Chapter 32
Earth 1…
Last time Mia met Ultraman she kicked his ass. Ok, admittedly not by herself but still that does not explain why she is now being pummelled into unconsciousness…only for it to stop all of a sudden…and for Clark Luthor to fall down atop of her.
She's going to be having nightmares about this now.
The heavy mass is rolled off of her and through her blurry vision and extraordinary levels of pain she makes out the fuzzy outline of a green hooded figure. "Great. Saved by the old geezer," she slurs.
"Hey! Who you calling old geezer?" Green Arrow complains.
"Your son does," Mia retorts, revealing a future factoid she probably shouldn't have.
"Son?" the blond archer asks with understandable confusion.
"That's a conversation for another time," Tess interrupts as she arrives on the scene. "Here, help me get her up," she orders Green Arrow and the two pull Mia back to her feet.
It's at that point the Latino time traveller notices the arrow sticking out of Clark Luthor's back. "Kryptonite?" she correctly guesses as the only thing it could be.
"Yeah," Green Arrow confirms.
"Took you long enough to figure out something was wrong," Tess snarks at him.
Oliver gives her a withering glare from behind his shades. "Just be thankful I decided to go into work today at all," he retorts before turning his focus back on the currently disabled villain. "So, what variety of space rock has infected the farm boy this time?" he asks, thinking this is this world's Clark.
"It's not…he's not…Papá," Mia answers, still slurring her words as she tries and clears the cobwebs.
"Huh?"
"It's a long story," is what Tess says with a weary sigh.
One she doesn't get to tell as all 3 are blasted away by an irate looking Mia Luthor. "Now you are all going to pay!" she vows angrily.
"You have an evil twin now?" Oliver queries in disbelief at Mia as he flips back up to his feet.
"Yeah. Shut up and stop her already. Use the big explosive one," Tess commands him.
Oliver reaches for the arrow with the really big bang but Mia Luthor beats him to it in that she manages to yank the kryptonite arrow out of her father's back, showing she is as immune to it as this world's Mia. As soon as she throws it away Clark Luthor rises up, his eyes burning red with fury and murderous intent clearly written on his face.
"Well, this day officially sucks," Mia laments.
"Oh really, ya think?" Tess snarks with a roll of her eyes.
Earth 2…
"You will not ruin this!" Andrea punctuates her punches with spitted out rage. "I'm finally someone important. Powerful. With the most powerful man on Earth at my side and our daughter. I will not go back to living in that impoverished hellhole my mother insisted on 'helping'. Let the insects cower as the rightful rule over them as the Gods we are!"
In between the punches Clark has to say, just wow. This version of Andi has lost it.
Then the green chunk of kryptonite is pulled out of Andrea's hand…by a grapple on a line which leads back all the way to a brunette sporting a bow. "You're no God lady. Only a mutated freak. Just like me," Chloe says with disgust evident in her voice.
"I'm going to kill you-argh!" Andi's rant is cut off by Clark hitting her in the chest with an open-palmed punch sending her flying.
"Time to go, farm boy," Chloe tells him.
Clark nods. "You know what to do with that as soon as I activate the box," he nods at the chunk of kryptonite.
Chloe nods.
Clark nods sadly. He's not happy but what other way is there. Clark Luthor must be stopped. He reaches in for the mirror box and activates it but just as he is doing so he hears a scuffle behind him. He turns round just in time to see Chloe down and Lionel Luthor, kryptonite in hand charging at him just as the world turns white…
Earth 1…
"You know. I tired to be nice. I had your lives spared when I could have so easily killed you. And while your deaths will weaken the Convergence it will not stop it," Mia Luthor rants and raves.
"Convergence?" Mia and Tess ask together with the same puzzled expression.
"What is she talking about?" Green Arrow asks and both women shrug, not knowing.
"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I've decided that you're no longer necessary," Mia Luthor sneers with barely controlled violence and more than a tad of barely repressed insanity. "Lets get them daddy!" she declares and moves to attack only for a powerful hand to grab hold of her wrist.
"No."
"What?!" Mia Luthor rages and turns to look and instantly sees it. "NOOOOO!" she screams in utter disbelief.
"Uh, what is going on?" Green Arrow asks.
"Papá," Mia says with a pained smile.
"Hey," Clark greets them before looking up at the spitting image of his daughter with a stern expression.
"It's not fair! Why do you keep winning?!" Mia Luthor demands to know, sounding like a petulant child.
"Because Luthors are losers," Mia rattles off.
"I'll kill you all for this!"
Clark yanks her down to the ground hard. "That's enough Mia. Time for you to go back to your own world and time," he tells her sternly.
"It's not enough! I didn't survive the end of my world just to be beaten and sent back to join its fate by you pathetic goodie goodie heroes! All of you make me sick with your weakness!" she rants at them, her face twisted with disgust.
"You're overlooking the alternative," Clark warns her.
"What? The Phantom Zone?" Mia Luthor snorts disdainfully. "You think that's your magical solution to everything don't you, Superman," she throws out the name snidely. "Throw them into your father's prison just so you don't have to get your hands dirty. Fun fact boy scout. The Phantom Zone was meant to be a punishment worse than death. It's no kindness when you send people there."
"Clark…actually it's not a good idea to send her back just yet," Tess steps forward with that opinion. "There are questions that need answered. Particularly just how long she's been on our world and what she's been up to."
Clark's brow furrows.
"I'll tell you nothing," Mia Luthor vows.
"You forget who I am, my dear niece," Tess says in a false sugary sweet tone. "I'm the one willing to cross the line."
Mia Luthor smirks and then chuckles. "Oh, if only you knew what fate awaited you. What hell you'll be condemned to but I won't spoil it Auntie Lena. In fact I'll be purchasing a front row seat," she promises.
Clark remembers his harsh words to Tess before all this started and that he is meaning to apologise. He needs to have faith in her so he will. "If Tess says you need to stay then that is good enough for me."
"Thank you," Tess says, looking genuinely touched.
"As if you can hold me," Mia Luthor pours scorn on them. "Let me show you a trick I learned," she says as she closes her eyes and around her pure energy flares up, her hair sticks up.
"What is she doing?" Tess asks Mia.
"I don't know," Mia replies clueless, shaking her head.
"You don't know?!" the redhead asks incredulously since, you know, she thought the two would have identical abilities.
Mia shrugs helplessly.
The energy flares up more, brighter and brighter and brighter. You can feel like it static across your skin. A winds blows out in all directions from the glowing figure.
"It looks like she's going to blow!" Green Arrow shouts.
From the instant it becomes clear that Oliver is correct Clark is acting on instinct. He has to get his daughter's doppelganger out of here so on instinct he grabs her and is gone, straight up, without thinking about it.
"Did he just fly?" Oliver asks, totally surprised.
"Yep," Tess confirms in a flat tone.
Mia, meanwhile, is smiling despite still being sore all over. "Ése es mi Papá."
Through the hole Clark punched clean up through the entire structure the trio can see clear into what is now the night sky until night is turned into day by a blinding flash…
Watchtower…
"The blast knocked me out momentarily. By the time I came round she was gone," Clark is updating Tess, Oliver and Mia.
"What sort of blast was it she generated?" Tess wonders and then looks at Mia.
"Don't look at me. It's nothing I can do. She must have picked it up from wherever she escaped to when Earth 2 gets destroyed," the half-Kryptonian replies.
"It gets destroyed?" Clark queries.
Mia rubs her face. "It's really difficult to explain. In the future there will be a Multiversal war known as the Crisis that will destroy whole realities including Earth 2. Some of the inhabitants will escape. Clearly my double did but escaped to where she wouldn't tell me."
"Did she say why she came back in time?" Oliver wonders.
"Not really. Just some vague nonsense about helping her father fulfil his destiny but I got the impression she had some secret agenda of her own. Clearly she meant, bare minimum, to help her father conquer this world which will survive the Crisis."
"Convergence?" Tess questions.
"Convergence?" Clark asks.
"Something she said just before you returned."
"Doesn't mean anything to me," Mia advises. "But considering she escaped…"
"We have not seen the last of her," Oliver finishes with some foreboding.
"But we do have something of hers she will probably want," Clark says, going over to a desk and picking up the mirror box.
Mia notices her father eyeing it up. "It won't work."
"Hmm?"
"You're thinking if you destroy it you can prevent anyone from Earth 2 crossing over. It doesn't work like that. Destroying that box does not affect theirs. It would just mean we would have no way to send them back."
That's only partly what Clark is thinking about. He's also wondering what happened to Chloe considering Lionel had knocked her down just as he left. He can only hope she is ok because he can't go back…can he? It wasn't his world. He can barely manage one world. How can he be responsible for two?
"Besides," Tess says as she pilfers it from Clark's grasp before he can do something foolish, "as you said the other Mia will want it back. We can use it as bait when the time comes. For now we just have to lock it up securely."
"Fine," Clark agrees.
"Well chock up another milestone," Oliver says with morose humour. "Visitors from a parallel universe. You know my life was normal before I met you," he aims the jab at Clark.
"Hey, I had nothing to do with the green leather pants. That was your choice," Clark jabs back.
"And we all will never stop needing therapy over it," Tess piles in.
"Ok, I'm going to go before I get insulted any further. Besides I did promise that I would avoid coming here," Oliver points out.
"Thank you, Oliver," Clark says gratefully that his friend showed up when he did from what he was told.
"No problem. Hey, before I go did you by any chance meet my double when you were in backwards world?"
"I'm afraid not but he was on the news for his shameful playboy ways if it's any consolation," Clark says, inwardly smirking at his joke.
"The more things change," Tess mutters with an eye-roll.
"I'm definitely going now," the bond man says as he departs.
"Mia. I'm glad he didn't hurt you too much," Clark means genuinely as he gently rubs his fingers over her fading bruises.
"Him? Nah!" she says with a shake of his head. "Complete dreg. Always has been. Always will be."
"I'll meet you back at the farm," Clark says to her, hinting he wants to talk to Tess alone with his eyes.
"No problemo Papá!" she says cheerfully as she zips away.
"Thought she was in the doghouse," Tess mentions.
"She is," Clark confirms that is still the case. "I'm giving her a break today considering."
"Yeah. Some day, huh," the redhead says, trying to play off lightly what was a huge stressful day.
"Yeah," Clark agrees before taking a breath. "'Luthor blood is poison.' That's what I said before things got weird," he returns to the conversation the two were having before this whole thing went down.
"Who knew you had such a gift for understatement?" she tries to joke.
"The heir that Lionel left that box to ... it's you," he states it factually, now knowing it to be true.
"Given all that the Luthors have done, is it any surprise that I didn't feel like sharing with the rest of the class?" she says, giving off shame that she shares Luthor blood.
"I'm guessing how I reacted is exactly why you didn't tell me everything."
"Clark, you want to know the truly perverse part? I'm upset that he threw me away. As grotesque and sordid a family tree as I've just inherited, I... wasn't good enough. Okay. And you're lucky. The Kents found you," she says, showing real emotion and hurt.
"But you weren't so unlucky. As screwed up as you think your life has been, Lionel didn't raise you on this side. And what happened with... the other Clark... is just proof that Lionel's blood doesn't corrupt. It's the man himself. I was wrong," he admits in an apology.
"The real reason that I hid Alexander... ...is because I didn't want anyone to... take him away from me. I was afraid that he might be the closest thing to family that I would ever know. But he fooled me. And he's just as smart as Lex... if not smarter. When and if he's found, it'll be because he wants to be," she lays out the situation in regards to the clone.
"When Lex does show up, we'll face him together. You're not alone anymore," Clark promises, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder which brings a genuinely warm, grateful smile to her face.
Tess…God, he's so damn good. If only he was single. Wait. He is single! She shouldn't. She really shouldn't. Oh, what the hell. You only live once. "Clark, you want to get a late dinner?" she proposes.
"I can't. Sorry. I'm going to see Mia."
"Hnn?" she asks perplexed.
"Present day, Mia," he elaborates. "I don't get to see her as often as I like."
"Of course," Tess says, hiding her disappointment behind a fake mask of blandness.
"Perhaps another day?"
"Sure, sure. Go. See your daughter," she tells him shooing him away before she can't keep the mask up any longer. "Perhaps if you're around she won't turn into the irritating little brat this version of her future self is."
"That's the dream," Clark says in jest as he departs.
Coast City…
"Hey," Andrea says in surprise at who has showed up at her door.
"Hey," Clark says back softly, taking a moment to take in a non-evil version of the Latino woman. In his head he knows that this Andi and her Earth 2 counterpart are physically identical but it is obvious just looking into their faces and eyes how different they are. Earth 2 Andrea was full of hate, greed, lust for power while this one, despite her best efforts to hide it, had a kindness and caring about her.
"So what brings you here?"
"I know this is out of the blue," he starts and yeah, he was less then entirely truthful with Tess because this was not a planned visit. Before he can finish explaining himself…
"Papá!" a high-pitched voice squeals.
Clark can't help but smile at the sight of his daughter. He smiles more every time she calls him 'Papá'. She runs toward him and he gathers her up in his arms. "Hello my little sunshine," he says fondly.
Andrea sighs. "Well, now you're here you might as well come in," she says with an air of sarcasm thrown in for good measure.
Which Clark does and he stays long enough to get to tell Mia her bedtime story and put her to bed. Afterwards he and Andi sit down on the couch.
"How is it she's so much calmer with you around?" the brunette asks in a half-complaint.
"I have a calming aura?"
"Ugh. I see Mia gets her sense of humour from you," she makes a full out complaint.
"Yeah," he says. Fun fact; Clark hasn't told Andi yet about the real reason Mia came back in time and the whole attempted murder thing. Honestly, he's not sure how to do it.
"So, what's the real reason you're here?" the brunette gets to.
How does Clark explain he just wanted to see a non-psychotic version of her and also isn't it interesting how she's the one he turns to after his little adventure in 'Bearded Spock' world. "It's a long story and I'm not entirely certain you'll believe all of it."
Andrea stares at him and blinks. "Clark, I've met my grown-up daughter from the future," she points out.
"Good point," he'll concede. "Ok then. It goes like this…"
Metropolis…
The next day a street vendor is just going his usual business, selling a newspaper to a bearded man when he pauses at how familiar the man looks. "Uhh, don't I know you from somewhere?"
"I don't think so. I'm from out of town. Unexpected visit. But I guess I'm back in the nick of time." Lionel Luthor of Earth 2 pauses momentarily before finishing, "Wouldn't want to miss how it all turns out."
Author's Note: Why did Lionel seemingly run at Clark deliberately? You'll have to wait and see for the explanation on that one. Mia Luthor showing off her solar flare ability so she can return exactly when you think she will in part 2 of the Earth 2 story; the episode Kent. Personally I do believe Tess is in love with Clark by season 10 but obviously he loves Lois and she just has to live with that. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews.