm Ltd. All other characters are mine)

Chapter 2: Clark meets Claire

Daily Planet: Clark Kent stared at the picture of the young girl from Odessa Texas whom he knew Trinity Jean Knight had mentioned meeting a year ago. Now this girl was wanting to meet. Clark stared at Lois, hoping he could figure out how to change into Kal-El without her around, but he had been teamed with her since Lex Luthor had bought The Daily Planet a year ago, to cover up Zod's activities and to preserve Clark's abilities from the world.

"Kent, Lane, Mr. Luthor wants to see you in the Editor-In-Chief's office right now!" One of the print boys said. Clark saw Chloe come in. He knew he had been helping the Justice League and She was tired, and it showed. The two looked at each other and then walked from the Obituaries department and walked over to the Elevator.

"Great!" Lois said as she had carried her briefcase to show the new Editor her work from The Smallville Torch in her brief tenure as a reporter under her cousin's care.

"Wish my sister was here," Clark mumbled to himself, but Lois heard him.

"Where is she anyway?" Lois said.

"Someplace out of this world," Clark remarked.

"Oh," Lois said. They then walked down the hall to Susan Wethington's Office, the New Editor-In-Chief.

"Mr. Luthor will see you now," Said an aide as they walked in. They saw the bald businessman staring out the window.

"Mr. Kent, I will speak with you in private for a moment," Lex said. Lois shrugged her shoulders.

"Great!" She said.

"I'll fill you in when I'm done, Miss Lane," Lex said.

"What did you want to see me for Lex," Clark said as Lois was escorted out.

"I realize Trinity's company owns majority interest in the Planet but I need you to know that Zod is here and has been discovered in Texas. A small town in Texas called Odessa," Lex said.

"I know of it," Clark said cautiously just wondering what his former friend was going with his statements.

"I know your Justice League wants to bring down my father and LuthorCorp and there is a...special young woman who claims she knows you from The Secret Wars when we were on the Beyonder's battle world. A young woman who is known as Claire Bennett, but I believe your team would know her better as," Lex was cut off by a 17-year-old woman's voice. A young woman who had been briefly transplanted to Smallville High School Clark's senior year. A young woman who had fallen in love with Clark Kent. A Young woman who had the gift of spontaneous regeneration. She was beautiful, and Clark had briefly dated her once or twice before Lana Lang had used her own powers to break the two apart. That had been the destruction of Clark and Lana's relationship.

"The Healer!" The voice of Claire Bennett said coming in from an inner office.

"Claire! What are you doing here in Metropolis? I thought you and your family had been relocated to LA," Clark asked as the two embraced.

"We were, but the Company began to search into this Zod person thinking he was in league with Sylar, but they were wrong. Dad, is still trying to find him, but this Zod has powers and keeps eluding him. What am I supposed to do," Claire said.

"Zod is here! I thought he was in the past," Clark said.

"Where is your sister?" Lex asked.

"She's on Krypton learning about Zod, so that he can be stopped," Clark said.

"He's in Odessa, Clark and needs to be stopped. Primatech wants to you to use your gifts and stop him," Claire said, staring at him with her beautiful eyes.

"What about your Uncle Peter Petrelli? Doesn't he have powers?" Clark asked. Lex shook his head no.

"He and Noah Bennett are in LA searching for the Haitian hoping the Haitian can rob Zod of his powers," Lex said after a minute.

"Claire, drive me to Odessa at once! I need to meet him and stop him if I can!" Clark said.

"I have a black Ops team in Odessa waiting for you. Your mysterious friend, the Batman pulled them all together. Matt Parkman, the Cop who can read minds, Niki Sanders and the one called Hiro Nakamura seems to be missing," Lex said. "They were hired by your Justice League to stop any threats since 9/11. What about Trinity's husband, Michael Knight? Can he help?" Lex asked.

Clark shook his head no.

"Michael is out of the Country tracking a woman named Rachel Diane Summers-Knight who Dr. Suresh said has the ability to drain people of their sexual energy and leave them for dead," Clark said.

"How old is she?" Claire asked.

"Your age, Claire! Let me see if Chloe can help us," Clark said.

"Do it. Just stop this guy, Clark! Cause if he isn't stopped he could destroy us all like he did Krypton," Lex said. Clark nodded. He remembered the Journals of his father Jor-El that revealed the last few days of Jor-El saving his son.

Suddenly Clark's pants pocket began to glow. He removed the Kryptonian journal from his pocket.

"What is that?" Claire asked.

"My Sister has been sending me updates on Zod," Clark said.

"This is not an update from your sister, Kal-El. Behold, Humans I am Darth Vader. I have been requested to send this message to the Last Son of Krypton to the Future wherever his DNA structure is. I send greetings in the Name of Emperor Palpatine and the Galactic Empire. You must stop Zod or other worlds will suffer the same fate as that of Krypton. My master and I had simply wanted to add your homeplanet to the Galactic Empire but Jor-El resisted. That was your planet's finest hour, but Zod went mad with power and now that he has a world where he has the powers of a true Kryptonian, he will stop at nothing, until Earth is either being ruled by him, or trampled underneath his foot," Spoke the holographic image of a man dressed in black body armor and wearing a breath mask and helmet similar to a master of an ancient Samurai

"Go to Odessa, Now!" Lex said. He buzzed the Intercom. "Tell Sullivan that she will be on assignment with Clark Kent until further notice!" Lex said. Claire and Clark smiled and then walked out the doors. Chloe stared at Claire.

"Your Chloe Sullivan! I like your work!" Claire said. Chloe stared at Clark and then Claire.

"How would you you know my writing?" Chloe said.

"My dad works for Primatech Paper Company which is a cover for a Government agency called "The Company" which has been looking for people with extraordinary gifts. Clark was someone we could not discover but daddy had discovered the Meteor Shower in 1989 when he read about it in The Daily Planet on the day after the Meteor Shower. Lex Luthor's father was attached to The Company via his level 33.1 experiments which the government paid him to start when he and his friends started watching for The Traveler back in 1988. Dr. Swann had told my father about the Meteor Shower coming, but dad didn't put two and two together," Claire said as they walked out to her Nissan Rogue which could seat 4.

"Wait a minute! Primatech Paper Company I did an exclusive on due to an anonymous phone tip about them harboring a super powered individual," Chloe said.

"Yeah I know. Noah Bennett was the anonymous phone tip you got. My adopted father who was an agent for The Company and we escaped to California to hide ourselves from The Company because if we didn't we would have been exposed or used for counter-terrorism against terrorists like what happened on 9/11," Claire said as she climbed into the passenger side of the car. Clark climbed into the back.

"9/11?" He said. He had been essentially cut of f from the news media in his younger days and Jonathan and Martha had not let him watch the news the second day of school when school had been canceled due to the attack on the World Trade Center all those years ago.

"Terrorists used planes to incite terror right here in America by using one plane and crashing it into The World Trade Center and as a precautionary measure most schools were closed across the US," Chloe said.

"Wonder why school officials told me it was a school holiday," Clark said. Chloe smiled sadly.

"I had heard your parents ask them to tell you that there was a school holiday for only half a day so that you would not try to use your gifts," Chloe said.

"Seems like I wasn't the only one who was hiding my gifts," Claire said.

"I linked Luthor's Veritas project to someone named Linderman and The Linderman Group. This group found a strange hieroglyph in New Orleans last year," Chloe said as she held up a photo of the image. It was the family crest of Zod.

"Who took this?" Clark said.

"Our friend Peter Parker. He was paid 1200 by The Daily Planet which was double what The Daily Bugle wanted for it so he copied it and ran it in both papers," Chloe said.

"That's the family Crest of Zod the one I'm supposed to stop," Clark said as he grabbed the photo.

"Who?" Claire asked.

"General Zod is a rebel from a dead planet called Krypton. My homeplanet and my sister is trying to discover what made General Zod the way he is, but first I need to go to New Orleans, and I want a team set up to go with me just in case I get into trouble," Clark said. He then unzipped his bag and removed the costume.

"You might want to change the color of the costume if your going to continue with this whole superhero thing," Chloe said turning around briefly.

"I can get my friends to help. My cell phone is in Mr. Luthor's office," She said as she reached in her purse and noticed it gone.

"I'll be right back," Clark said as he opened the door and used his super speed to go up to the building since they had not left The Daily Planet yet.

Krypton-The distant Past: Jor-El bowed before Darth Vader as the dark armored one entered the galactic Chambers. He nodded to the new Diplomatic Council and his wife.

"I greet you in the name of Palpatine," Vader said kneeling before them. Jor-El noted Vader's lightsaber hanging from his belt.

"I am Jor-El and this is my wife Lara," Jor-El said. They then heard the chamber doors hiss open and General Zod entered.

"The Council asked me to sit in on this meeting," General Ben-Joi Zod said.

"This is General Zod, our General of Krypton's defense," Jor-El said as Vader stood up and General Zod knelt before them in the usual custom.

"I greet you as well in the name of Emperor Palpatine," Vader said.

"What does he want, Lord Vader," Jor-El asked.

"My master is aware of previous legislation by the Republic and he wants to meet with your Council to discuss renewing our liaison with you," Vader said.

"We will convene at 3:00 PM Earth Time," Jor-El said as he had received telepathic communications from the council.

"Very well," Lord Vader as he bowed before them and headed back to his shuttle.

"It's all right, Trinity," Jor-El said. The girl came out from behind the defensive grid which hid her presence from Lord Vader.

"Well, what do you think?" Jor-El said.

"He was listed as one of the Fallen 20 of the Fallen Jedi according to the Jedi Holocrons that I was able to access when I met Luke Skywalker when the Rebellion landed on Earth as well as Anakin Skywalker who had fallen in love with me," Trinity said.

"I'd like to have a look at this Emperor," Lara said. General Zod looked at her.

"My Lady, no one has seen this Emperor and our security forces can't find him anywhere on the planet, but one of my men swears he heard that Palpatine is arriving by Shuttlecraft later this afternoon," Zod said.

"Make sure one of our Emitters captures our mysterious Emperor so that way we know who we are dealing with," Lara said.

"I've seen him," Trinity said.

"How have you seen him, Miss Knight?" General Zod asked.

"When his emissary Lord Vader came I saw The Emperor when they tried to take over Earth," Trinity said.

"How did they discover that planet?" Lara asked.

"How long has the council known about this planet Earth?" Jor-El finally asked.

"Longer than the world actually knows," Nam-Ka, a female Council member said walking in.

"It's time we revealed the truth, Jor-El to you. The Ruling Council has known of Earth for at least 4 centuries as that planet reckons time. We kept the information on that planet from the general Population because of the fears of another planet with humanoid beings on it. We sent probes and finally we decided to start sending our own peoples to this planet. We discovered that this planet could grant our people powers prophesied by the historical scrolls," Nam-Ka said.

"Do you want to know how Palpatine discovered Earth? He hacked your holographic images," Trinity said.

"How could that be possible?" General Zod asked.

"It can only mean one thing. We have a mole," Jor-El said.

To Be Continued...