Archangel: Glad you are enjoying it.
MarkMark261: Thanks for the Review! Yeah I wanted to leave the evidence against Lex as inconclusive and unresolved so as to help push him and Lex further apart. (and to help set up this chapter.) True that Lex would not have left evidence there…but I needed it there.
Bigfan: I'm sure you know how it goes, work and school and family, there hasn't been much time for posting, I got a three week break coming up here in June and I'm planning on doing a lot of writing. (Got another idea for a story I want to start) Thanks for reading!
Chapter 3 - Kryptonite
It was dusk when Clark and Lois headed back towards the Kent farm, for Clark it had been a wonderful afternoon. He felt as though the weight of four years without Bruce had been lifted from his shoulders. If it wasn't for the circumstances of his being in Smallville he could have laughed.
He pulled up to the main street in town and began to turn left when a LexCorp semi came barreling out of control down the street and heading straight towards a large store front. In the blink of an eye Clark jumped out of the truck and leapt into the sky changing along the way. He swooped in front of the truck and grabbed a hold of the front and planted his feet; stopping it within inches of the store window.
He looked up to see the driver of the rig breathing a sigh of relief. The man jumped down from the truck.
"Thanks Superman, I have no idea what happened. I know my brakes were working a few miles ago but as soon as I hit the town limits they were gone."
"Just glad I was here. What are you hauling here?"
"Not sure, but by the look of it I would say rocks." There were rocks spilt from the broken crates all over the pavement.
What in the world does Lex want with a load of Smallville rocks.
As if to answer his question a blue Corvette came screaming up beside him and slid to a halt.
"Superman, what are you doing here?" Lex asked jumping out of his car and walking in front of the car's headlights.
"I was passing overhead when I saw the truck out of control." The Man of Steel responded.
"That was most fortunate. " Lex surveying the damage.
Superman almost rolled his eyes at his former friend, "What's with the rock?"
"The minerals in the rocks around Smallville have certain properties that I'm interested in… to research."
"I see" Superman said in disbelief.
With the quickness of Superman stopping the truck, the crates had broken their tie downs and fallen off the flatbed of the trailer. Superman walked over and began to put the crates back on the truck. He had only cleaned up a few crates when he felt the burning feeling of Kryptonite Radiation. He fell to the ground between two huge crates only to almost fall on a small piece of Kryptonite.
Lex came near and stood over him blocking the view of any onlookers and spoke quietly. "I heard about that incident in Gotham, but I had to see for myself. The radius of the rock's radiation is very satisfactory."
Clark looked weakly over at Lex, "Why?"
"Some people would say that I'm a controller. I guess I would have to agree. And you are…correction…were out of my control." Lex stood on one of Superman's fingers just hard enough to make Superman flinch. "I needed to remedy that"
Lex looked around and then swiftly kicked Superman in the stomach. He leaned over and whispered in Superman's ear, "That's for messing up my warehouse and getting my stock impounded last month." .
The gun warehouse in Gotham, I stumbled on that by accident, got to love it when the bad guys talk too much. Clark thought to himself as he clutched his stomach in pain.
Lex picked up the glowing piece of rock and put it in his jacket pocket.
"Here's the deal Superman, you are a threat to my business. I am simply making sure that you don't interfere with my interests." Lex thought for a moment, "Instead of this threat I could offer you a generous position in my company, maybe chief of my security…
"No deal." Superman spat from the ground with all the will he could muster.
"I figured that's what you would say. Remember my words well, I now control you. I will not hesitate to use this rock and destroy you." Lex said quietly as he turned to walk back to his car and drove off into the night.
With the Kryptonite gone, Superman quickly recovered and began to clean up the remaining mess. He was furious, Lex had caught him off guard…he felt so vulnerable, not a feeling he felt often nor liked. When he loaded the last crate he checked on the driver again and then leapt into the air leaving an angry boom in his wake. He flew a safe distance and then ran back to the car.
"Clark! Are you alright?" Lois asked as she ran up to him.
"Yeah…" Clark said as they got back into the Mercedes
"I called the cops..." They were arriving as she spoke.
"Let's get going, I'm not in the mood to answer questions tonight." Clark put the SUV in reverse and started on the round about way home.
"Clark, the green rock…It could have killed you huh?" Lois asked seriously.
"Yes."
Clark made his way up to his loft; lost in his thoughts. The afternoon funeral had been very nice, as nice as the circumstances allowed. The flowers had been arranged around the gravesite. Her friends had talked about their favorite memories of Lana. Someone sang Amazing Grace before the friends and families dispersed…
"Excuse me Sir…" Alfred interrupted his thoughts.
"Yes Alfred?"
"I was going over the findings again from the Batcomputer, and I think I have found something of interest. If I might suggest, I think we should fly back to the cave for a closer look."
"Look at what?" Lois asked as she walked into the loft.
"A case we were working on before we came here." Clark turned to her.
"Ah a case…" Lois said with a mischievous light in her eyes.
"Lois you can't come…" Clark started to say.
Thirty minutes later Clark flew the three of them back to Gotham.
"Wow!" Lois' voice echoed. "And all that time we spent together that summer, I never even dreamed this was down here."
She walked over to the sleek, black Batmobile, and touched it. It was in great condition, Alfred kept it dust free and Clark drove it sometimes just to keep the engine running. She looked up and saw the Batwing sitting high on its platform, just waiting for it's masters return. Clark hadn't made that many changes to the Batcave, he had moved some of Bruce's trophys and exersize equipment to make room for him to work out and he had updated some of the Lab equipment. But in general the Cave was just as Bruce had left it.
The trio walked over to the lab area, Alfred had put the Cat into a led box and had fed various sensors and cameras into the box. Clark keyed in his pass codes to unlock the massive Batcomputer and brought up several programs and Alfred uncovered the Cat.
"The computer flagged this little part behind the eyes of the cat as a crack, but I got to thinking about it and…"
Alfred carefully removed the eyes of the cat with a chisel and put the Kryptonite eyes in a led box. Clark slowly walked over and picked up the now harmless Cat. In the first eye socket was a letter R and in the second was an A.
"R…A? What could R and A stand for?" Clark stood and began pacing.
"Could be someone's initials." Alfred.
Clark paced deep in thought as he held the Cat.
"Guys…" Lois started
Clark kept pacing, he didn't even hear her.
"Earth to Clark!" She said stepping in front of him, "You pull off a great brooding Batman impression." She said sarcastically with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Might I suggest that you look at the screen sir." Alfred interrupted the fight before it got really started.
Clark turned to see Lois standing by the console; she had run a simple search that had returned several matches on the local disk array. One file stood out from the others, this one Alfred pointed too. "Miss, if you will type the password Zorro'sMask we should be able to get into that file."
"Zorro?" Lois asked.
"He was Master Bruce's hero growing up." Alfred replied.
"I wonder why it was not with the rest of the case files." Clark thought out loud.
The file opened and revealed a dozer on a man called Ra's Al Ghul.
"Take a look at the file creation date, Bruce's been working on this one for a while." Lois began, "It says here that Bruce thinks that Ra's heads a worldwide criminal organization, whose mission is to purify the planet and to create a better world where he would rule." She sat down in the big console chair, "Bruce speculates that Ra's will use whatever means and force necessary to achieve his twisted vision of a new utopian society. The computer lists Ra's bodyguard, Ubu and his daughter, Talia as possible known accomplices. And the only possible known location is a place called The Lazarus Pit."
Lois stood and turned to Clark and Alfred, "Do you think that this Ra's guy has anything to do with Batman's disappearance?"
"I'm not sure, kind of seems a little far fetched that the Cat, this guy Ra's and Bruce are linked." Clark stated.
"Well we don't have much else to go on do we?" Lois retorted.
"I'll give you that, OK suppose that they are linked. We really don't know were to start looking." Clark thought as he sat down at the console.
He quickly hacked into the museum's receiving log and found that the Cat was on loan from a museum in Rome. Unfortunately the digital trail ended there.
"Seems like Rome's a little behind the times." Lois joked.
"Well it is the best clue that we've found…" Clark said as he turned to face Alfred and Lois.
"The Batsignal has been turned on sir." Alfred said pointing to an indicator on the Batcomputer.
"Thanks Alfred, we'll figure out what to do in the morning."