"I'm fine," Clark insisted as Lois was unlocking her apartment door.
"No, you're not," Lois told him flatly, making a quiet and excited exclamation when the door swung open.
She pulled him in by his arm. "You are to watch television, take a nap, read a book...You can do anything but leave the apartment and hurt yourself."
"But—" Clark tried to argue, but he was shushed by a wave of Lois's hand.
"I have a few errands to run. I'll be back before you know it."
Lois was quickly out the door, leaving Clark staring at it with a dazed expression. Man. He was a pushover.
"A Miss Lois Lane wishes to see you," Nigel St. John informed Lex Luthor.
"Ah," Luthor smiled, something he hadn't done since Clark's disappearance. If there were one thing to get his mind off the unfortunate circumstances facing him, it was a beautiful woman who played hard to get. "I wonder what she's after? ...Well, no matter. Send her in."
"Yes, sir," Nigel nodded. He left the room briefly before returning with the female reporter.
"Thank you, Nigel," Luthor nodded, and Nigel left after a small bow. "Miss Lane, to what do I owe this pleasure?"
Lois tried to return his charming smile, but Lex had been a businessman long enough to recognize a forced smile when he saw one. His eyes narrowed briefly, but his face was soon an unreadable blank.
"I wanted to apologize for not returning your calls...I'm afraid I've been busy."
Luthor stepped a little closer to her and scrutinized her face, sensing her steel herself in order to not step backwards in disgust. She knew something. He was sure of it.
When Lex had moved towards her, it had taken all her will power to force herself not to move away from him. Now that she knew what a monster he was, she didn't even want to be in the same room as him...
Luthor smiled pleasantly at her, but something in his eyes seemed to ring false. "Did you wish to reschedule our date?"
She hadn't been sure what exactly had compelled her to come over without an excuse, but Lex had provided one, and she would take it. "...Yes."
"Very well...Mrs. Cox?" he called out.
In strode the sleek woman. "Yes, Lex?"
"Do I have any appointments scheduled for tomorrow night?" he inquired.
Mrs. Cox opened and scanned the appointment book. "None that I see," she purred.
"Is that suitable for you?" Lex Luthor addressed his question to Lois, who was almost taken aback.
"Uh, yeah," she confirmed hesitantly, her eyes widening slightly.
"I'll look forward to it."
Lois was soon gone, and Lex Luthor stared after her. "I want her followed. See if she goes back to her apartment."
"Yes, sir," Nigel nodded.
"She returned to the Daily Planet, sir," a thickly accented voice informed Lex Luthor over the phone.
"Good. Make sure she stays there until I tell you otherwise. I have a little trip to make."
Clark looked up from his book, hearing the sound of locks being turned. Lois was back rather early. He sprang to his feet when the door opened, then nearly fell to the ground in shock when he saw who it was.
A million thoughts ran through his mind.
It hadn't worked. The disguise was useless.
Luthor knew. He knew.
No need for him to worry any more—it was past the point of doing so. Death would be a walk in the park compared to what was going to happen to him.
Clark's eyes traveled quickly over the room, searching for a weapon, but he was, for once in his life, too slow.
Luthor quietly opened the lead box with an evil grin, his beady eyes meeting Clark's fearful brown ones. Element X glowed tauntingly in its box. That'll teach you for trying to escape, it seemed to hiss at Clark.
Clark was soon on his knees, clutching his head in agony. "Stop," his ragged voice ordered weakly as he tried to overcome the pain. Tried...and failed.
Hearing Clark try to command him to stop, Luthor chuckled. "No longer so submissive, are we?" He slitted his eyes in an angry yet satisfied manner as he brought Element X closer. Clark, he observed, finally collapsed on the floor.
"You thought you could outwit me by using a disguise and false name. Perhaps it fooled my sources for a while, but you knew I would find you. Resistance is always futile when Lex Luthor is involved." Luthor circled the meteorite around Clark's head for a second with an evil sort of glee, then he pulled it back. He wasn't ready for the alien to die yet.
Clark reverted to the childish mode he often took upon himself when threatened by Element X. "I promise not to do it again, Master. I promise. I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I didn't mean to! Don't hurt me! I'll be good!"
"Bad children deserve to be punished," Luthor hissed, touching the rock briefly to the skin of Clark's face. "And aliens even more so."
Clark shouted out in pain like a dying animal, begging the world to be merciful and take pity on him in his suffering, to finally release him from it. "Master...d-don't...hurt...me—"
"I shall do what I wish to do. You have disobeyed me for the last time, Clark," Luthor told him coldly, spitting the alien's name out as if it were something deadly. "You have long outlived your purpose. I thought I could twist you into something remotely resemblant of an intelligent human being, but your parents permanently carved those disgusting ethics into you. I assumed that a total memory wipe would cure you of them if assisted by the meteorite my men found near your childhood home, but technology has its limits, it seems. I tried to build you up from scratch, but the materials were poisoned from day one. I eventually found this out, as I am apt to do, but I continued since the prospect of having a mostly invulnerable alien at my disposal overrode my usual precautions...But there are some pathetic qualities that even the best of scientists can't delete from the mind."
His parents...Luthor had mentioned his parents...
Curious despite his pain and shock, Clark coughed, trying to get enough air in his struggling lungs to talk. "What happened...to my...parents?"
"Is that a hint of worry I sense?" Luthor chuckled maliciously. "Perhaps I should have killed them, but I thought the ultimate justice was that those two pathetic fools lived on with the knowledge, false though it was, that their son was dead. They were completely devastated when you 'died.'"
"Where are—?"
"In a small town in Kansas," Luthor shrugged. "Littletown or some such strange community. But that doesn't matter since you won't live to s—" he was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Through his haze of pain, Clark tried to use his X-ray vision to see who it was, but he failed. Fortunately, the person advertised their existence with a shout.
"Hey, Charles King! It's me, Jimmy Olsen! Lois sent me to check up on you!"
Sharply intaking his breath, Luthor looked around for some method of escape. He finally grabbed a lamp after dragging a protesting Clark into the bedroom, and he hid behind the front door, unlocking and opening it.
Jimmy stepped inside, and some instinct hidden deep within told him to duck, the result of which was that he remained conscious and the lamp busted on the ground, a curse from Luthor completing the fast scene.
Without further thought, Jimmy tackled the rich man to the ground. Like a flash, Luthor had a pistol out and was on top of the young copy boy, but Jimmy held his hand by the wrist in the air, trying to prevent the furious man from permanently sealing his fate.
Lex tried to punch him, but Jimmy Olsen blocked it, his hands clamped around Luthor's wrists like a vise.
A shot rang out in the air, and Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the end to come.
When he opened them, he didn't see the bright light he expected. Instead, he saw and felt the limp millionaire's body upon him, a smoking hole in the center of Luthor's back. After checking to make sure the man was truly dead, Jimmy rolled Lex Luthor off him, and jogged to the door, searching the hall, but he was too late. No one was in sight. Frowning, he leaned down and picked up a corsage from the floor, detecting an unusual fragrance that he had never smelt from a flower before...