And now for one of those chapters that takes you from one point to the next…(Can you tell I hate writing this kind of chapter? – Probably why it takes me so long to update sometimes!)

Chapter 73

Chloe took off after Lois as quickly as she could and caught up to her at the elevator.

"Lois! Where do you think—?"

"I think I'm going after Lex Luthor." She turned on Chloe to explain. "Look, he knows who Clark is. He knows everything. Now where is the one place you're sure to find Clark more than any other?"

"The farm?" Chloe shook her head. "No, he wouldn't…I mean… yeah," she conceded, "he would."

"Exactly! Where is the stupid elevator!" Lois impatiently punched the button several times. "Lex has had a fixation on Clark and Clark's family from day one, and if he knows what that car can do…well, he'll try to get at Clark."

"So he can have another chance at his own private Clark-bot."

The elevator dinged.

"Finally!" Lois flew into the elevator before the door had even opened completely.

"But," Chloe said as the doors closed, "he doesn't know that—"

"That Grange's power didn't work on Clark. Yeah," Lois said thoughtfully and looked at Chloe. "That was strange. I wonder why?"

"Sometimes, meteor powers don't work on Clark. Sometimes they do. We've never figured out why," Chloe offered, not knowing whether Clark would want Lois knowing the probable reason he'd told Oliver why this one didn't."

"Oh well, regardless, Lex doesn't know it didn't. The car may be gone, but Grange is still in jail, i.e. he couldn't have told him."

"Lois, the car's gone. I wouldn't put too much faith in the ability of the police to keep Grange quiet. They sure didn't do that good of a job watching over the car."

********

Several minutes later, a shadowy figure emerged from the dark corner at the end of the long hallway. Lex Luthor's scarred, bald head gleamed in the dim light cast by the single window just behind him. His smile was barely detectable in a pulsing, reddish glow coming from the electronic device he held in his hand. He made his way down the hallway until he was standing before the door to Lois' apartment, and with one swift movement, he jimmied the lock.

Standing quietly in the doorway, his eyes grazed slowly about the room before finding his goal – a small leaden box lying on the couch. The homing device he had hidden behind the kryptonite stone had served him well. His only needed defense against the alien invader who had once been his friend was within his grasp once again.

********

"I don't know, Oliver. Something's not right here."

The two men were standing across the street from the police impound lot watching the busied activity of detectives and technicians. From their place far away from the action, Oliver could see very little; Clark's eyes, however, were missing nothing.

"It's simple. We already know they've ID'd the prints as Lex's." Oliver's raised his shoulders and sighed. "He didn't want anyone else getting to that car first," he turned to see Clark squinting at the powder-dusted gates, "so he did the job himself."

Clark shifted his intense gaze to the building next door for a few minutes and then he went right back to staring at the gate.

"What?"

"They're his prints all right, but…"

"What makes me think I'm not going to be thrilled by whatever it is you're going to say next?" Oliver folded his arms. "I gotta go get my duds, don't I?"

"But," Clark repeated quietly, consciously letting Oliver know he should lower his voice, "the prints are in strange places, like they were planted. There are none inside the lot. Just on the gate. I don't think Lex was here at all."

"How do you know—"

"I just compared the prints to the ones in the files up there." He nodded toward the second floor of the police department.

"Really?" said Oliver quietly. Jacked up vision powers as well, huh?" He scratched his forehead as Clark looked embarrassed. "What would that be exactly?" He looked at the gate. "Some kind of microscopic…" he looked up at the building, "no, telescopic…see-through-everything-and-put-it-all-together vision?" Clark started to say something, but he held up a hand to stop him. "No, no, I don't want to know anything else. I've now reached my limit of feeling totally inadequate in every conceivable way tonight."

"Oliver…"

"No, I'm good. I just hope you've got the increased brain power to go with all these physical powers. Otherwise…" He let the thought hang in the air.

They both turned and headed back up the street, and it was a couple of minutes before Oliver realized just how quiet Clark had gotten.

"Come on, man. That was a joke." Clark said nothing, but the old brooding, glum expression had returned with a vengeance. "You're sure that the red kr—"

"I'm sure," he said testily. "It's just…it's just you're right. I don't have the mind power to sort all this out just yet." He let out a prolonged sigh. "Oliver, I…do you know what I did between 5 and 6 o'clock this afternoon?"

"I'm taking that was before…"

"Yes!" Again, it came out as a highly irritated exclamation. "I'm sorry. But the thing is, I was nervous. I was just sitting there waiting until the right time to leave…and I didn't want to…Oliver, I sat down at my kitchen table in Smallville and read every, single, reference book in the Metropolis library." He held up two fingers. "Twice."

Oliver burst out laughing. "You can't do that!" At the stern look Clark gave him, he changed it to, "You can do that." He looked down at the sidewalk and chuckled. "Fine. Good. Learn anything interesting?"

"It's a big jumble of facts tumbling around in my mind right now, but there were interesting facts about crystals and energy and…I don't know, maybe I'm not ready for all this. Sometimes, I think I'm worse off now than when I started." Clark looked thoughtful, before saying, "You know what being a red belt in Karate means?"

"Actually, yes. It means danger. It's the step before you get your black belt, and it means you know almost enough, but probably only just enough to get yourself into trouble thinking you know it all. Or something like that."

"Right. That's exactly where I am. So pardon me if this is a bit blunt, but…" Clark stopped walking, smiled, and put a hand on Oliver's arm, "where is the car?"

Oliver looked about them, bit his bottom lip, and nodded, knowing he was caught and that Clark had begun to put things together quite well. "Oh, probably about thirty miles out and two miles deep off the coast of the eastern seaboard."

"You stole it." Clark's tone was reproachful.

"No…I just… skipped out on some paperwork. I've already sent in a nice little, well, not all that little really, anonymous donation to the F.O.P. Widows and Orphans fund which is where the money would have gone anyway. See? It's cool."

"It's dishonest. You were going to wait for the auction."

"And was Lex going to wait? He's back and he's—"

"I'll handle Lex."

"Really? Seems like I've heard that song before. How are you going to handle him? Because I figured this would at least get him in jail so we can work on putting him there for life."

"If all of that didn't fool me, it's not going to fool a good detective for very long. I'm far more gullible, remember?"

"You are that," Oliver smiled. "Oh, come on. This takes away one more thing someone could use against you—"

"There's always kryptonite."

"Yeah." Oliver grinned. "Been meaning to talk to you about that…Guess now is as good a time as any…"

"Oh no. What now?"

"No, it's good, Really. Last month, I had my geology team go to Smallville and let them have their own private meteorite hunt. I'm sure there are still some buried pieces, some underwater maybe that they couldn't get to…yet, but we've really managed to even out the Kryptonite to Kryptonian ratio. And they are on their way to that same watery graveyard as the car, enclosed in lead shielding, and it's being overseen by Victor. Somehow I thought he'd be the most careful. He is very protective of you."

"Thanks, but the thought of someone going around collecting those rocks smacks of something both Luthors have done in the past. How can you be sure…"

"I am. Trust me. You just need to find Lex before he gets his hand on some, because you can trust him to use it on you."

"I know that," Clark said miserably. "Is the break-in at Star Labs a fake too?"

"No. But we'll know soon enough if it was his people. They're reviewing the video as we speak. But, Clark, if it was him…let me handle it. Dr. Kline gave me an idea about—"

There was a sudden squeal of multiple sirens going off behind them. They both watched five police cars blare past them before Oliver felt that familiar quick rush of wind from the place where Clark had been standing just moments ago.

"And it's a busy night in Metropolis…" he mumbled as he ran for his car.

********

Author's notes: Cloisharley –Thanks as always for your kind words. I know what you mean about starting long stories. But I also like them, because you can really follow character development in them. I read one of yours too! Thanks to this nifty little thing called a Sony E-reader. I'm a walking-talking advertisement for it. It lets you upload word docs (as in fanfiction saved on your computer) directly to it. Great for reading in bed! Mari2Anne – the queen of the nudges. I should apologise for the lateness. (Oops…went all British in my spelling there. Eh…I'll leave it.) And you didn't even catch my big mistake. I just realized I had already written a deadbolt into that door… I changed it to "lock" some places. It's harder to here. PrincessBella15 – It's okay, there's a reason for destroying the fortress. And I mentioned Victor again. Have a feeling I'll be using more of the League in the next chapter or so. Anacaro – Yes, WW will be coming back soon. Let me guess, you're the impatient type? Andaliia – Puppy eyes always work on me! Yes, I'm putting up chapters as I write them here. I was trying to get the other site caught up with me, but now it looks like you've all come here to read and no one's reading there. (pout) Well, they're reading. The numbers are going up, but no one's commenting. Writers like petting too! LOL! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks! Lady2007 – Another traveler from DI? Thank you for the compliment. I know it's a long read. I think I need to do it myself! I'm forgetting some of the plot lines I need to wrap up now. But I will say the DI version will be the most correct one. I'm finding errors galore as I redo the formatting for that site. It's embarrassing!