Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Zod Father

"So let me get this straight," said The Doctor, looking down at the bespectacled gremlin. "You're threatening to kill us if we don't give you the Tardis?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing," agreed the gremlin.

"Do you realize who I am?" added The Doctor.

"Well, your vehicle would suggest, unbelievable as it seems, that you are the fictional television character known as The Doctor," began the gremlin leader, "whilst your apparel would suggest that you lack the sartorial elegance of your predecessors, although, personally, I think the ears are a masterstroke, although slightly underdone."

"Then you'll know that I spend a large amount of my time destroying monsters," continued The Doctor.

"I also know that you spend a large amount of your time dying," replied the gremlin, "but please continue."

"Well, it just so happens my assistant knows how to defeat you," said The Doctor triumphantly. "She's seen the films."

"Films?" echoed the confused gremlin.

"That's right," said Rose with a smile. "I know the three rules."

"You mean about not getting us wet, not feeding us after midnight, and not exposing us to bright light," said the gremlin leader, smiling back.

"Well, yes," said a suddenly nervous Rose.

"And what makes you think that you'll get a chance to disobey any of those rules," asked the gremlin. "After all, these aren't your normal run-of-the-mill Mogwai. These Mogwai are so much more. I've exposed them to radiation and they've mutated beyond the realms of your imagination."

As the lead gremlin said these words, the gremlin next to him, short (even by gremlin standards), suddenly raised his claws and from out of them popped a further set of metallic claws. Meanwhile, the bulky gremlin behind him suddenly turned metallic, while the blue gremlin next to him suddenly emitted a noxious gas and started making strange bamf-ing noises whilst teleporting around the other gremlins.

While most of the other gremlins laughed at the blue gremlin, and the lead gremlin just shook his head in embarrassment, one of the gremlins at the back suddenly rose into the air and conjured up a storm cloud from nowhere.

Suddenly the other gremlins looked up in horror at the weather-manipulating gremlin, scared that it would start a rainstorm, thus causing them to reproduce and give The Doctor time to escape, or, even worse, summon some sunshine that would dissolve them.

Quickly one of the gremlins leapt up, grabbing the other gremlin's ankle. As the weather-manipulating gremlin's skin started to turn pale and crack, it plummeted to the ground, while the other gremlin leapt off it towards The Doctor.

Rose looked on in bemusement as the new gremlin wrapped its arms around The Doctor's neck and planted a kiss firmly on The Doctor's lips. Suddenly, her bemusement turned to concern as The Doctor's face suddenly clenched in pain and his skin started to wrinkle. Quickly she took her jacket off, wrapped it around her hands, and grabbed the gremlin, pulling it off The Doctor and flinging it back towards the other gremlins.

The Doctor leant against the Tardis for support, breathing heavily, as his face slowly went back to its current normality, while, in front of them, yet another gremlin lifted up the 3D glasses it was wearing and lethal bolts of blue and red energy issued forth from its eyes. Fortunately, the gremlin's eyes, that appeared to be working totally independently of each other, were staring everywhere except straight ahead, meaning that only the walls and ceilings were damaged by the blasts.

"Okay, we get it," said Rose with a sneer, as the gremlin replaced his 3D glasses. "You're just an X-Men rip-off."

The lead gremlin looked at Rose. "A rip-off? I beg to differ. A satirical commentary - maybe, an affectionate pastiche - perhaps, but a rip-off? I think not."

He then turned his head towards The Doctor, who still appeared a little shaken. "So, what's it going to be, Doctor. Your Tardis or your lives?"

The Doctor stepped aside, pulling Rose with him, and then gestured towards the Tardis with his outstretched hand. "Okay, have it. It's all yours."

As the multitude of gremlins rushed into the Tardis, their bespectacled leader looked at The Doctor in surprise. "Well, thank you, Doctor. That's very civilized of you. Almost too civilized." And then realization dawned. "It's a trap, isn't it?"

The Doctor smiled. "Kind of," he said, taking out his sonic screwdriver and pointing it towards the Tardis.

The bespectacled gremlin rushed to close the Tardis door, but all the other gremlins, save one, had already entered by that time, and that final gremlin just turned intangible, running straight through its leader and into the Tardis, which then dematerialized.

"Shame you didn't have a telepath," observed Rose. "Then you'd have known what The Doctor was thinking."

The lead gremlin, who'd fallen on the ground when the Tardis had disappeared, looked up at Rose and The Doctor. "We did," he moaned, "but it was using all of its power just to keep the other gremlins organized. You have no ideas of the problems of management."

"I'd move from there if I was you," advised The Doctor, as the sound of the Tardis returning filled the air.

The gremlin got up quickly and looked at the vehicle materializing next to it. As soon as the gremlin was sure that the Tardis was fully materialized, it pushed open the door. "They're gone," it said, as it observed the emptiness within. "Where did you send them?"

"Somewhere they'd have fun," replied The Doctor. "You're welcome to join them."

"No, Doctor," replied the gremlin, "I'll stay here and destroy you."

"What? Are you going to pontificate us to death?" asked Rose.

The gremlin looked at Rose and, after a moment's thought, replied "I'm tempted but I'm not sure if we've really got the time, and also there's so many other things to take into consideration. Admittedly I could kill you in a variety of bloodthirsty ways but now, with my advanced intellectual quotient, menial violence seems somewhat beneath me. No, I'll go away and think about it."

"Okay, get back to us later," shouted The Doctor after the gremlin, now walking away from them.

"And maybe something more original next time," added Rose, but the gremlin didn't hear, for it was thinking its thoughts and planning its plans. It remembered seeing four unmutated Mogwai on one of the floors above, and was wondering what effect cosmic rays might have on them.

Rose's eyes followed the gremlin until it disappeared into the elevator at the end of the corridor.

"So where did you send the gremlins to?" asked Rose. "Did you send them to that film Cube so that they could be killed in all sorts of innovative bloodthirsty ways?"

"You watch too many films," said The Doctor, as he approached the Tardis, wanting to make sure that the gremlins had left the place tidy. "I just sent them back to our reality to do what gremlins do best."

"Our reality?" said Rose in disbelief.

"Yes, there was some unfinished business I thought they could sort out," replied The Doctor, looking in dismay at the mess the gremlins had left behind in the Tardis. "Have you seen the state of this?"

Rose grimaced as she looked in. "Yeah, I should have mentioned - gremlins like to party."

"Knew I should have asked them for a deposit first," muttered The Doctor.


Meanwhile, over in a different reality, place and time period, Clark Kent was looking at Zod being held firmly by a beam of energy, his face frozen in what looked like a silent scream.

Clark leapt in between Zod and the wall of the cave, intercepting the energy beam. As soon as Clark got in the way of the beam, it disappeared, leaving Zod to fall to the floor. Then, after a brief pause, they heard the electronic voice again.

Connection lost. Attempting reconnection.

Suddenly a bolt of energy leapt from the ceiling of the cave, straight towards Zod, pinning him to the ground.

Connection re-established.

Clark turned towards Zod, and was about to leap in between the new beam and Zod when suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Ursa. "If the computer wants to talk to Zod, let it."

"But it'll kill him."

"Zod's stronger than he looks," replied Ursa.

"But I can't just stand here and ignore what's happening."

"You're right," said Ursa. "Let's go outside. It'll be easier there."

"But -" began Clark.

"Please don't make me use the kryptonite, Kal."


Lex, Chloe and Jimmy had been in the Clamp Center for just over five minutes when they'd run into the gremlins. As the gremlins rushed towards them, Lex shouted "Let's split up."

That was the last Chloe had seen of Lex, as he'd left her and Jimmy behind as he entered an elevator closely followed by ten or more gremlins.


Clark and Ursa sat outside the caves, Clark staring steadfastly at the ground.

"Don't worry about him," reassured Ursa. "He loves playing with computers."

"It's not that," said Clark. "It's what the computer said before … it called him Jor-El."

"So you think that Zod's your father?" laughed Ursa.

Clark ignored Ursa's mocking tone. "It looks like it could be a possibility."

"Computers make mistakes. It's probably because Zod's voice sounds like Jor-El's."

"Maybe," said Clark. "Maybe not."

"So, if you think Zod's your father, then you must think I'm your mother."

"I've considered it," said Clark, still refusing to raise his eyes from the ground.

Ursa grabbed Clark by the chin, and pulled his head up so that he was looking straight in her eyes. "Kal, earlier today you were telling us that you're father was just like you. Now you're convinced that he's Zod. These are just assumptions, not fact. The important questions to ask are does it really matter and does it really change anything."

"It matters to me," replied Clark.

Ursa turned her head away from Clark's and looked up at the stars in the sky. "It matters to me too. I guess there's only one place we can find out, Kal. Hopefully Zod, with that computer, will be able to figure out how to get us there. In the meantime, we better get some sleep."

"What about Zod?" asked Clark.

"Don't worry about him," she replied with a smile. "He's not going anywhere."

"Goodnight, Zod," shouted Clark at the caves, and then added "Goodnight, Ursa" as he took off his brown leather jacket, and folded it to make himself a makeshift pillow.

"Goodnight, Clark," replied Ursa, still staring up at the stars as she tried in vain to work out which way home was. After a few minutes, feeling tired, she glanced over at the sleeping Clark, and then down at her stomach, shook her head and then tried to get to sleep.


Meanwhile, elsewhere in Smallville, Lana Lang was on her knees in the bedroom of the McCallum household, about to do something that she hadn't done in a long time, and something that she'd sworn that she would never do again. As she knelt there, her stomach feeling queasy as the image of Louise kneeling before Zod came into her head, she put her hands together, opened her mouth and began:

"Hi, God. I know it's a long time since we last talked. Your fault I guess. I don't think I'll ever forgive you for that Act Of God you let loose on Smallville in 1989. Anyway, enough of that. I guess nobody's perfect - I know I'm not, although maybe I'm just being hard on myself - after all, nobody's perfect is just one of those things imperfect people say to make themselves feel better. Having said that, I couldn't have made things worse today if I'd tried. First I accidentally got my great-aunt, actually my grandmother, killed and then I made the time-traveling no-no of telling my mother how she'd die and that I was her daughter Lana. Fortunately everybody thought I was just calling my mom Lana because that was her original name, although my grandfather Dex is still mad at me, so he's sleeping in the spare room, which is a really good thing let me tell you."

"Anyway, all in all, this has been the second worst day in my life, and I really needed to talk to someone about it. But that's not the only reason I'm talking to you again. The fact is that I'm going to have to pretend to be Louise so that I don't end up accidentally creating some weird time paradox that will wipe out time and space - although strictly speaking that would also be classified as an Act Of God so I guess you'd be partially to blame as well, assuming you were still around and there was anybody left to blame you. The bad thing about being Louise is that I'm going to end up dead fairly soon. Now I've faced death lots of times before but I could always see a way out, but not this time, so I thought that I better have a chat with you and reserve a place up there, somewhere close to my parents. Oh, and could you do something about the color scheme. I realize that it's all white up there and that's nice, and I also know that the devil's got the red franchise pretty much sewn up, but it only takes a bit of red in the white to make pink and it is the best color. Just think about it, okay?"

"Anyway, sorry to bother you. Needless to say, being a waitress, I can identify completely with you. Worshipped by everyone, looking down on everyone, listening to people's dull problems all day, having to be everywhere at once, being expected to work miracles … we've got lots in common. Having said that, much as I've been tempted, I've never thrown flaming rocks at any of my customers."

"Amen."

Lana got up from the floor and sat on the bed, and then remembered there were some things she'd forgotten to say and got back down on her knees again.

"P.S. If your life really does flash before your eyes when you die, could I skip that day in 1989. Also, if I'm not meant to die in the grand scheme of things can you give me some kind of sign."

Lana waited a while, listening and looking for any kind of sign, but there was nothing.

"I'm in no rush though," added Lana, "so any time soon will do."

Lana got up, a bit disgruntled that God never gave her a sign. Then again, she wasn't even sure God existed, although she knew that there was a life after death, at least for her, although unfortunately, because she was dying in 1961, Lana had already lived it.


Zod finally managed to find the strength to push himself up from the ground.

"I'm … not … Joe-El," he screamed, as the beam of energy bore down on him.

Intruder alert. DNA check initiated.

Zod, now on his feet, suddenly wondered if telling the computer the truth had been the right idea.

DNA contamination detected.

The beam disappeared, leaving Zod standing there sweating. At least he could move now, even if all of the muscles in his body ached.

Cleansing initiated…

Suddenly the caves were filled with a blinding yellow light.

"No," screamed Zod. "My DNA's not contaminated. It's just that I'm from another reality. You can't do this!"

But it was too late, for Zod's DNA had been overwritten. Suddenly his muscles no longer ached and he felt the same way he'd felt when he'd escaped The Phantom Zone. He was unstoppable, all-powerful.

"Well," mused Zod. "It appears I stand corrected."


Lex staggered out of the elevator, covered in gremlin blood. Splitting up hadn't been a good idea - anybody who'd watched horror movies would know that, but Lex knew that the nearest Clark got to watching horror was Scooby Doo where splitting up was de rigueur. Still, being separated from Chloe for a while would give Lex a chance to be himself which, after pretending to be Clark for so long, was a welcome relief.

And then Lex heard a familiar voice asking "Can I help you?" and saw a clean-shaven man in a dressing gown approaching him.

"Father?" was the only thing Lex could say.