"Two for the price of one," Captain Luthor said cockily, trying to hide his fear. He seemed to forget that he could hear his heartbeat.
It wasn't enough that he was his foe, but he had to victimize his counterpart on this Earth as well. He dodged the energy blast. "Luthor, it's the end of the line for you. You can't beat two of us. Put the hammer down and come willingly, and I will testify that you were cooperative."
"Ha!" he said. "Testify to who exactly? Some Kryptonian tribunal?"
"No, to a regular court made up of your peers," he said patiently. He didn't really think he would give himself up, but he was distracting him. He was trying to give his doppelganger time to recover from the blow, who was already on his feet, drinking in the sun's rays.
Captain Luthor started spinning his hammer again. "I am glad you're here. We can finish what we started, and you can pay for what you did to Earth, to my family, leaving them both utterly destroyed."
"Our Earth is still there as is Lois. After you left, we found a way to eradicate the consciousnesses of everyone but one, and she is in containment. We're rebuilding. Nothing will replace the millions of lives lost, of course, but we won't forget them, and we will ensure nothing like this happens again."
"Lies!" he said, releasing the hammer.
He dodged the blast again, but the force was enough to knock him from the air and land on the ground with a solid thud. "As for your family, you destroyed that yourself."
He was making his anger rise, which was good, because angry people got sloppy in their desire to lash out. Luthor brought out one of his guns that simulated red sun energy. "More lies! I should have killed you when you were still the army's prisoner. It would have saved so many lives."
"And you think Lois would have married a murderer? We both know better than that. You may not believe this, but I am sorry for you. Natalie didn't deserve to have a father go mad with bloodlust, and Lois didn't deserve to find out that her husband carried more hatred in his heart than he did love for her."
"Shut up!" he said, shooting the gun.
He ducked though the heat of the blast singed the back of his neck. "I pity you. You had two great treasures, the most beautiful women on the planet, inside and out, who are so sweet and intelligent that you would have to be a fool to not want to be a better man for them."
"You turned them against me, but though they may not see it now, they'll see I was right to end all alien threat. The next time the world may not be so lucky. This Earth is infected with Kryptonians too, and not just the ones affected by x-kryptonite, but ones of your bloodline, polluting and corrupting human DNA."
That took him by pleasant surprise. He'd had children here? He didn't have time to ponder it long as he was hit dead center by another firing of the gun. It weakened him and pain radiated throughout his body, making fall to the ground.
But his lookalike had sufficiently recovered, and a well-aimed and well-timed punch had Captain Luthor and his suit flying with a crackling sound that proved the suit had sustained damage.
The Superman of this Earth helped him up to his feet, and together, they punched and ripped at the metal until they had him out of the suit.
"Go ahead and kill me," Luthor said with a snarl. "You'll only make me a hero."
He and the other Superman sighed at the same time. He just didn't get it, and he never would. He was an alien, but he was more human than many of the citizens of Earth. His adopted parents had raised him with the Judeo-Christian values so common in the Midwest. And even had he been raised Kryptonian like his cousin, Kara, the people of Krypton were a peaceful people with a few bad seeds like anywhere else.
The brighter version of himself held onto him while he bound him. Luthor attempted to incapacitate him by headbutting his rather solid chest, which rendered the captain unconscious. He picked him up. "Thanks for the help."
"The gratitude is mutual. How are you here?"
"I confiscated a neat piece of Kryptonian technology from Tal-Rho, or Morgan Edge's desert fortress. It opens windows between dimensions. It works like a black hole as I understand it only more precise."
"Amazing."
Before he could demonstrate it. The cavalry, as it were, arrived, Sam, Lois, and Jimmy. They looked between the Supermans with astonishment.
"Is it really all you?' Lois asked with eyes on her Clark. She wasn't asking because there were two of them but because of the former body snatching.
His more colorful counterpart went to her, wrapping her in his embrace and kissing her. He didn't miss the sparkle on her left finger. Did this Clark know how fortunate he was to have her? "Yes," he said, answering his wife with words after they'd pulled apart. "General Zod is gone."
"How?" Lois looked at him, no doubt expecting he'd had a hand in it.
"You," her husband answered her. "Captain Luthor threatened you and the boys, and it gave me the strength I needed to fight him off. My love for my family saved me. I don't know what I'd have done without you all."
He could answer that one. "Unspeakable things. But if you were lucky, you'd still have a friend that cared, who would know it wasn't really you and stake everything, her very life, to rescue you."
Lois didn't miss the tender look he had as he talked about his friend. "And if you were really lucky, you'd find out that friend loved you too."
He smiled because he hoped it was true. He had to take care of Captain Luthor and find Natalie, who they'd been fretting over because she'd gone missing. However, he hoped to ask her to marry him soon. Very soon.
Sam spoke for the first time, and he tried not to cringe, knowing it wasn't the same man. "I owe all of you an apology. I should have known better than to trust him more than anybody."
"You couldn't have known anymore than we did," Lois said. "There was a point before his kidnapping when I thought he might work with us against the Kryptonians. I almost got my husband killed by arranging a meeting because of it."
"You've got to stop beating yourself up over that," her Clark said to her. "You're magnificent, but you're not a clairvoyant. None of us knew the depths of psychotic behavior he was capable of sinking to."
"I did," Sam said, surprising them all. "Or at least, I had my suspicions. I knew his other self, the Captain Luthor of this world." He paused to allow for them to speak or ask questions, but he'd stunned them into silence, so he continued. "He was a brilliant mind, making breakthroughs in mechanical engineering that would have revolutionized the way the military does battle."
"Until he went mysteriously went missing," Clark said, remembering the file they'd pulled up on him during his interrogation.
"Not so mysteriously to me. He too became obsessed with Superman, seeing devils where there were none. He was plotting to kill you."
"How come I never met him?" the Clark of this world asked, trying to process it.
"Yeah, I think if there was a mentally deranged man running around that was capable of producing technology that could kill Superman, we'd want to know about him. Why didn't you ever say anything?" Lois asked.
"Because I don't just take care of the country, I take care of my family too. And in this case, I was doing both." The grim statement left no mystery to the fate of the Alex Luthor of this world. "But I was desperate enough that I hoped our cross dimensional ties would keep him in check."
Natalie and the boys pulled up in her car, adding to their numbers. He saw Lois' features in all three of them as they ran toward him, but what's more, he saw his too in the twins. His mind reeled to think that a family was really a possibility for him. He'd written it off for so long that it hardly seemed real. Then his gaze focused again on Natalie and a fatherly love filled him. He had family already.
"Superman!" Natalie said with wide eyes that were filling with happy tears.
"Am I ever glad to see you!" he said.
She hugged him on the side of his free arm. His other side was still holding her unconscious father. "Same. Is Mom-"
"She's fine though worried about you. I never would have guessed you went through a portal too. Fortunately, I have a way to get us back to our Earth, a portal opener."
"I thought I was stuck here. I thought there was nothing to go back to," she said, the tears continuing to fall, sadder this time.
He wiped them with his thumb. "There is, and it'll need people like you to make it a place worth living again. Are you ready? He's done enough damage here. I'd like to get him back."
She nodded.
"Don't forget me," Jimmy said. He'd been standing back, observing.
"You're not the Jimmy of this Earth? How many portals opened?"
"Enough apparently where you better hang on to that portal opener doohickey until we're sure everyone's accounted for," he answered.
Lois was looking at Jimmy warmly, and she spoke, "I don't know if I ever said this to our Jimmy, but I love you like the little brother I never had. Thanks for always being there to help me chase down stories when no one else in their right mind would have."
He smiled back with wet eyes. "I love you too, and I know Jimmy would have told you that he enjoyed every minute of your adventures no matter how many times Superman had to come save you both."
There was a flurry of goodbyes, and then he opened up a portal before Captain Luthor came to.
He heard them talking as he stepped through.
"Do you think that Clark and Lois will make it?" Lois asked her husband. "Judging from all the other versions of ourselves, the universe seems to have a way of putting us together."
"I don't know," he answered honestly, "but I do know I would fall in love with you a thousand times, and you will hold my heart forever."
He could echo that sentiment wholeheartedly, and for the first time in the longest time, hope wasn't just a symbol on his chest.