Clark stared at his hands, at his wrists that had been bleeding pretty heavily the last few days thanks to these pair of kryptonite handcuffs they'd shackled to him. He was given his last meal yesterday straight after his trial and even then he wasn't allowed to have his hands free. Despite all the evident advancements in science, technology and the like, it all seemed archaic, this.
What were they going to write on his gravestone? He thought. He'd always imagined that he'd get to grow old and live out his last days on the farm, hopefully with someone there with him, but Smallville seemed so far removed from what's happening right now. Clark overheard some of the soldiers mentioning that kryptonite bullets were going to be used for the first time today, and given his current predicament not even being faster than a speeding bullet would save him this time.
"Any last words?" his esteemed counterpart asked.
"Go ahead." was all Clark said. A black, leaden cloth was placed over his head, and for a moment he felt so afraid of the looming darkness.
He waited and waited. Yet, there was nothing. Was this what it was like to die?
An electrical crackle erupted from the heavens, much like how the air around a lightning strike would instantly get charged. Clark felt as though he was going crazy with fear. Suddenly, he heard a loud noise, an in an instant he thought that was all she wrote, but then he heard the sound of people screaming in panic.
"Wayne, can you confirm what I'm seeing? I think my mind is playing tricks on me."
The earpiece suddenly crackled in the side of his head. Bruce was clad in his old armour, he chose this specific outfit to wear today for some poetic reason and it looked to have been a good choice. Batman was perched in the shadows and observing from a distance, just like old times. Unfolding in front of him was another public execution; a scene that he regretfully thought was familiar nowadays. Bruce had been powerless to save whoever was going to die every single time, but in this instance he needed to make everything count in lieu of a most recent discovery.
"Well I'll be damned, Lex, your transistor worked. We have to move quickly, he'll be wearing the blindfold in less than a minute."
"I guess your original plan is obsolete." Lex said.
"Agreed. You may have to declare your allegiance to me sooner that we planned."
"Copy. Orbital-4 is in position, ready to fire on your mark."
Clark could sense smoke. Not normal, fire smoke, but something much more unique. He knew exactly where this smoke came from, but for the life of him he just couldn't put his finger on it.
Wait a minute!
This was one of the Batman's special concoctions, a cloaking device with lead nanoparticles that even he would have trouble seeing through. Suddenly he felt a white hot burning sensation on his wrists, and then a metal-clad glove slapping his face.
"That was my last pack of grenades. You have to get out of here, now!"
Clark could barely see, but thankfully all his other senses were fighting fit, he could hear the man's cardiac signature and it was most definitely Bruce Wayne. "And what the hell are you going to do?!" he shouted back.
"You'll never see me again so listen to me carefully, Luthor is waiting at the cave and you've got about ten minutes to get there before they catch him, so go!"
Clark didn't need to be told twice. He rose up out of the smoke into clearer air, but something stopped him from rocketing off to Gotham as he had been told. Green beams of energy were streaking down from the sky, impacting the arena floor and causing explosions to isolate those caught in the smokescreen. He was still Superman, did he really want to run away from all this?
He surmised that Bruce was planning something out of the chaos, and knew that whatever outcome it was it was likely that he wouldn't live through it. The lines had been drawn already and Clark couldn't allow that to happen.
Superman was dazed, he had been hit with what felt like a terminal missile and it had knocked him back a few yards. He couldn't see anything, but he did recognise the smoke and instantly realised who was behind this. He tried to blow most of it out but the coverage was unending. He tried to move but again and again he was hit, the massive force disorientating him and pinning him down amidst the explosions.
Clark had a hard time trying to see through the fog but together with his hearing he could make out where everyone was in a vague picture. He expected Bruce to go after Superman, but he saw him making his way for Wonder Woman instead and he dived back down after him.
"Curtains have been drawn. You've got about a minute before the satellite overheats, Wayne."
"Understood."
That was his cue. Bruce pulled out the special blade which hung from his belt as he moved like a scythe through the smoke and around the explosions. Wonder Woman's silhouette was clear as day in his cowl and it was all he needed to see as he locked in on her, making sure that he would use all the chaos he had been granted for one last action of defiance.
"This is for you…" Bruce muttered to no-one as he wound up his strong arm and took aim at her neck, exposed in the ceremonial garb she was wearing. The magical, poison-tipped blade needs only a slight, penetrating cut to guarantee her death.
Diana couldn't see through the smoke. It was as dense as the mist over the Styx and she feared the worst. Her first action was to look for Kal through the chaos but she might as well have been in the total dark, she tried to scream for him but the offensive fog caused her throat to seize. Whoever was behind this knew exactly what they were doing, she thought sourly.
Then she was hit by what felt like a hammer, knocking her to the floor. The blows came again and again and that was when the blackened veil lunged at her. She tried to reach for her sword, but she knew that she'd be a second too late. The hand and the blade were malevolently aimed at her neck. It was close enough to feel, but she felt a rush of wind and the venomous leading edge stopped but a hair's width from her skin. The evil instrument clattered harshly on the floor.
"Thanks, Kal." she whispered, knowing he would hear her, confident that in this situation he had done what she would've as well. What did she have to fear? Diana pulled her sword out and turned into her battle armour, ready to counterattack with him.
What she saw when she turned around froze her.
"It's you…" she gasped, vulnerable and immobilized.
It was definitely the Batman who had tried to strike at her, but she had already suspected that he had a hand in this anyway. What stopped her in her tracks was realising who had come back for her.
It was Superman indeed that had saved her, the Superman of old.
He gazed at her with that forlorn, innocent gaze to his blue eyes and for a second she thought that fate had played a cruel trick on her. A thousand years ago was the last thing she saw before she was blown back by an explosion.
"What did you do, you utter fool!?" Batman shouted in Clark's ear as he carried him away from the scene as fast as he could handle.
"Aren't you going to thank me for getting you out of there?"
"Put me down! Now!" he growled.
Clark could tell that he was not happy with him at all, so he did what he was told this time.
"You should have left!" They were at the gates of Bruce's dilapidated manor, which from the distance could be mistaken for a graveyard it was so run down.
"What, and leave you to die?"
"It was part of the plan! It damn well would've worked if you'd let me do what I was supposed to do. You ruined everything for what? So you could add another good deed to your list?" Bruce was irate, as if he had been robbed of everything.
"You wanted to kill her." Clark stated, not offended at all. "Was that really worth getting yourself killed in return?"
"I've been planning this for years, analysing their habits, watching their every move and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, and you come and ruin everything!"
"How can all this be any more ruined? You're telling me everything was normal before I got here?"
"It was a one-way mission. I was to use the chaos to kill her, and Lex was supposed to ambush Superman when she and I were both dead and he came looking for revenge." he explained.
Clark was taken aback. "That's it? What you've been planning for all these years with Luthor? A killing?"
Bruce wasn't having any of it, he had suffered way too much to be receiving judging looks from anyone, least of all him.
"Throw away everything you know about me, Clark, and listen to me, if you haven't figured it out already this world isn't exactly the same as yours."
"It still could be." Clark replied. "Especially if we all turn into maniacs hell bent on murdering each other."
Bruce shook his head in exasperation. This man wouldn't understand his motives. The main purpose of his life now was to avenge all that he had lost and he misguidedly had derailed that.
"Follow me. This is the first place they'll come looking for so we have to get out of sight." he said to Clark once he had calmed himself down. He knew was overreacting. Clark's unexpected appearance had thrown everything off balance but at the same time it wasn't exactly his fault he was here, but he had been setting this up for years, and probably will never have a chance to get that close again.
Clark followed Bruce into the bowels of the cave, making their way through a series of confusing tunnels and sub-tunnels in the complete dark. He never even knew that the place was this extensive. As expected, the entire place was lead-lined. Bruce was silent as he navigated his way through the darkness. Eventually the cave opened up to what looked like a large subterranean warehouse. There were huge lights mounted on the high ceilings and it all seemed to house this giant power generator in the middle.
"What is all this?" Clark asked, once Bruce had switched on the cave lights.
"This is what Lex and I have been working on since Metropolis fell."
"And where is your new friend?" Clark said with a little disdain.
"He's gone and saved his hide, as expected. His end of the deal was that he'd inherit control of Metropolis after everything was over."
"What happened to Metropolis?" Clark had suspected a great war of some kind, but really he knew nothing save for what he had already experienced.
Bruce chose to avoid his question for now. "Underneath us is the largest particle accelerator in the world, and it's all linked up to this machine." he explained.
Clark stared down at the floor. "Right under his nose. Impressive, so what's it for?"
"We used it to bring you here." Bruce replied flatly.
"Wait, so it's because of you that I find myself here?" Clark reacted indignantly.
"We never meant to do that specifically, it was all experimental and we only found out today that it actually worked."
"So you're telling me that I'm here because of an accident?"
"Not exactly; we knew what we wanted to achieve, just not how we were going to do it. But if you want to look at it that way, go ahead."
"And did you stop for a second to consider what I would've thought about it?"
"Not really." Bruce admitted. "But we didn't exactly have many options left. The resistance doesn't have a lot to turn to for help."
"The resistance?" Clark asked curiously.
"We're the only ones left opposing the regime, and we've been forced to go underground. Any hint of dissent and it's dangerous for any of us."
"Yeah, I've heard." Clark said wearily. "It doesn't make sense. Why all this? Why are you all at war with each other? You and I would devote our lives into killing out friends…why? I thought we had safeguards for this kind of thing."
Bruce hesitated for a moment. Clark was asking to relive what was hell for him. "Listen, Clark, we have enough time to try and send you on your way before Superman figures out that the manor isn't as empty as it looks." he said out of the blue.
Clark pondered his offer. Yes, it would be nice to leave all this and pretend it was all a bad dream, and it would be easy to make up a half-believable excuse for mostly everyone back home about where he went.
"Bruce, I want to know everything. I'm already here." Clark asserted.
Bruce sighed. "Honestly, I don't expect you to make any sense of what happened to all of us."
"Would you rather me try and guess?"
"The truth will hurt, Clark, but you were always stronger than the rest of us anyway. Follow me."
Clark followed him down another maze of caves, this time leading to an extremely fortified door. Clark didn't expect a quaint office with leather chairs and a bookshelf on the side. A portrait of Bruce's parents looked down on them, and Clark surmised this little room to be a vault, a chronicle, a chamber of Wayne family history.
"Sit down." Bruce said as he pulled out a book from the shelf. "Here."
Clark opened the book, not expecting it to be a photo album, much less a photo album of himself and none other than his colleague: Lois Lane.
"Lois and I…Superman got married?" Clark muttered incredulously after looking over a picture of them in front of the farm. She was wearing her wedding dress, and he was wearing an unusually well-fitted blue evening jacket. Lois looked beautiful, and the both of them looked happy as they looked into each other, their eyes so full of hope for the future.
"I was the best man." Bruce answered.
Clark turned another page. Jonathan and Martha Kent were there at the wedding too, Lois' parents and sister, Perry, everyone was joyful.
It was another turn of the page that opened Clark's eyes wide. "Was Lois pregnant?!"
"Yes." Bruce said grimly. "With twins."
Clark didn't know what to think. He looked at the both of them again, obviously in love with each other, ready to take on all the challenges that came with the life they had created for themselves. His heart sank as he realised that for some reason Lois wasn't here anymore.
"Bruce, where's Lois?" Clark said ominously.
"Clark, are you sure you want to hear this?" Bruce asked once more.
"I'm sure."
Superman was reeling from the assault. It all had classic Batman written all over it, but one thing he didn't expect was that Luthor would side with him. He had calculated that the two of them would've been too treacherous to spend any time in a room together without spontaneously slashing at their throats. That would've been convenient but he was focusing heavily on the information given to him by the hunter-killer teams he had sent out to look for the two that had escaped. Luthor was unreachable, but he'd get to him soon enough.
"Anything yet?" Diana asked him on the headset. She offered to personally investigate possible locations while he directed the assault. Right now she was at Smallville, scouring the farmlands if they somehow had the audacity to hide here.
"Nothing." he answered. "But it's not going to take long before I get results."
"They can't have gone far."
"I'll tell you when the teams update me on the situation." Superman said. His left fist swung around and punctured the body of another one of the Lexcorp satellites he had been systematically decommissioning for the past hour.
"That's fine. Are you sure you don't want me to help you out there?" Diana offered. The first thing he did after making sure she was fine was to shoot off into the upper atmosphere, taking out the first of many satellites with a barely checked rage.
"I'm making good progress." Superman affirmed. "I'll meet you back at the Fortress in an hour."
Diana heard him strain a little as he undoubtedly vented on some poor machine, and then an abrupt click to signify that it was all she'll hear from him in a while.
Kal had been acting distant lately, and of course Diana was concerned but she would give him his much needed space. By now she knew that Kal needed his own time as much as anything. However, she had some thinking of her own to do amongst the golden fields.
An hour later, Clark felt like he was about to drown. Bruce had told him everything from the first minute it had all unravelled. He felt the pain as if it was his own loss, his own tragedy. He was in denial at first until Bruce had shown him proof of everything.
How could it be? Superman's wife and unborn child were brutally murdered, by none other than him, and everyone and everything he knew and loved were destroyed by his hand also. yHis parents were in Metropolis visiting when everything was destroyed.
"I didn't know what Joker was capable of. If I had known…well, I wasn't prepared." Bruce offered.
The Joker, Clark sorrowfully though. He had given Superman a vision of his pregnant wife as Doomsday, led him to brutally take her life and in the process destroy the whole of Metropolis using a nuclear detonator linked to Lois' own heartbeat. This was too much to bear for any man.
"No, no. It wasn't your fault." Clark whispered as he ran his hand through his hair. "No wonder he was angry. I taunted him about her, you know? I thought I was being brave then."
Batman's own eyes softened at the sight of a man brought to his heels by a past that wasn't even his own, a past that had no relation to him.
Clark spied a portrait of a certain young sorceress on Bruce's desk. He feared the worst. "What about you, Bruce? What happened to you?"
This wasn't the time to hide anymore, Bruce thought. "Even though I felt his loss, I wasn't prepared to go as far as he did when it came to justice like Diana was. We all had a falling out."
"A falling out?"
"I resisted his new ideas, so did all my allies. Zatanna, Dick, Helena, Barbara…they sided with me, and all of them were killed fighting the regime. Queen too, and he's buried not far from here, Dinah has gone into hiding and even I don't know where she is."
"My God…what about Selina?"
Bruce's eyes dropped as he shook his head no. "J'onn impersonated me and faked my death. He's left Earth since."
"Who's left?"
"From your perspective? I'd say nothing's left."
Clark took it all in. What does anyone with power do when everything around him crumbles? God, it all seemed so rational now. The oppression, the control. He could see the method in all of it. This world's Superman has lost so much, and he couldn't honestly say that he would've reacted any differently if it all happened to him as well.
He put his head into his hands, trying to get the ghosts of Lois and everyone else out of his head, as they all came rushing back to him.
"We can still try and get you out of here before they find this place, Clark. I realise now that this was never your problem to fix. I can send you back to your world and you can make sure this never happens to you. I guess this experience has given you a little bit of hindsight."
"I can't just leave and let you die, Bruce."
Bruce's tone softened. "Listen, Clark, I probably will die but if it leads to you saving your own world, then it's okay. You owe nothing to anyone here."
"I never kept a ledger of those I help, Bruce." Clark replied candidly. "What happens now?"
"I guess I face my fate, and just let the pieces fall as they may."
Diana was cornered into the mouth of a shallow cave with no exits. Bloodthirsty monsters faced her down, eager to carve out her heart. She should've called for help when she had the chance but now no one would hear her in all this darkness. Wincing in pain she could barely lift her lacerated arm, much less hold up and swing her sword which now suddenly felt like the heaviest thing in the world.
She knew she was going to die, but she must fight nonetheless. Sometime somewhere eternal glory would await her…her compatriots said so when she marched with them in this land of gods and monsters.
Her shield arm went up first, unaware that the monsters would see this this as a sign of weakness. They encircled her like it was a simple drill, and for a moment she was afraid of what her friends would find when they finally discovered what was left of her…
She closed her eyes for the second to last time and held up her trusty shield as high as she could. However, when she looked over the threshold there were no monsters. No evil. Just a man, his eyes cooling from red as he stood on the ashes of what would've ended her.
"Forgive me, Diana, I'm sorry it took me this long."
Diana had been pounding on the ice for months, with no avail. She had been unrelentingly carving out a channel through the cold firewall in the hope she'd get closer to what lay beyond. Every time her sword pierced the skin the Fortress would send a pulse that would send her back to where she started, and then rebuild itself. The cycle continued for months but Diana never gave up. She would do this for a thousand years if that's what it took to finally get to him, and then she'd do it again.
Eventually, the force field stood down and let her inside the cave. She soldiered on with little hesitation, but stopped when she entered the darkness that greeted her. This wasn't the Fortress of Solitude that she was used to. There was no illumination, and not a single trace of life. Perhaps this particular home really did house the soul of those that inhabited it.
"Kal? Are you here?" she called out. There was no answer, just an echo.
Diana explored deeper. There were shards, splinters, shattered pieces of furniture that all made a gut-wrenching crunch as she walked over them. She decided to fly instead for fear of disturbing anything. But wasn't that why she was here in the first place? To disturb?
"Kal?" she called out again. She knew where the rooms were from when Kal had showed her his home for the first time. She remembered that he had wanted to show her what 'real snow' was like when she mentioned she wasn't a fan of it.
She floated silently up the stairs, to the master bedroom. She felt rude, invading his and Lois' privacy like this. But she had to reach out beyond what was worldly acceptable.
Diana called his name once more when she stepped inside, but he wasn't in sight. Where else could he be? Just then she thought she heard the beat of his heart. It came from a door which she thought was the wardrobe and she walked to it, now afraid of what she might see.
She opened the door, and gasped. It wasn't a walk-in wardrobe, nor a bathroom. It was a baby room. There were stars and moons on the ceiling, flowers and animals on the wall, and two identical cribs. Suddenly she felt terrible for being here. She shouldn't be anywhere near this place. This whole excursion had been a mistake.
"Diana!"
The piercing voice brought Diana back from her memories. They had been progressively stronger and real each time, so she just stopped trying to repress them, not expecting them to flow like sunlight when she did so.
"Yes, Kal?"
"What were you doing? I've been calling you." Kal sounded short-tempered.
"I guess there was some interference." she offered.
"Can you hear me clearly now?"
"Loud and clear."
"Good. We've found electromagnetic activity close to the Wayne Manor, I'm on the way now and I expect to need your help." He ordered, "Bring your best sword."
There was a chilling tone to his voice, but she understood the necessities of everything they did. "Okay, I'll meet you there."
Clark watched Bruce push a series of buttons and dials. The ground beneath them rumbled as the time transistor crackled to life. He could feel the air buzz and it was almost deafening.
"Fifty percent!" Bruce called out to him.
Bon Jovi rang around in his head. This was going to be over in a short while, but he couldn't stop thinking about Superman, Wonder Woman, and of course the man in front of him. They could still be saved, said a voice in his head.
"Fifty-two!"
Clark grit his teeth. Bruce was offering him the opportunity to save his world from this, at the same time condemning this one to its own fate.
Did he really want to run away from all this?
Bruce looked over the data feed. Everything looked good, and by that, everything looked unintelligible just like the last time. He could inadvertently send him to Renaissance France, but even that would be better than the world of today. Clark would probably even enjoy himself.
Suddenly the alarms started ringing, and his first reaction was to turn the machine off. The alarm had nothing to do with the machine, however.
"Is that bad?" Clark chimed.
"Yes."
Bruce sprang into action, taking the shortcut to the elevator that would take him into the level below. Clark followed him, and stopped when Bruce locked the elevator doors behind him.
"Stay here, Clark, and I mean it this time! When that power gauge reaches ninety you should be home safe."
Clark watched him disappear down, and turned to the machine in front of him. He hadn't given Bruce any indication but he knew exactly how the transistor was supposed to work. It was an RNG machine, a random number generator, and he surmised that the threads of fate were tied to an exact number. The machine hoped to manipulate such numbers.
Except that was all impossible without being some time lord, and no amount of science could achieve that, Clark was confident because not even Krypton could and they were under a lot more pressure. What Bruce and Lex had created was a machine that could transport atoms between strictly parallel universes by simply ripping through them with a particle accelerator.
He eyed the sensor feed of two contacts at high speed inbound for them, and hoping for the best, deftly pushed the same buttons and dials that Bruce did.
