It's here!! THE END OF TIME ITSELF!!
The End of Time Part 1, BBC One, 6pm. Don't miss it.
Anyway, the next chapter:
Chapter 9:
The Voice From The Fortress
"What do you mean, 'infected'?" the Doctor asked.
"Jor-El just tried to convince me you were Zod, and that I should send you to the Phantom Zone."
"Zod?!"
"He's a kr-"
"A Kryptonian criminal, yeah."
"He called you a Time Lord, and I hadn't even mentioned it. He tried to make up for it, scramble for an explanation, but I could tell. Someone else was speaking through him."
The Doctor turned away in thought.
"You said the Blur might have them worried, whoever it is that's messing with my life. What if, when I became the Blur, they took over the Fortress, to regain control."
"Control." the Doctor breathed, so quiet that even with his level of hearing, Clark barely heard him.
"Doctor." Clark spoke. "What is it?"
"Control." he repeated, louder this time. "It's obvious. Oh, its so obvious."
"What is?"
He whirled round to face him. "Think about it, Clark! You want to manipulate someone, to control to what they do, what's the best way to do that? Assume the position of the person they rely on the most! And before you argue about your Earth parents or your friends, when you were lost, when you had no answers, when you were completely out of options… where did you go?"
Realisation flooded him. "The Fortress." he said. And before that, the Kawatche Caves. And the ship before that. Wherever 'Jor-El' was. "I was never speaking to my father, was I?"
"I don't think so." the Doctor answered.
This time it was Clark who started to pace. "It all makes sense. All the things in my life, all the things you said shouldn't have happened. Jor-El was at the centre of them."
"And I bet it goes further than that." the Doctor said. "All the times you've felt alone, and alien. All the times you wished you never had your powers, regardless of the lives you could save. I'll bet 'Jor-El' was the cause of those moments too." Clark's silence was his answer. "Its been trying to make you wish you'd never been born. It's been trying to make a hero the last thing you want to be."
There was silence again, that last sentence hanging in the air. Until Clark turned back to the Doctor.
"But it failed." he said, his eyes full of something the Doctor had only read about in history books. It the future, that look would be accompanied by a red cape billowing behind it. "I'm going to tear that place to the ground, find whoever this is, and stop them before they hurt anyone else."
"Now," the Doctor grinned. "that sounds like Clark Kent. But the Fortress isn't our next stop."
"Then where is?"
"Luthorcorp." he replied, grabbing his coat and walking out the door.
The floor of the Fortress was still trembling.
The child knew. He must. Otherwise he would have returned by now. No matter, the problem was easily resolvable. It was the other one that might cause difficulties, and must therefore be removed.
Long blades of ice broke through the foundations of the Fortress. Dozens of them, rising and hovering in the air. Then they were drawn together, the right pieces meeting at the right points.
His army was born.
Hours later, Luthorcorp's Metropolis Headquarters was silent, and empty.
In an office on the tenth floor, a wind arrived from nowhere. Papers on the desk were swept into the air, as the unnatural wind spread across the entire room. Then the silence was broken, by a noise like no other. The sound itself was at first barely there, a whispering only audible through concentration. But it grew, this mysterious sound, becoming louder as more paper was swept up into the miniature whirlwind. Soon, the groaning sound of an ancient engine, rising and falling, filled the entire room. And just as the mysterious breeze had soon been accompanied by the equally impossible noise, the droning was joined by a hint of a blue object appearing in the corner of the office. The object itself, tall and box-like, had barely exposed itself, before it was gone again. And then, as quickly as it had disappeared, it re-emerged in the same place, yet somehow less transparent. It repeated this procedure, all the while making the groaning sound and sweeping up office utensils around it, a few more times before it became clear that the object was a four sided blue box, with 'POLICE BOX' appearing above it. The TARDIS had arrived.
The doors creaked open and the Doctor stepped out, making sure they had arrived at the correct destination. Clark followed.
"Why here, exactly?" he asked.
"Because knowledge is power, and right now all the knowledge is on the bad guy's side. We know very little." the Doctor said, curiously examining what had managed to stay on the office desk. "From everything you've told me, the earliest known difference between your life and the life of Clark Kent as I know it, is that Lex Luthor was in Smallville on the day of the meteor shower."
"When my ship arrived."
"Exactly. But why? Why did his father bring him to Smallville that day. If we work backwards we might be able to get a better idea of who we're dealing with. Now, lead the way to Lionel Luthor's office"
Chloe had given up calling Clark's cell phone, she couldn't get through. Even if he had, like the Doctor implied a few hours ago, gone to the Fortress then he still should have been back by now.
She had planned to keep a close eye on the Doctor, using the tracking device she had slipped in his coat in the Kent kitchen. But, as she sat in front on the many monitors in the Isis Foundation, it seemed that plan had fallen on its face, as she couldn't locate the tracking device. The tracking device that could be located anywhere in the world, couldn't be found. The Doctor was, apparently, nowhere.
Until now. Suddenly, the monitor was showing satellite pictures zooming in on a red dot. The Doctor had reappeared. The satellite pictures zoomed in further, showing Chloe Metropolis, then even further, pin-pointing his location.
Luthorcorp.
She wondered if Clark had also reappeared.
As they walked along the corridor towards the late Lionel Luthor's office, Clark glanced out of the window into darkness.
"It's night." he said. "It was noon when we left the farm. Did we just…"
"Time Travel? Yeah." the Doctor answered. "It's the same day, just a few hours later. Couldn't risk a random Luthorcorp employee of the month getting in the way. Everyone's gone home."
Clark heard his cell phone begin to ring, and saw 'Chloe' on the Caller ID.
"Not a good time." he answered.
"Too bad." Chloe replied on the other line. "This is important."
"Left or right?" the Doctor asked Clark when they came to a turning. Clark nodded to the left.
"Clark is that the Doctor? Are you still with him?" she asked in fear.
"Yes, but this really isn't a good --"
"Clark, please listen, he's dangerous. I did a background check, and he's… I can't even explain what he is. But its not good.
Clark, looked at the Doctor. He didn't know why, but he trusted this man completely.
"We'll talk about this later, I really have to go." he said, hanging up the phone before she argue.
Back in the Isis Foundation, Chloe slammed her phone down. She stared at the red dot on the screen.
Luthorcorp, it was, then.
When they entered the office, the Doctor immediately rushed to the file cabinet in the far corner of the room. Clark, meanwhile, couldn't help but think back to the last time he was here, when the window next to file cabinet had been broken.
"Let's see." said the Doctor, taking out a pair of glasses and putting them on. "1989... Purchases… Here we go. The Ross Creamed Corn Plant. But why? Why did he buy a random plant in the middle of nowhere? No offence." he added to Clark.
"None taken."
The Doctor was too busy to notice, but Clark saw the lights in the room flicker.
"Doesn't make any sense." the Doctor sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "Why would Lionel Luthor buy this plant, it doesn't make sense."
"Why bother yourself with such questions?"
Clark and the Doctor looked at each other. Neither one of them had spoken. So where had that voice came from?
"Especially when you will not live long enough to find answers?" said the voice again.
Clark didn't know who the voice belonged to, but he did know that for many years he believed it to be the voice of his father. It was the voice from the Fortress.
"Our Lord and Master graces us with his presence." the Doctor said, stepping away from the file cabinet and searching the room for the source of the voice. "Or, his voice at least."
"Nevertheless, it is still an honour to hear such a thing. You should be grateful to have done so, before your death, Doctor." the voice said.
"You know my name." the Doctor replied. "But I don't know yours. Go on, introduce yourself."
"That would be very unwise. At the moment I have the advantage of being a mystery. What an enemy does not know, it cannot attack."
"Fair enough." the Doctor said, eyes resting on an intercom device on Lionel's desk. He lifted it to his ear. "How about telling me why you've decided to mess around with my friend Clark's life, then?"
"Kal-El is mine, I may do with him as I wish."
The voice was definitely coming from the intercom device, but not exclusively. Looking around the room, he spotted a phone and a radio. It seemed the voice was coming through anything with a speaker.
"Who are you?" Clark demanded.
"As I have said, to answer that question would be pointless, you will not remember it."
The Doctor and Clark shared another look.
"Well, I don't know about you, Clark, but I'd remember the name of someone who's been manipulating me for years."
Clark's hearing picked up a disturbance downstairs. They were not alone.
"He is mine to manipulate to my heart's content."
"Not anymore, I'm afraid." The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Whoever you are, listen to me. I'm giving you a chance. Stop this. Right now. If you need something, I can help. But your interference in Clark Kent's life ends now. Or I'll stop you.
"Or we'll stop you." Clark added.
"Empty threats." said 'Jor-El'. "You do not who I am, my whereabouts, nor have you any understanding of my power." His voice was cool, as though any attack that Clark or the Doctor could make had already been thwarted.
"Well, you can't be that powerful if you're hiding in the North Pole." the Doctor said, striding around the room as he spoke. "It isn't hard to act big when you're not looking at your enemy. Show yourself, coward!"
"How ironic that I am spoken to of cowardice by you, Doctor. A man who, as we speak, is running from the Gate."
The Doctor stopped striding. Before Clark's eyes, all the defiant arrogance disappeared.
"What did you say?" he said, and Clark did not miss the hint of fear in his voice.
Downstairs, Chloe had broken into Luthorcorp. Well, she figured, it was hardly the first time. According to the tracker, the Doctor and Clark were above her. She ran to the elevator and pushed the button, but looking up she saw the light stating which floor it was currently on had gone out. Slightly confused, she ran to the door of the stairway.
She opened the door, and screamed at what was facing her.
"I have done nothing but brought about your demise slightly earlier than it should have been." said the voice.
They heard a crash from the corridor. Clark looked through the wall, the door from the stairs had been torn from its hinges. At least two dozen figures were marching down the corridor and towards them. He saw only outlines of arms and legs, there was no skeletons. These were not people.
"Kill the Doctor." said the voice, and this time it was so loud that Clark was convinced it was speaking to the things marching towards them. "Bring Kal-El to the Fortress, alive."
The was an audio crack, and the voice didn't speak again. Clark could hear footsteps, getting closer. He looked to the Doctor, who seemed a million miles away.
"Doctor?" Clark said.
The Doctor didn't answer or give any sign he had even heard Clark. But he did react when the door to the office was smashed to pieces. Clark looked at the army before him, and made sure the Doctor was shielded behind him.
They were made of crystals, like those found in the Fortress. Except these were not as elegant; they were jagged and rough. It was as though they had been ripped from the floor, and pieced together to form legs, arms and a spine. But at the top of that, there was no head, nor face.
At least ten entered the room, brandishing their blade-like limbs. Clark could tell the rest were just outside the door ready to step up in the unlikely event that any should fall.
They were surrounded.
I had to get a 'Gate' reference in before tomorrow's episode. :D
Happy Holidays. Whichever one you choose to celebrate.