Chapter 29

Earth 2…

There are times Clark wonders what deity he offended to endure days like this. It had started with him discovering information that Lex's last clone was still alive and seeking Tess's help in finding the boy only to find out she had been protecting the clone all along.

He must admit here to being so irate that he only half-listened to her attempted explanation and then he saw in her purse some kind of Kryptonian artifact. He grabbed it and must have somehow activated it because the next thing he knows is waking in bed with two naked women beside him.

After disentangling himself from them he got dressed and when he looked in the mirror found he had put on a shirt with a strange symbol on it. Unlike the S-like mark he wears it was a stylised U. Then the biggest shock of his day came when he wandered around what was clearly the Luthor mansion and the first person he met addressed him as 'Mr Luthor'. It also didn't escape his attention the glint of fear in that person's eyes at the sight of him.

Luckily Clark has enough experience with the Luthors to know where they keep their secrets stashed in the mansion and eventually he finds what he is looking for. A journal.

And not just any journal. His journal…kinda.

By reading it he gets an idea of where he is and it is a world where he was found by Lionel Luthor instead of the Kents as a result he has become an extremely dangerous and unpleasant person. When someone is happy to openly boast in their journal about killing people how can you say anything else. And lets us just skip over just how many women his double seems to have slept with. If he wasn't immune to human viruses he can't imagine how many this Clark Luthor would have caught by now.

Also lots and lots of daddy issues. Then again who can blame him if this Lionel is like one Clark first met. Before he redeemed himself.

Clark skims through the journal looking for one thing in particular. The same thing that brought him here. That Kryptonian artefact.

It is then a passage stops him dead…

Girl showed up. Pretty brunette thing. Little slender for my tastes. Still, would pass a few hours. Get this though. She claims to be my daughter from the future. Offered to reveal it to me. Considered killing her until she showed me powers like mine. Gave me a sample of her blood and said she would be back tomorrow. Must admit it is the most imaginative story I've ever heard…and what if it is true? Just imagine knowing every move my rivals make before they make it. This world could be mine inside a few months with knowledge like that. So, I'm going to have her blood compared to mine. If she's lying I'll snap her neck like kindling. If she's telling the truth…we'll see.

Slender brunette that is his daughter. It couldn't be could it?

Wait. There was a bit a few years back that read similar to his encounter with Andi. Clark skims back trying to find it only for there to be a knock on the door. He looks up as a pretty young woman sticks her head round the door.

"Mr Luthor, Ms Luthor is here to see you?"

Ms Luthor?

Clark tries to think of a way out of this. He wants to interact as little as possible with the people of this world but 'Ms Luthor' barges her way in. He is totally stunned. "Tess?"

"Leave us," Tess orders the woman.

"Yes, Ms Luthor," she replies obediently.

As soon as the door is closed Tess walks round the desk, spins the chair round, proceeds to clamber into Clark's lap and aggressively kisses him while rubbing her body up against his in a blatantly sexual manner.

"Tess…Tess…stop," Clark says as he pushes her back which earns him a puzzled look from the lust-filled green eyes of the red-haired woman. It is not easy to get his thoughts together when certain parts of her body are rubbing up against certain parts of his body but let him try. "This is…we can't…I'm not who you think I am."

While Tess tries to figure out his words her fingers idly brush up his right arm and that is when she notices it…or more accurately doesn't notice it. "Your scar? Where's your scar?"

"Scar?" Clark queries clearly not knowing what she is referring to.

Tess stares at his arm for several moments before looking directly into Clark's eyes and if trying to read who he is. "That bastard!" she swears as she jumps off of Clark and starts pacing round the room.

"Um…what?"

"He promised. He promised to take me with him," she rants, clearly furious.

"Actually that may have been on me," Clark confesses.

Tess stops and stares at him.

"I activated the box…accidentally…and you clearly know something about it," he realises. "What is this? Time travel? Did I somehow change my past and now I have to fix it?"

"Are you really this naïve in your world?" Tess mocks him.

"My world?"

Tess rolls her eyes at him in annoyance. "According to my Clark, it's like a parallel reality. It's still the same history. It's just rewritten with a sort of...darker edge."

"So while I'm stranded here, he's..."

"…stuck in your life there. And your kinder, gentler world is about to get an explosive awakening."

"You need to help me," Clark pleads with her horrified at the idea of this darker version of him running around loose on his world.

"Actually, no. I don't," she dismisses that. Clark is about to argue but she cuts him off, "but I will," she surprises him. "No-one double crosses me," she explains her reasoning.

"Do you know where the box is?"

"I know exactly where it is."

"Which is where?"

"In the hands of someone Clark trusts and I just have to live with it," she answers…which answers nothing but whoever this Tess is referring to is clearly someone she doesn't like.


Clark didn't think he would ever be back here.

And by here he means riding down in the secret elevator to sub-level 3 of the Smallville Chemical Plant. In his world this was where Lionel first conducted his kryptonite experiments.

In this world, according to Tess, it was where she and his doppelganger hid away the things they wanted to keep out of Lionel's attention.

They soon reach the sub-sub basement of the facility and the doors open.

"Follow me," Tess commands.

Clark does so, not out of an overwhelming belief that this Tess can be trusted but because he has no other choice. He needs to get back to his own world.

They turn a corner and his eyes widen at the sight of whom is standing there. "Andi," he breathes and while she looks identical in her features, her clothes are clearly of someone in possession of some wealth. In fact they are clothes that wouldn't look out of place on a Luthor.

"Andrea," she corrects him, an arrogant slight to her tone before she looks him up and down. "So, you're from another reality Lutessa tells me."

"Yes."

"Our Clark betrayed us," Tess mentions.

"Not surprised. He's always been the fuck them, leave them, kill them type."

Clark's face twitches in tension. "The mirror box. Do you have it?"

Andrea nods. "Yes. Anxious to leave us already?" she questions him.

"Should I want to leave your Clark in my world?"

Andrea smirks at him. "No. You should not," she confirms. "It's this way," she beckons him to follow her.

They pass through a door and out onto a catwalk looking over a vast space. Now, this Clark remembers but unlike his world where it was empty as Lionel had shut down Level 3 here it was swarming with workers who seemed to be building a giant mechanical ring. "What-hnn," his asking is cut off as an all too familiar agony seeps through his body.

"So easily distracted," Andrea mocks as Clark turns his head to see a familiar looking locket in her hand with an all too familiar green rock within. She brings the rock closer to him just as Tess kicks him from behind right between his legs, dropping him to his knees as he then keels over. One decidedly superpowered kick later courtesy of Andrea and he's out cold.


When consciousness next returns Clark finds himself lying on a cot bed inside a prison cell. All around him are bars. He gets himself up, walks over to the bars, with the intent of busting out of here, only for the bars to glow green as he approaches them. Almost keeling over he retreats to the centre of the cell and sits on the bed.

"You really think they wouldn't have prepared a special cell just for you."

Clark frowns. That voice. He knows that voice. His head turns in the direction of its source. In the opposite corner of this room to his cell is another, within which is a very alive, "Lionel Luthor."

"Hello son," the bearded man greets him.

Clark's frown becomes deeper.

"So, it finally happened, did it?"

Clark's eyes narrow. "What did?"

"Your offspring overthrew you just as you overthrew me."

"Mia?" the misplaced hero guesses the double of a dead man is referring to.

"Yes, our sweet little time-travelling granddaughter. Have to hand it to her, despite the lack of blood ties she carries herself like a Luthor," Lionel gives her a backhanded compliment.

Clark wonders if he should correct him that he's not his son…or would playing along allow him to learn more. Clearly he's going to need some help to escape this cage, even if that help comes from Lionel Luthor. On another topic he has to wonder just how much his daughter's double in this world told his double. Considering how bad Clark Luthor seems to be as a person he can only shudder at what that man would do with future knowledge. For the moment though Clark is stuck right here in this cell with only his thoughts over just how gullible is he to keep him occupied.


Some time later the two backstabbers decide to grace Clark with their presence.

"Lutessa," Lionel greets his daughter.

"Go to hell, old man," Tess dismisses him instantly, revealing just how fractured that relationship is.

Clark rises to his feet and folds his arms across his chest.

"Not very bright are you," are Andrea's first words.

"For trusting you, no. I was a fool," Clark concedes. "I guess I saw my Andrea and Tess and expected better."

"Well, we've been expecting you for awhile," Tess informs him.

"That explains the kryptonite cage. Mia, right?" he assumes. After all he's had a few hours to think on things.

That seems to catch Andrea off guard. "You know Mia?"

"In my universe we have a daughter too."

"Well then, I suppose I'll have to credit you with having at least one redeeming quality," she says in a tone that smack of arrogance.

"What? Sleeping with you?" Tess scoffs.

Andrea snaps her head round and glares at the redhead.

"Go ahead and tell him how easily you dropped your panties for him," Tess continues, showing clear dislike if not outright disdain for the Latino woman.

"Says the sister who seduced him at what? 15?"

"We're only adopted siblings," Tess defends herself while not denying the age part.

"You may have had him first but I was the one who gave him an heir," Andrea argues back, revealing what she thinks is her trump card in this contest.

Clark arches an eyebrow and actually turns to Lionel. "Are they always…"

"Yes," Lionel confirms with a loud sigh.

"Huh," the currently imprisoned hero remarks. "So, we were talking about Mia, weren't we," he returns to that.

Andrea moves in closer to the cage. "Tell me the truth. Did you and my double really have your own Mia?"

"We do. It was shortly after your mother was killed."

"Ah, yes, that," Andrea says so lightly it's disturbing. In his world you can almost hear Andi's heart break every time she has to recall what happened. "You helped me track down her killer?"

"In a way," Clark says, not explaining that was not what he was intending to do.

"I consider that a defining evening…"


5 years ago…

At last, Andrea had her mother's killer cornered. Her hand wrapped around his throat, pinning him up against the wall. In her other hand the knife she believes this piece of filth used to take her mother from her. All her anger, rage, grief, pain she pulls into a tight ball.

"Don't rush it," a voice whispers seductively in her ear. A voice belonging to Clark Luthor. Funny story how he is here right now. Considering how, at first, he was going to kill Little Miss 'Angel of Vengeance' here.

He had only recently started what a cliched hack could call his 'Reign of Terror'. Going out at night, having fun, inducing fear in people. He had even gotten a name that people would whisper in fear. Ultraman.

He liked hearing the terror in their voices when they said it.

Anyway, during one of his little night-time sojourns away from the life his father constrained him into living, he overheard people speaking about an 'Angel of Vengeance'. It became clear quickly that it wasn't him. He guessed it was one of those meteor freaks that he hadn't gotten around to slaying yet.

Sigh. His work is never done.

He tracked her down as she was beating the snot out of a group of gang members. It was fairly entertaining and she wasn't bad looking though he had had better. Considering her obvious display of superhuman strength this might even alleviate his boredom for 5 minutes.

So, there he was, about to chalk up one more meteor freak when his attention was caught by her sheer unadulterated rage, pain and grief as she demanded to know the location of one particular man. The man who murdered her mother.

For the life of him Clark will never be able to explain why he made the choice he did next beyond there was just something…enticing in her gaze. In those eyes so full of intense emotion. It's not something he sees at home. No. Thanks to dear old dad, all his own emotions have to be kept subdued lest he be punished for not acting 'like a Luthor'. And not just him. Everyone else. His mother. His brother. His sister. Lionel just sucks the colour out of everything around him.

Andrea, however, was vivid, bursting with colourful energy so he decided to help her and that help has brought them to the moment she can get her revenge but she's in danger of missing the point.

"Don't rush it," he whispers, his body pressed up against hers from behind. He gently wraps his fingers around her wrist. "You need to savour this moment for you see this is what real power is. It's the power over life and death. He tried to have that power over you once but he failed and now you have the chance to take real power. Ultimate power. Take it, Andrea," he commands. "Look at him, right in the eye and take it," he hisses strongly. "Make the choice. Not just for revenge but for yourself. You're better than these insects. Start showing it by ending this miserable little cockroach. Do it!"

With a scream of rage, grief and something else, something darker that Clark has awoken in her that she doesn't understand yet she jams the knife in deep, right into his heart.

"Watch," Clark whispers, his tome almost orgasmic. "Watch the life fade away from his eyes. There's nothing like it."

Andrea does so, breathing hard as the life fades from her mother's murderer. She feels…she feels…good. Empowered. "Does it always feel this good?" she asks, her voice shaky.

Clark smirks. "Well nothing quite tops the first time but you understand now, don't you. You're superior. Compared to them you're a super woman."

"Yes," she says as the darkness Clark has awoken grows in strength quickly inside her. Andrea tilts her head round to bring her face inches away from his. Beyond good she also feels something else.

Aroused.

In moments she has slammed her lips into his and in moments he responds. They tear at each other's clothes and proceed to, right there and then, next to this cooling corpse, fuck each other's brains out.

An act that has the same consequence as the meeting between their Earth 1 counterparts that is happening this very same night.


The present…

"That was the start of our partnership, Clark and I," Andrea is explaining. "As a Luthor he has appearances to maintain so I took care of all the…off the books business he didn't have time for."

"Is that what we're calling it," Tess mutters in almost utter disgust.

"You know being his sister won't grant you protection forever," the Latino woman says in what sounds like a very real threat.

The argument is interrupted by a loud laugh from Lionel.

"What's so funny, old man?" Tess asks with utter disdain at her father.

Lionel waves his hand in a dismissive manner. "I would explain but I doubt either of you are ready to listen."

"I wouldn't go that far," Clark argues. "When I met the both of them the first time I'll admit I thought that too. That they wouldn't listen, couldn't listen or change or grow but both of them have. Tess has forged her own path. One that shows that it isn't the Luthor blood in her veins that defines her but the choices she has made to grow and be her own person. To help the world rather than exploit it," he explains and then has to pause because just before this whole thing started he was ranting over the exact opposite. How Luthor blood was poison. Crap. How must he have sounded to her? He'll have to apologise when he gets back...and he will get back. He has to believe that.

"And as for Andi, when I first met her she, like you," he addresses this Andrea, "was obsessed with revenge but she's moved on. She doesn't care about power. Her world is her daughter…our daughter and honouring her mother. Which raises a question. How would your mother react if she could see you now?" he asks.

Andrea's face twists up into something deeply unattractive which Clark didn't think was possible. "My mother," she snorts dismissively. "My mother…wasted her life trying to help who exactly? The dregs of society? The failures? In the end people get what they deserve. If you end up at the bottom of society, well maybe it's because you're not fit to be part of it. Too weak to be anything but the servants of those with the real strength and power."

"Did my double teach you that?" Clark asks, a deep frown on his face.

"Amongst other things," she says with a horrible twisted smile. "Let me give you some advice, Kent. Don't waste your time trying to appeal to our better natures or whatever other such drivel you believe in. Mia told us all about you, including how your pathetic life ends. You stand there and think it is our world that is wrong when it is in fact your world that has it all backwards. Might makes right. Strength comes from violence. Which is the supreme authority. Something given has no value. Only what you take. Which will very soon include your world," she informs him.

Clark's expression becomes deadly serious. "What do you mean?"

"Why are you still alive?" Tess asks him. "Because Clark…our Clark wants you to be. He wants you to bear witness as we exercise that supreme authority and take your world for ourselves."

"Why?"

"Why not?" the two women ask back at the same time and then glare at each other.

Before this 'love-fest' can continue any further they are interrupted by an alarm going off.

"Oh my God, what now?" Andrea mutters in Spanish when a security guard comes rushing in. The Latino powerhouse puts her hands on her hips and asks sternly, "What is going on?"

"We have an intruder," the man reports.

"Deal with it then!" Tess snaps, impatiently.

"It's her," the man says, his tone in referring to 'her' implying this is somewhat more serious than your average intruder. Then just to prove this, "Hnnn!" he groans before toppling over, landing face first revealing an arrow sticking out his back and standing outside the door is an archer dressed all in black, hooded top, pants, boots.

The archer, with a distorted voice, says, "You two have failed this city."

"You've made a huge mistake," Andrea says threateningly as she moves forward and attempts to punch the archer's head clean off her body but the archer athletically ducks under the blow, rolling forward and kicks Tess right into her gut before spinning round and smashing the redhead in the face with her bow, seemingly knocking her clean out.

"You little bitch!" Andrea snarls as she spins round and advances on the hooded figure. The archer runs forward toward the corner of the room and bounces off the wall, spinning round and firing arrows off.

Andrea swats the projectiles out of the air. "Really? Arrows?" she mocks. "You expect to hurt me with arrows?! Have you learned nothing from our last meeting?"

"Actually I learned a whole lot while I waited for my bones to heal."

"Now you see that was my one mistake. I broke the wrong ones," Andrea admits as the two continue to dance around the room, the Dark Archer, always just staying out of reach of the superpowered woman. "This time I'll break the ones in your neck!" she promises as she leaps over the archer's head and manages to snag her wrist just as she has plucked another arrow from her quiver. The Latino woman looks at the arrow and snorts in disgust. "What this one do? Turn into a boxing glove?" she asks mockingly.

"That's not a bad idea but no. It does this," the Dark Archer replies as she lets the arrow slip down in her hand and clicks something on its bulbous head with her thumb. There is a sudden, blinding flash of light that has Andrea trying to cover her face. The archer grabs another arrow. "What I learned is sadly what poor Quint didn't and that is to get a bigger boat," she says as she fires, the arrow flies and on impact explodes with not inconsiderable force, sending the other woman flying right through the wall.

That done she turns her focus on Clark. "You don't know how long I've waited for this," she says with relish at the apparent opportunity as she advances towards the cage. She switches off her voice modulator. "Over five and a half years since you killed them all," she continues in a now all too familiar voice. She pulls her hood back to reveal a mop of black hair. "But before you die I want to be able to look you in the eye so you can know that it was one of the 'freaks' you hate so much that brought down the Great Clark Luthor," she spits the name with much bile. She then pulls off the shades she is wearing to reveal someone Clark knows very well.

"Chloe?!"


Author's Note: As I said in the last chapter's note lets see what changes Mia Luthor's presence brings and since she would have no qualms, unlike Mia, about making explicit changes the Earth 2 we see here is different from the show. I believe I read somewhere we were meant to see Earth 2 Chloe originally but with Allison Mack doing only a limited number of episodes in Season 10 it had to be cut so instead here's my take on her. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews.