Chapter 20

Earth-16

2035

Almerac

"How?" Clark dropped to his knees, eyes unwilling to believe the sight before him. "No. No. No. This isn't real. You aren't here." Clutching his head, he shook it violently. Praying the foul, soul-stealing image away.

He knew the truth. Eventually, he could always discern truth from lies, truth from cruel, heartless deception. But in those early days, he hadn't. He'd simply given in, been fooled and led easily astray. Breaking my marriage vows time and again. Disloyal, unfaithful wretch that I've become.

Clark slid away from the woman staring down at him. The image morphing from the face and body of his beloved to the woman who'd stolen everything from him.

His freedom.

His honor.

His hope.

"I've given you everything, Kal-El of Krypton. Yet, in a year's time, you are no different today than you were when you came seeking your son." Queen Maxima leaned down to face him, green, silk dress tight and flaring out from hips meant to tempt, to tease, to torture any man foolish enough to crawl between her royal thighs.

As I did. Rao help me, as I did.

Long fingers rose to Clark's head, pushed back long waves of black hair until she found his defiant eyes staring up at her.

"You try my patience, Kal-El. You think me a woman who will be led by the nose, falling at your feet and doing your bidding simply because we are a biological match?" The hand that had been stroking him so gently suddenly tightened and yanked him forward. "Do you think I enjoy using mind control to trick you into my bed? Do you find it flattering to resist my advances during the day yet have me come to you at night, don the face of another, and then slip into your dreams before slipping in your bed?"

With a mental strength that had amazed Clark when Maxima had first thrown him across her throne room, Clark went flying through the air, smashing into the wall behind him, cracking stone and shaking the foundation of his prison cell.

He did nothing to stop her. Maxima knew all his secrets, including the key to his power. Upon arriving at her palace, surrounded by a horde of guards, Clark had no doubt he could either talk his way out of whatever his hotheaded son had gotten himself into this time, or, if need be, trade himself for Athos. The trade, Clark had reasoned, would spare his son and give Clark time to escape. But there had been no trade and no escape.

What there had been was a son's execution. Over a dozen palace guards, covered in body armor and armed with high-powered laser guns had dragged Athos into the throne room. Shackles on wrists and ankles, in what Clark had later learned from his own imprisonment, made from an unbreakable metal-like substance.

The boy, who'd grown into a young man while they traversed the cosmos, wanting nothing more than to go home to his mother, had been brutally beaten. His body riddled with bruises and deep gashes, including a litany of broken bones.

Clark had stared at his son, using his X-ray vision to examine every inch of Athos. Fatherly anger growing with each new discovery, an overabundance of wounds to a young man who could take more than his fair share of punishment and keep going. It was then, when Athos had raised his eyes, one swollen and shut the other black and hollow, that Clark knew.

They'd tortured his son, claiming his right eye in the process. Clark's own eyes had widened, hardened, and then glared at the Queen of Almerac. He gritted out, "Queen or not, no one has a right to torture another, especially my son."

Then he had flown at the guards restraining his son, their lasers bursting into flames when Clark heated them with his heat vision, forcing the guards to discard the weapons, lest they burn as well. Clark opened his mouth and blew the flames and guards out of his way, scattering the screaming men around the room like duckpins. Slamming them into walls, windows, and each other.

From pain or exhaustion, Clark didn't know, but Athos leaned over, taking deep, labored breaths.

Clark drew nearer to his son, fighting his way through even more guards as they flooded into the room.

Lasers aimed and fired

Fists swung.

Feet kicked.

So many. It was so many of them. Much stronger, much faster, much more skilled at combat than the initial batch of guards.

And they could fly.

Which they did, surrounding Clark and Athos. Their laser guns pointing at them. Clark backed up until he stood directly in front of his son, the red-and-blue of his Superman armor and cape protecting the boy as best he could.

"Father," Athos had rasped. "I'm sorry, Father. I didn't mean … I didn't mean …"

Without looking, Clark reached behind him and found his son's hand. Giving it a squeeze and ignoring the wet, sticky feel of blood dripping from Athos' fingers, Clark spoke in a volume that only someone with heightened hearing could detect. "It's going to be all right, son. I'll get us out of this. I promise."

It was the last promise he'd made to his son, and the first he'd failed to fulfill.

Queen Maxima had yelled, "Enough!"

Clark's body went spiraling upward, his face, hands, and chest shredded when he smashed into the vaulted ceiling and the dozens of blue-and-white crystal lights hanging from it. But they were no mere crystals, but sharp shards of dense titanium dipped in something acidic.

Cutting and burning.

The queen, auburn hair flapping like an infuriated cape, floated from her throne and up to Clark.

Body pressed against the ceiling, he couldn't move. Not even when the woman lifted her finger and ran it down his punctured and bleeding face, digging a nail in when she reached his chin and a particularly deep abrasion.

"Your son," Queen Maxima hissed, "killed my most trusted and loyal general. For that, he must pay the ultimate price. Perhaps, Kal-El of Krypton, you should have taught your son better manners. I only wished to speak to him, but he decided to fight instead. Now he will learn. And you will watch."

She floated away from him, ignoring his screams to "Spare my son. No, no, please spare him. Take me instead. He's just a boy."

A radiant smile but cold, reproachful eyes glared up at a struggling Clark.

"You have failed your son, know that. What happens next is your fault and your fault alone."

Clark willed his body to move, to do something other than stay glued to the damn ceiling. But nothing he did worked. He couldn't budge. The woman was a witch, how else could she force someone as strong as Superman to do something against his will?

Not even his heat vision worked anymore. His body was completely immobile and utterly unresponsive.

Which meant Athos was at the mercy of the vicious queen and her royal guards.

On his knees, Athos had fallen to the marble floor. Clark only able to see the top of his son's dark head.

Clark cried out. It couldn't end this way. He'd promised to save him. He'd promised Diana to keep their son safe and bring him home. Six years. Six god damn years and Clark hadn't done one thing right. Now his son was on his knees, broken, bleeding, and about to die.

Clark fought harder. But the war he waged lived only in his emotionally-battered mind. On the outside, Clark was as still and silent as a London fog, blanketing the city in its dark, heavy intensity.

Zap.

Zap.

Zap.

The laser guns fired.

Zap.

Zap.

Zap.

Zap.

Athos screamed.

Zap.

Zap.

Zap.

Thud.

The smell of burning flesh rose and clogged Clark's nostrils. The beat, beat, beat of Athos' heart slowed, slowed, slowed, stopped.

Clark couldn't fight or flee, couldn't yell his fury and pain, and couldn't bear to look upon his deceased son. So he did the only thing he could. He closed his eyes and let the tears fall, cursing himself with each tear he shed.

Now, a year later, he lay sprawled on a dirty cell floor, the bane of his existence hovering over him.

"Look at you. You're pathetic. Unkempt and cowed. You are not the man I wish to take as mate, as queen's consort. I want the proud and strong Kryptonian who'd strolled into my palace a cycle ago. That is the man I wish to have as the father of my children. That is the man capable of ruling by my side."

Clark sat up until his back came in contact with the wall, knees raised to his chest.

"You have taken my son, my body, and my freewill. What else could you possibly want from me, Maxima?"

"What else? What else?!" the woman screamed. "How about gratitude for permitting you to live? How about a genuine smile when I enter a room? How about a kind word or a sincere touch?"

The woman was delusional. Nothing about their sick, warped "relationship" was real. At least not in the way Maxima would like for it to be, the way she pretended.

"When I don't do your bidding, you throw me in this dungeon cell. Despite our supposed biological compatibility, you have not conceived. No matter how many times you come to me. And you blame me, as if it's my failure, which lands me in this rat hole each time you learn you're not pregnant."

Thank Rao for small wonders. Clark didn't know what he would do if or when Maxima conceived. But she was determined to do so. And, Rao forgive him, over this past year he'd had sex with her most nights. Against his will, for sure. Still, in the solitude of his mind, Clark blamed himself for his repeated acts of adultery. A stronger man could've withstood her telepathy and mind control. Remained faithful and true even under the direst of circumstances.

When Maxima would take Diana's form and pleasure him with mouth, hand, and body, the most disgraceful and weakest part of Clark's subconscious was grateful for the illusion. Worse, it was those times he took pleasure in the deception, wanting his wife so badly that little mind control was needed. Each time he did, his weakness sickened him even more. Often throwing up afterward and angering Maxima to the point of having him hauled from her bed and to the dungeon to "think on your continued disrespect of the Queen of Almerac."

What would Diana think of him if she knew? If she could see him in his current state? Weak from lack of sun and a sex slave to a queen who only thought of her own selfish needs? Then there was Athos. Clark pushed thoughts of his son away. Contemplating his failure as a husband was bad enough. He didn't need to rehash, for the millionth time, how grossly he'd let his son down, and how the boy had died, surrounded by enemies, his father unable to help. Unable to save him.

"You will give me a child, Kal-El. Just as you will one day grow to love me and accept me willingly into your bed." She knelt, their eyes leveled. "If I release you today, even tomorrow, do you think you can go home again? Do you think the wife you left on Earth would open her loving arms to you after what you've done?"

Leaning in, Maxima pressed a kissed to his lips.

Clark drew away in disgust.

Maxima's eyes flared in rejected fury.

"I know of you, Superman, and your heroics with the Justice League. Even all the way out here, the Almeracs have heard of the great Superman. But you weren't that day, were you? When my elite guards killed your son for his crime against Almerac, for killing Ultraa."

Clark said nothing, but he held her gaze. Unable to look away and wanting Maxima to see all the hatred he held for her. The hatred he held for himself.

"The woman you hold so close to your heart," Maxima said as she stood, as graceful as she was manipulative, "do you think she'll forgive you for allowing mortal harm to come to her son?" She ran a hand over one ample bosom then down to a curvaceous hip. "Or for making love to another woman? Repeatedly and often," she added, making sure her mental, manipulative blade found and punctured his heart.

"We never made love." Clark pushed to his feet, towering over Maxima when he did so. But the woman wasn't cowed by him. She never had been, not even when he'd forced his way into her throne room in search of his son. "I've only ever made love to one woman. And you damn sure aren't her, no matter how many times you force me to see my wife's face when I look at you."

Queen Maxima laughed—a vicious, impatient sound Clark had heard too many times to count.

"No matter what you choose to call it, Kal-El, we are lovers. Even before I took you to my bed, you hadn't been with your wife in years. Do you think she will believe you faithful to her? Or do you think she'll see this situation for what it looks to all in Almerac?" Maxima closed the few inches that separated them and whispered in Clark's ear. "They think you traded your body, your honor, for your life. You see, Kal-El, I'm not known for my mercy, but I spared you." A tongue slithered out and licked the shell of his ear.

Clark shuddered in revulsion, and then pushed Maxima away from him. Hands on her shoulders, he couldn't help but be drawn into her penetrating, green-eyed gaze.

He tried to close his eyes, to shut her out. To focus on anything other than the woman before him.

Traitorous blue eyes remained opened and fixed on the queen of deceit and deception.

She slipped inside his mind, and, like a master thief, took what wasn't rightfully hers.

Yanking Maxima to him, Clark kissed her—hungrily, passionately, unwillingly.

Moaning, she twined her arms around his neck and sank deeper into the kiss, crowding out Clark's free will with her own lustful machinations.

Pulling the drawstring of his pants undone, the garment dropped to the floor. Spinning, he crushed Maxima against the wall she'd used her telekinesis to throw him against just ten minutes before. Clark hoisted her up, rough and urgent, uncaring whether he hurt her but knowing she liked it wild.

She always made sure he took her the way she wanted. Repeatedly and often, just as she'd said.

Damn her.

To his great despair, unending shame, Clark gave her precisely what she wanted. Ripping off her panties, he pushed her dress up and out of his way, then shoved himself deep inside her wet, waiting passage.

She moaned with pleasure.

Clark groaned in defeat.

Then went about mindlessly fucking Queen Maxima.

The telepath, with each forced thrust, blurred the memories of Clark making love to and loving Princess Diana with images of the two of them.

No, Diana would never, could never forgive this.

Clark Kent no longer had a son, a wife, or a home to return to. All he had was his wretched guilt and shame, and a heartache and longing for a wife he would never again see, never again deserve.

Earth-16

2035

Mount Etna

Hephaestus handed Diana his latest creation, a Corinthian helmet. Made of bronze, the helmet covered the entire head and neck with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved projection protected the nape of the neck, as well as the cheek bones of the wearer.

"Thank you, brother."

Wiping a large hand over sweaty brows, Hephaestus, red eyes staring at Diana through goggles, frowned down at her.

"This isn't wise, princess."

Examining the final piece of armor, Diana was ready for her mission. Nearly six months in the making, she now had all the information she needed on Almerac, thanks to Batman, a battle-ready spaceship for two and new armor and weaponry thanks to Hephaestus.

No one agreed with her or her intentions. Despite that, Hippolyta had offered to send a squadron of Amazon warriors with Diana, and all in the League was willing to travel with her as well. Yet Diana wanted none of them to go with her, though she appreciated their willingness to aid her, to fight and possibly die by her side.

But she couldn't ask that of them, couldn't risk anyone but herself. Members of the League were needed on Earth, and her sisters shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves for the man of another woman's heart. Even when that heart belonged to their princess.

"I know, but I have no choice. My husband is on Almerac, and I must find him."

Even through the goggles, Diana could see Hephaestus' eyes glow with doubt then with sympathy.

Diana was used to those twin looks from her family and friends. No one believed, after a year, Clark was still alive.

"Don't you think, if he could, if he were alive, Clark would've returned home?" Bruce had said to Diana when she'd gone to him for assistance. "Diana, I know this is hard on you. It's hard on all of us. But you have to come to terms with the facts. Clark is gone."

Diana had spun away from Bruce and the words that pricked at her conscience, her common sense, even her pride.

Clark couldn't be gone. She'd waited. She'd stood by and let her son and husband go, knowing, in her heart, they would one day return to her. That they would be a family the way she always wanted them to be. Yet one year had turned into two and eventually into six, without a single communication from Athos or Clark.

Until that day almost a year ago.

"I still have faith in Clark, Bruce, even if yours has waned. Clark would've fought. He wouldn't have given up without one hell of a fight."

"You make my point, Diana," Bruce had said, pulling out a chair next to him.

Diana had sat. The bank of computers in the batcave in front of them. They depicted dark streets and neighborhoods all over Gotham. People were going about their Thursday night, unaware that the Batman had them under constant surveillance. But Bruce's unmasked eyes were intent and all for Diana, not the city he loved and the residents he lovingly, stubbornly protected.

"Clark would've fought until his last breath." A gloved hand reached out and found hers, holding it with affection, friendship, and far too much pity. "Clark would return if he could. He wouldn't leave you waiting for him, pining for him, putting your life on hold for a man who will never return."

Diana yanked her hand out of Bruce's.

"You keep saying that. Every time you say 'if he could,' I hear something different than you do. You think Clark is dead, while I do not. You're right, Bruce. If my husband could return to me, I know he would've done so by now. The fact that he has yet to do so only tells me he's in trouble and needs my help."

"Diana, please …"

She leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"I love you, Bruce Wayne, and I respect your brilliant mind and trust you like a brother." Diana stood. "But you're wrong about Clark. He isn't dead." She raised her hand and placed it over her heart. "If he were, I would know it. In here. I can't explain it better than that. I just know my husband still lives and is in trouble."

Bruce also rose. His eyes shone with the same weariness Diana felt.

"You didn't believe he was alive six months ago. How can you be so sure now?"

How to explain? Well, it was actually quite simple, really. Love blinded. Love betrayed.

"Athos."

Bruce's face reflected unspoken understanding.

"I thought you used the lasso on him when he returned."

She had, but Diana hadn't probed her son's soul as deeply as she should have. Didn't ask the right questions then.

Diana had been ecstatic to see her son, engulfing him in long hugs and excessive kisses to his cheeks and forehead.

Missing him didn't begin to capture how she felt when he'd been gone. The Fortress deathly silent and depressing without her son, without her Clark. For many minutes, Diana hadn't noticed Athos was alone, so elated was she to have her son with her, back in her arms and safe at home.

He'd grown into a handsome young man. It was then, when she'd finally released Athos in order to get a good look at her son that she'd realized how much he'd grown to look even more like his father.

Then she'd asked the question uppermost in her heart. "Where's your father? Where's Clark?"

"I used the lasso, Bruce, but it was a shallow exploration. I felt badly for even thinking Athos would lie to me, especially about his father. I believed him when he said he was taken into custody. And I believed him when he said his father came for him, trading himself for Athos."

"If you believe all of that, then what is this about? Why do you need information on Almerac, its people and its monarch?"

Diana retook her seat, and Bruce did the same.

"While I believe my son, a part of me thinks there is more to the story. And, well, I know it's wrong of me to say so, but I can't but be disappointed that he left his father behind. He said he was beaten and then taken from the palace after the palace guards had Clark in custody."

"Athos isn't like us, Diana. Not to rub salt in an open wound, but that son of yours is prideful and selfish. I have no problem believing he left Clark for the vultures. Two left Earth, but only one returned. I don't like it. I don't like that Clark left to save Athos, to save the world from Athos, yet he's the one who's missing. The one who's dead."

"Will you help me, Bruce?" Diana pleaded.

Going back and forth with Bruce was pointless. They agreed as much as they disagreed. The argument between them was futile, particularly since they both had doubts about Athos' version of events.

"I won't interrogate my son. But I also can't continue to turn a blind eye to the possibility that he may have betrayed his father. So I ask you again, my friend, will you help me?"

"You'll go whether I aid you or not."

"I have no choice. My heart won't allow me to go on without knowing the full truth."

"If you die in search of the truth?"

Diana hadn't responded. Bruce already knew the answer. She was willing to kill for Clark, and without a doubt, she would also die for him. She didn't know the Queen of Almerac, but Diana would slay even her, if the woman had indeed, as Athos claimed, taken the life of her beloved Clark.

"Princess," Hephaestus said, drawing her mind back to the present, "you are the best of our sorry lot of gods. You are hope and light, and I don't wish to lose you to the darkness of the universe. Our hands, our powers, our magic cannot reach that far, Diana. Even if our siblings wish to help you, we could not, not from here. Let me—"

"No, brother. Your place is here. But I thank you. Your weapons will give me a fighting chance, and your ship will get me to and from my destination safely and unseen."

Hephaestus touched the bracers Diana wore, then lifted her arms.

"No matter how many godly weapons you have at your disposal, you are but one Amazon, Diana. Two hands, mighty as they may be, against only Zeus knows how many enemies is not favorable odds."

"I know."

"Yet you will still go, risk your life because of a bleeding heart?"

"True, my heart bleeds when I think of the fate that may have befallen my husband. But it is faith that drives me, brother. Faith, determination, and love. If I fall, if I fail, at least I'll know it was for a worthy cause, a noble undertaking."

"What of Athos? Does he know?"

Diana shook her head. "I don't want his help or his interference. I'm not quite ready to learn that my son is as vile and heartless as you, Mother, and Bruce believes him to be. I'd rather think him a coward than a betrayer of the highest order. The thought hurts too much."

Hephaestus glided his fingers over the bracers. "When it's time, princess, remove these and be the daughter of Zeus. You are a child of Olympus. If the Almeracs force your hand, show them why the Greek Pantheon is a frightening force to behold. No quarter, Diana, no retreat. If they have your Superman, if they've killed him, make them suffer with all the weapons in your godly arsenal."

"I intend to."

Hephaestus hugged her, and then watched as she boarded the spacecraft.

"Be safe, Diana. Be safe."

Five minutes later, Diana was airborne and accelerating out of Earth's atmosphere. She coded in the coordinates to Almerac, set the ship's cloaking mechanism, turning it invisible, and then flew the craft deeper into space.

Diana had no idea what she'd discover at journey's end. But one thing was for certain, come Hell or an Amazon's wrath, Queen Maxima would feel the lethal kiss of Diana's blade.

TO BE CONTINUED