The limo took Lois home after a detour through a drive-thru Starbucks to get her favorite coffee. She had a story to write-up though truth be told she had enough to ruminate over that she was probably going to be up all night anyway.
She wished she was more shocked than she was that Chloe and Oliver were looking mighty cozy together on the couch, strategizing and talking. When the cat was away, the mice would play as they said.
"You're home early," Oliver said, putting more distance between him and her cousin. Was that disappointment or apology in his voice. She couldn't tell.
"Is that a problem?" she asked with a raised brow.
"No, of course not. I was just explaining to Chloe how we're trying to capture rather than kill Clark now."
"Yes, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that," Chloe said, her eyes narrowed slits of anger as if she'd just caught her in a compromising situation. "Maybe you can explain it to me."
"There's nothing to explain. It's the humane thing to do."
"Humane? He's not human. There's not a drop of humanity anywhere in him. You didn't see the way he heartlessly murdered all the meteor-infected kids in my class. He invaded the school and slaughtered them like cattle. How's that for humane?"
"It's not about what he does. It's about what we do, and two wrongs don't make a right. They never have."
"Oh please, spare me the cliches and pretty words. I would have been among the victims if not for my kryptonite necklace. Do you know that or do you even care?"
"Of course I care. How could you even ask that?"
"It doesn't sound like you do. It sounds like you have more pity for the attacker than the kids who had a whole future ahead of them that was cruelly stolen."
"I get that. I really do. I'm not defending him, but repaying evil for evil, that doesn't set well with me, Chloe. I think the only way to overcome evil is with good."
She looked at her if she were some poor misguided child. "I used to think like you once. And then Clark Luthor happened. Play your game if you want to, but Metropolis and Smallville is polluted with blood that he spilled, and the only way to atone for it is to spill the blood that shed it."
sss
Clark woke up with a girl on each side. There was a time when that would have excited him. The problem was it had gotten old. That's how it was, the illicitness of the act thrilled until it didn't and then he had to seek out some new way to find pleasure, find the next high.
He floated up and over them to keep from jostling and waking them. That was the part he found the most distasteful was looking them in the eyes in the morning when the lust and passion had faded. Then they suddenly seemed more than a way to satisfy his needs even though they hadn't protested being used at any point during the night.
His servants would send them on their way when they woke up. The people who worked for him were used to the ritual, and it made him happy to know he wouldn't ever have to see the women again if he didn't want to.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, of the misery and anger that always seemed etched there, and for just a moment, he was jealous his counterpart. Even in his brief look into the world of Clark Kent, he'd seen how he had people that cared about him.
He still couldn't believe any version of himself had chosen Lois of all people, but when she'd rallied after being thrown with an injured arm, holding a weapon on him with a look of ferocity that said she'd go to hell and back to find the real Clark Kent, a part of him had known then what he'd seen in her. Loyalty like that wasn't easy to come by.
And then he wondered how he could be envious of a man he despised, a man who was the most powerful being in the room, but chose to be a servant to the human race.
He put on his Ultraman suit, although the need to keep up any such guise had long since passed. The screams in the city for help were overwhelming and louder than usual. Metropolis got more chaotic with each passing day. The criminal element had grown bolder with him as a mascot of sorts. He told himself if he taught a few of these swine a lesson not to presume, if it made the city a little quieter and easier on his superhearing, that didn't mean anything. It certainly had nothing to do with her.