Chapter Two- When Heroes Fall Down
"Lana Lang's Superman?" asked Lois, who these days looked like Lana.
"'Fraid so," replied Clark, who these days looked like Lois. "The worst thing is that, after she'd finished painting Metropolis pink, she ended up doing a better job of being Superman than I ever did."
Then Clark smacked Lois' palm against her forehead. "How could I have been so stupid. I should have guessed from the pink that she was Lana. Still, she was so convincing ..."
"What, you mean she'd expertly copied my mannerisms?" asked Lois, wondering how Clark had been fooled by Lana all of this time.
"No, but she called me Smallville and looked a lot like you so naturally I was completely taken in."
Lois decided that now was not the time for recriminations. "So, Smallville, when did she do the mind-swap with you? I bet it was when she realized you were Superman."
"No," replied Clark, shaking Lois' head. "Thinking about it now, I guess she never realized I was Superman. Not until the mind swap anyway. Everything's starting to make sense now."
"So when did she swap minds?" asked Lois, with a mix of curiosity and bewilderment.
"That was during the pregnancy," revealed Clark. "She said it was just too painful."
"The labor pains?" prompted Lois.
"No, the getting fat part," explained Clark. "And so we swapped minds and the next thing I knew I was looking at myself, and suddenly the Clark Kent I was looking at straightened up, took off his glasses and laughed, and then he said the strangest thing, although now I understand it."
"What did he say?" asked Lois,
"He, well Lana, felt the strength coursing through his, well her, body and said You ... You're Superman, and all of these months I thought I'd been cheating on you and then he, well she, flew away."
"We've got to stop her, Clark."
"But how, Lois. She's so powerful."
"Isn't it obvious, Father?" came a weary voice from above, followed by a second weary voice: "You're wasting your breath."
Lois looked up and there, crawling on the ceiling were two babies.
"Our children," explained Clark. "Clark and Lana."
"B-but they can talk," sputtered Lois.
"Of course we can. We're not stupid you know. Our grandpa was Krypton's greatest scientist," replied little Lana.
"Although admittedly the thinking gene skipped a generation," added the cuddlesome Clark.
"So, how do we stop her?" asked Lois, doing her utmost to seem unphazed by this latest development.
Little Clark looked down, smiling, at his mother in her luscious Lana wrapping and his embarrassingly stupid father and, whilst thinking that an Oedipus complex wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, explained to his parents the obvious measures to take. "Pete Ross can do anything with his mind. Clearly he's the most straight-forward answer."
"That's right," yelled Clark triumphantly. "Pete's our friend."
"Well, he might take a bit of persuading," said Lois sheepishly as she looked at her, well Lana's, bruised knuckles.
"There's no time to waste," said Clark, suddenly realizing that he might yet get his powers back. "You, Clark Jonathan Peter Kent Junior, get down off that ceiling this instant. And you too, Lana Lana Lana Kent."
"Lana Lana Lana Kent?" screamed Lois. "How could you let Lana call our child that?"
"Hey, I talked her down from four Lanas," replied Clark, ducking an oncoming fist. "Now, calm down, Lois. We've got to set the kids a good example."
"Are we taking them with us?" asked Lois.
"No, the woman in the next apartment can baby-sit. Letitia won't mind - she once told me she used to baby-sit back in Smallville, reckons she can handle anything after that."
As Lois changed out of Lana's hospital clothes into one of the many pink outfits that now occupied her wardrobe, Clark Junior sat on the floor, bouncing a baseball off the wall.
"Think they'll succeed?" asked his twin sister, using her X-ray vision and super-hearing to watch a TV a couple of rooms away.
"Doubt it," replied Clark Junior, throwing the baseball through an open window with all of his might. "Still, I think I've got everything covered."
It was half an hour later and Pete Ross was astounded by what he'd just been told. "You mean I can change reality by just thinking about it and I never even realized it. Hey, wouldn't it be weird if, as soon as I learnt about my power, it disappeared forever."
And at that moment his power disappeared forever.
"Okay, Plan B," said Lois using Lana's mouth.
"You're not going to hit me again, are you?" asked Pete as he raised his arms to protect himself.
"Of course not, Pete. Now do you still have that green rock of yours?"
Clark and Lois stood at the edge of the roof.
"Go on and jump, Smallville. It's tradition - Lois Lane's body plummeting to the ground only to be rescued at the last minute by the Man of Steel. Besides, you've got the kryptonite."
"Well it might be better if you jumped off, Lois. You're used to this sort of thing. And besides Lana wouldn't let her lovely body splatter on the sidewalk."
At this point Lois turned on the psychology. "So Lana's body's lovely is it?"
"Well, erm, not as lovely as your body obviously."
"So you don't like me the way I look at the moment, is that it?"
"Well, I, erm, that is, I ..." and then Clark figured he'd rather jump off the roof than continue the conversation.
"Help me, Superman!!!" he yelled, as, from above, Lois watched her body plummeting to the ground. She'd seen the scene so many times before, albeit from a different angle, and this time, as on all the others, Superman was there for her.
"Don't worry, Miss Lane," Superman said, as he held Clark in his arms. "I've got you."
"No, I've got you," thought Clark, as he rummaged in Lois' pockets for a lead-lined box. The minute Superman deposited him back on the ground, Clark opened the box and Superman sank to his knees.
"Lois, what are you doing?" asked Superman as pain racked his body.
"The time for games are over, Lana," explained Clark, as he kept telling himself that he no longer needed to flinch from the kryptonite.
"But I'm not Lana ... I'm Virgil."