Author's note: Usually I don't write sequels. I've actually made it a rule not to continue on with the same ideas, but recently I looked over "Not in Kansas Anymore" and realized I might have left the end a bit more open than I intended and that it could be wildly speculated on. Another reason I'm writing this is Keke (Kate Finn from the Devoted to Smallville forum) who has recently sparked up a conversation about the ideas I might have for a potential sequel which lead to me having enough of them to start writing on the actual story. So in many ways she's responsible for the existence of this story.

Through the Looking Glass

Prologue

The Time is Right

Smallville

The Lane Mansion (Formerly Luthor)

The sword was close to the bicep, but not close enough. The blow had been successfully averted, even if only by half an inch. He jumped back in with a strong offense. Left. Right. Left. His opponent had become confused, not knowing which direction he would attack from next. It was the perfect time for the final blow. He leaned to the right, but at the last moment shifted his weight on the other foot and delivered a surprising lethal hit to the chest. From the side, drinking her morning cup of tea, his mother jumped up from her seat excited and applauded him enthusiastically.

"Well done!" she told him and rushed to his side to embrace him. If a stranger had observed them at that moment he would have easily considered them brother and sister without a second thought for this woman – the mother of the fencer – seemed no older than 20 years, an age only 2 years apart from that of the robust young man she called her son. People would be inclined to believe she might have cheated time through surgery, obscure diets or physical exercises done with a maniacal regularity, but no, Lois Lane had other secrets that kept her young.

"So it's finally happened. The pupil has surpassed the master," the boy's opponent, an attractive fencing teacher in her 30s said as she took off her protective mask. "Good job, Alex." In a split second, the boy's sword was resting against the woman's jugular and as he took off his own mask with his free hand, he reminded her in a dead serious tone:

"How many times do I have to tell you? It's Alexander." His teacher swallowed hard as Lois watched him with a smirk.

"Do it," she urged him with an expectant gaze.

"Ms. Lane…," the teacher let out alarmed. The sword pressed down against her neck harder as Alexander's stone cold gaze settled on hers.

"Alex!" a voice suddenly said from behind him and the boy's grip on the sword immediately relaxed and his features softened as he turned around. Lois sighed disappointed as the teacher breathed out relieved. "Don't tell me I missed the whole thing?"

"It was a lightning round. I managed to win it early," Alexander said with a proud grin.

"You managed to beat Claire?" Clark Kent let out, acting impressed. It took him two seconds to take in the entire scene and realize something bad had been happening when he had walked in. The fencing teacher's frightened look, Lois' pout – the one she always had when things didn't go her way, Alexander's tense body when he had come in.

"Yeah, he's become quite skilled," Claire let out laughing nervously as she neared Clark trying not to hurry, but not being able to help herself. She only began feeling safe again when Clark was standing between her and the Lanes.

"Come on, I'll walk you to your car," Clark offered when she saw how nervous the woman was.

"That would be nice," the teacher replied with a weak smile. As they headed for the door, Clark gave both Alexander and Lois a long look as if to scold them.

"See you next week," Alexander told the woman and added on a hesitant tone: "I'm sorry about earlier…I was just…playing around."

Claire didn't even look back at him and when the door shut behind her and Clark, Lois turned toward her son and raising her eyebrows asked:

"Playing around?"

"What was I suppose to say?" he asked shrugging.

"You should've killed her while you had the chance. Now she'll never come back," she mused and after a pause added: "I am proud of you though. Claire was the best fencer of her generation. We're talking Olympic gold medals good, but you managed to beat her."

"All I had to do is find her weak spot and exploit it. She's just an easy person to confuse," he explained with a smile. She watched him for a few moments insistently until he became uncomfortable under her gaze and asked: "What is it?"

Lois neared him and lovingly arranging his hair that had been ruffled by the fencing mask told him: "I think you're ready."

"For what?" he asked although his heart had already begun to beat faster because deep down he knew where she was going.

"To meet Lex Luthor…," she said with a smile.

"And destroy him," he finished her phrase. He had been waiting to hear those words since he had been six years old.

Outside, as Clark and Claire reached her car, Clark looked at her undecided for a moment until finally, he told her:

"You shouldn't come back." Claire looked at him hesitantly. "Lois knows Lex is paying you for information on Alex."

"And you think my life is in danger?" she asked as she nervously fiddled with her car keys.

"I don't know what to think…" he sighed. "Lois…can be a difficult person sometimes. I want to believe she wouldn't go as far as murder, but she won't make things easy on you if you come back. Lex brings out a part of her that's kinda scary."

"No point in coming back anyway," she admitted with a half-smile. "I taught him everything I could."

"Alex is a good kid. Everything's just been so hard for him," he tried to apologize for him.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Living in a castle, getting everything he wants, a regular tragedy," she pointed out with a smirk as she got in her car.

"You know what I mean. Growing up without a father," Clark corrected her.

"Doesn't look like it," she replied with a sympathetic smile and added as she turned on the engine: "You can tell that crazy bitch of his mother that I quit."

"I'll try to phrase it in better terms," he said with a smile and her car pulled out of the driveway. As she honked her last goodbye, Clark waved briefly at her before returning to the mansion.

Metropolis

As she made her way to the table, all the men's eyes instantly turned toward her. She wasn't the nubile 20 year old she had once been, but the sophisticated woman that girl had turned into. She had had quite an evolution. From Smallville princess to Metropolis vamp to the Luthor Queen as papers and magazines respectfully referred to her as now. She had become an icon of the modern successful woman. CEO of Langcorp – born from the ashes of the cursed Lang Pharmaceuticals company, devoted and loving wife of Lex Luthor, mother of two, a worldly wonder whose beauty had only ripened with age and had gained a golden shimmer of distinction. Life had been good to her. Bad mouths would argue maybe too good, but many stopped such thoughts the moment they remembered her tragic past: the orphaned child plagued by tragedies, one after the other.

"I'm not too late am I?" she asked as she sat down at the table and checked her watch.

"Just a little," Chloe Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet replied with a smile.

"Almost 20 minutes, that's a lot. I'm sorry, traffic's just been horrible," she apologized.

"Actually, given it's way past rush hour, the traffic's pretty breezy," she pointed out.

"Okay so I was pulled over for speeding," she admitted and after a moment added: "…and they happened to find out I had quite a few outstanding tickets. Please don't write anything about it?"

"Lana, please, everyone in this town knows you have a speeding problem. Why people try not to be out on the streets when you get off from work," she teased her with a smile.

"It's not my fault Lex insists on buying me these outrageous little cars," she said sounding unconvincing.

"Does he do that every time he has to do something you don't like? Like say…sell guns to rival bands in Central city?" she asked and Lana gave her an exasperated look before reminding her:

"What was our deal?"

"No talking shop over drinks. No pumping for information on anything Luthorcorp or Langcorp related," she repeated their arrangement and taking a sip from her drink added, sighing frustrated: "You're no fun. What's the point of having the CEO of one of the largest corporations in the city and wife of one of the sleaziest business men out there as a friend if I can't get some juicy first hand information?"

"Free invitations to all the private parties in town where you can find bitter semi-drunk people you can pump for information?" Lana offered.

"Ah, yes, forgot about that," Chloe replied with a grin. "So how are the kids?"

"You know," she shrugged. "Same old, same old. Lily's being bullied around by snobbish Ivy Leaguers and Lex is making death threats because of it. And Laura…well, Laura's just being Laura. We're thinking about transferring her to Lily's prep school. Her current school just suspended her again so… Lily might stand a chance if she's around."

"Didn't they burn down the last school they attended together?" Chloe recalled.

"That was an accident," she replied uncomfortably.

"Yeah, I'll say, that gasoline just happened to fall all over the wooden floors," she rolled her eyes.

"I know, okay?" she sighed. "Laura's just a hand full and she always manages to talk Lily into doing all kinds of wild things. Sometimes…sometimes I think that maybe if they had an older brother, someone close to their age they could relate to, then they could…"

"Lana," Chloe said on a warning tone.

"No Alexander. No Lois. Got it," she said resigned.

Suddenly, the loud sound of glass shattering was heard from the front of the restaurant and a car came crashing in through the windows as alarmed people jumped out of the way. It all happened in a few seconds and when the car stopped in the wooden bar with a loud screech and the panic died down, a girl with long brown locks emerged from the wreckage, with her arms bruised and a cut on her face. Sighing, not looking distressed at all, she brushed the dust off her clothes and told the other occupant of the tiny little sports car who was in the driver's seat:

"Well, clearly it can't go over 300 without spinning out of control."

Seeing the girl, Lana frowned and stepping toward her through the rubble let out:

"LAURA ALEXANDRA LUTHOR!"

The girl's eyes went wide in shock: "Mom! Aren't you suppose to be in China?"

"Mom, I swear, Laura made me do it," the other passenger – now clearly a girl too – said as she came out of the car.

"But it was fun, wasn't it?" Laura asked with a smile turning toward her sister, forgetting about her mother's anger for the moment.

End Prologue