Chapter Fifteen
Superman crashed through another wall and landed on his back, covered from head to toe in dust and debris. As he blinked the dirt from his eyes he was vaguely aware of his surroundings, and was able to make the connection that the room he'd landed in was the same throne room that they'd seen in the hologram earlier. The room where Kal had so heartlessly murdered the other members of the League.
Kal burst through the wall right after him, raising his fists as he leapt into the air. He came down hard, driving his fists into Superman's face over and over again. Superman tried to knock Kal off of him with a blast of heat vision, but he just couldn't do it. His eyes were nearly swollen shut and he could barely see, let alone muster up his heat vision at this point. He swung his fists blindly, hoping to land a glancing blow. Kal-El dodged his punches as super speed.
"Look at you!" Kal laughed. "You have no fight left in you!" He grabbed the sides of Superman's face, lifted his head off the ground, then smashed it against the floor. The room was spinning. Blood oozed out of the side of his mouth. "And you're supposed to be the world's greatest hero. What did Lois Lane ever see in you, I wonder?"
Lois. Lois Lane. The woman he loved. If he died here on this demented world, there would be no one to protect her. She would be all alone. He'd never see her again. He saw her face in his mind's eye. Saw all the times they'd held each other. The first time they'd ever kissed. The time she'd told him that she knew he was Superman. Their wedding day.
"Lois…" he whispered.
"Well!" Kal laughed. "You can still ta-"
It was a burst of energy that he didn't think he could possibly still have left in him. They shot up off the ground, Kal's neck firmly planted between Superman's arms, and they crashed into the ceiling. Superman drove Kal's head into the ceiling repeatedly, even as blood and sweat poured from his own forehead and he felt he could lose consciousness at any moment. Kal-El swatted at Superman's powerful arms, trying to get him to release his grip on his neck and shoulders. With one last Herculean effort, Superman hurled Kal-El back to the ground, then dove at him at full speed, hammering him straight into the floor.
It was too much. He'd made that last effort on pure adrenaline, and now the fumes he'd been running on had run out. Kal threw his elbow back and knocked Superman off him with ease. He pulled himself to his feet, dragging Superman's limp body with him.
"Well that was impressive," Kal said. "Pointless, but, impressive." He delivered another crushing punch to Superman's face, which sent him tumbling back to the floor. Kal towered over him, the red, crackling energy of heat vision building up in his eyes. "You put up a good fight, old man, I'll give you that. But this symbol was only meant to be worn by the true son of Jor-El." Kal opened the floodgates and unleashed a torrent of heat vision, searing Superman's skin. He let out a scream of unbearable pain.
"STOP IT!" a voice cried out from behind them.
Kal's heat vision fizzled to an abrupt stop. He spun around to see Clark Kent standing in the hole that they'd made when they crashed into the room just moments ago.
"Take a number, kid," Kal said with a sneer. "You're next."
"Tempus has been using you," Clark declared. "You're nothing but his puppet. He twisted you, turning you into what he wanted, so you'd murder the Supermen of the other realities and prevent Utopia from happening."
"That's ridiculous," Kal said. "I came to power long before Tempus showed up!"
"Oh really?" Clark reached out his hand. In his palm he held one of the holo-spheres. As he waved his other hand over it, it began to radiate an intense white light. The light filled the room, and the globe began to display the piece of history that it contained.
Kal's eyes went wide as he saw the image of the truck that he knew so well in his youth. The truck that had belonged to his father, Jonathan Kent. The truck that he himself had driven so many times into town, to drop off produce orders at The Talon, to meet his friends, to go to school. Then, he saw the truck's occupants. Jonathan and Martha Kent. Chloe Sullivan. Lana Lang.
"Mom…? Dad…?" Kal-El whispered. His voice cracked a little. He stepped forward, reaching out his hand, as if he could touch them. "My God. I haven't seen them in so long." His voice was softer now, as if it was not Kal-El speaking, but the part of him that still was and would always be Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas.
He watched in horror as the truck swerved off the road. He heard Jonathan yell out in his authoritative voice for the others to brace themselves, because the brakes had gone out. Chloe grabbed Lana's arm. The truck flipped over, and over, and over…
"No!" The fear was frozen on Kal-El's face. He ran towards the hologram, as if he could somehow jump inside of it and stop what was happening. He fell to his knees in despair as he watched, hopelessly. The truck was a mess of twisted metal and broken glass. His hand went to his mouth. Jonathan Kent. Martha Kent. Chloe Sullivan. All killed on impact.
Then he watched as a man in a black business suit entered the scene carrying a can of gasoline. The man proceeded to pour the gas all over the overturned truck and the three dead bodies, as well as the body of the still living Lana Lang.
"No…" Kal-El whispered.
"Oh, Miss Lang," the man in the hologram said as Lana regained consciousness. "I was really hoping you would have just died on impact like Chloe and the Kents. I should've known cutting the brake lines would be far too easy. I really don't want you to take any of this personally. I'm just trying to prevent a dreadfully dull Utopian future. You understand, don't you? Your deaths should be just what it takes to push your friend Clark Kent over the edge."
Kal watched as the scene continued to play out. Finally, the man removed a lighter from his pocket.
"Trust me, Miss Lang," the man said. "What I do now, I do for a better tomorrow. But somehow, I doubt that will be of much consolation."
"NO!" Kal yelled, as he watched the man flick the lighter open. He lit it as casually as if he were lighting a cigarette, then tossed it to the ground. The flames shot up the instant the lighter hit the glistening grass.
Kal-El's scream was so deafening that no one could hear it. He threw his head back, his entire body shaking as he let loose a roar of pain and despair. Huge cracks shot up the walls of the throne room, and an earthquake spread for miles around. As his scream subsided, Kal slowly fell to his knees. He buried his face in his hands, tears streaming down his cheeks. He hunched forward, rocking back and forth slightly as he sobbed into his hands.
The hologram sputtered out and Clark lowered the globe. He bowed his head. The hologram had been just as difficult for him to watch. He'd only heard Wells explain what had happened, before. Seeing it play out before his eyes had been devastating. As much as he hated Kal-El, he could not help but sympathize with him. He knew exactly what he was feeling.
Just then, Tempus burst into the room. "I'm getting awfully tired of this!" he shouted. "The next person who knocks me out is getting…" His voice faded as Kal-El's head whipped around towards him, his face contorted in rage. Kal rose to his feet, the repressed heat vision burning in his eyes once more.
"You monster," Kal snarled, walking towards Tempus with clenched fists. "You vile, disgusting…"
"Um… I missed something, I think?" Tempus choked out, pulling at his collar. "Did I do something wrong?"
"You murdered my family and friends in cold blood, so that I would turn to Jor-El! So that I would become, become THIS!" His hands trembled. "My God… I killed Bruce! Hal! Bart! Kyle! What have you turned me into, Tempus! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?"
He grabbed Tempus with one hand and hoisted him into the air.
"Oh, come on! All that! You can't be serious! That was forever ago, Kal, baby! I figured you would've moved passed that by now! Besides…" Tempus slapped something into Kal's free hand. "…you don't really care, now do you?"
Kal looked quizzically for a moment at the glowing red rock in his hand. Then he squeezed, hard, cracking the bones in Tempus's hand and crushing the piece of red kryptonite. Tempus cried out in a howl of pain.
"Looks like I'm immune to all strains of kryptonite, Tempus," Kal hissed. "And now I'm going to burn the flesh from your bones, the way you did to Lana."
Clark put a hand on Kal's shoulder. "No, Kal. It doesn't have to be that way. You're right, Tempus did turn you into a murderer. But you don't have to be that any more. Killing him won't change what happened. But we can fix this. I know how we can."
Slowly, Kal lowered Tempus back to the ground. "You… you are right. I… am… I am not a murderer. Jonathan and Martha Kent… I mean… my Mom and Dad, they taught me… they taught me better than this…" Tears were welling up in Kal's eyes, evaporating into steam almost instantly as his repressed heat vision continued to pop and sizzle. Reluctantly, Kal let go of Tempus.
"There, now. Looks like we can be reasonable, after all," Tempus said. He quickly reached into his jacket, pulled out the white time-gate cube, and tossed it into the air. "See you later, suckers!" he laughed.
There was a quick streak of blue, and the cube disappeared from the air before it could expand into a time window. Across the room, Superman stood holding the cube. Though he was bruised, bloody and battered, he managed a smile. "You're not getting away that easily this time, Tempus."
Tempus turned, ducked out of the room, and sprinted down the hall. Before any of the three men could even go after him, there was a thunderous "BOOM!", and a flash of yellow light. Superman, Clark, and Kal-El all exchanged confused looks. They stepped out into the hallway, to find it empty. Tempus had disappeared.
"What just happened?" Clark asked.
"I am not sure," Kal replied. Then, he grew angry. "Damn it! He got away! You should have just let me kill him!"
"No! Now calm down," Clark said. "I told you we can fix this, and we can."
"Of course," Kal sighed with relief. He turned to Superman. "The time cube. If we just go back and prevent Tempus from murdering my parents and friends…"
"We already tried that," Superman said. "It didn't work."
"What do you mean!" Kal roared.
"Wells went back in time and tried to correct the past, but it didn't change the future," Superman explained. "We think it's because of the Temporal Disruption Regulator. What we need to do is-"
But Kal wasn't hearing him. "Bah!" he spat, and turned away in frustration. "I'll fix this myself then!" With that, he tore off into the air, ripping through the ceiling and launching himself out into space.
H.G. Wells stumbled into the room through the hole in the wall, dusting himself off. "My word… what's happened in here?" he asked.
"I used the holo-sphere to show Kal-El how Tempus changed the past," Clark said. "But then he just took off through the ceiling."
There was an intense sonic boom, and the whole fortress shook. A few moments later, another one followed. Then another, and another, until they were hearing a boom every few seconds.
"My God," Wells gasped. "I know what he's trying to do."
"What?" Superman and Clark asked in unison.
"He's trying to fly backwards around the Earth and reverse its rotation, in an attempt to reverse time," Wells said, flabbergasted.
"What!" Clark exclaimed. "Is that even possible?"
"Theoretically, I don't know!" Wells said, adjusting his glasses. "But not in this world, in any event! The Disruption Regulator won't allow it! He'll sooner tear this planet apart by knocking it out of its orbit before he could ever hope to reverse time! My dear boys, unless we get to that Regulator and deactivate it immediately, the world is quite doomed!"
