AN:

*Story teaser* (May not continue into full story)

Remixed from early chapters from my crossover, The Ticket to Tomorrow. See notes at the end for more info!

~~Clark Kent~~

About a mile from the Kent farmhouse, Clark touched down on soft soil. With a shuddered exhale, his breath turned to mist from the chilled November air.

Clark gazed up. And up some more.

Before him rose the towering portion of an alien spaceship wedged into the broken earth. The craft's bow climbed a hundred stories or more into the air. Its shadow crept ominously with the light from the sunrise over the otherwise serene farmland. This part of his family's property was supposed to be a wheat field.

Unlike his long-buried "childhood" spaceship, which had grown organically over time, this one seemed more intentionally constructed. To his mind, the sleek alien technology's gunmetal gray, white, and blood-red scheme symbolized inexplicable destruction and chaos.

Clark hovered upward, circling the spire of the ship's bow. He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for. Everything seemed still and quiet. But, so had his spaceship, until just yesterday.

Lowering his glasses, he tried his newfound power to see inside the ship.

It was impossible to peer past the exterior, however. He wasn't sure if it was because this x-ray vision was still fairly new and he hadn't quite mastered it, or the ship's material was made of something special.

When he'd touch similar alien tech, he got visions despite how unclear and brief they were. He debated on whether to try seeing if the same thing happened again.

"C'mon, Kent. What's the worst that can happen from a little vision?" He wanted to laugh but couldn't. Hesitantly, he gulped and reached out to touch the ship's surface.

Immediately, the vision flashed before his eyes. He could see the fiery remains of the rest of this ship in space on the other side of the portal. In the distance, another huge, alien spaceship of a different design and a planet came into view. Large, yellow explosions filled the atmosphere of that planet. And almost immediately as it came, the vision cut out.

Clark gasped and pulled back his hand as if it'd been bitten. He floated shakily down to the ground, stumbling over to find a tree to lean on. The poor tree buckled from his carelessness, and a flurry of brown and orange leaves fell around him, a few landing in his hair.

An awe-inspired whistle pierced the silence to his right. "That's sooome ship, that is."

—T&J—

Clark lept back with a startled yelp. Then, quickly, his stomach dropped, and distress turned to irritation. "You?! What are– How did you escape the League of Lois Lanes?!"

A familiar little blue-skinned imp floated at eye level, legs crossed and a cheek resting in his palm. His locks of white hair and short orange cape waved slightly in the breeze. The imp had been gazing at the ship but turned a mischievous smirk to Clark.

"Oh, hey, Dependable Clark! I missed having fun with you. So, I left those loser Lois's behind. Boring lot, they were. So yesterday's news—(ya like that reporter pun?)," said the imp who'd last introduced himself as Mr. Mxyzptlk, or Mxy for short. The intonation and pitch of his voice rose and fell as he spoke.

Clark grumbled, "No, no, no. Why can't anything ever be normal?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, nudging up his glasses. He knew a metaphorical headache was coming.

He tried to fly away and hide, hoping the imp was just in his imagination. Despite his speed, when he landed on the other side of the field, Mxy was right there waiting with arms folded comfortably behind his head.

Groaning loudly, Clark lowered his shoulders in defeat. "What do you want this time?"

"Actually, there is this itsy bitsy, teeny weeny thing you could help me with." He smiled with rounded cheeks and a snaggletooth, but there was that devious glimmer in his eyes that screamed, 'I'm up to no good.' He floated over to hug Clark around the shoulders with one small arm.

Clark leaned away, but that didn't help. Suspicion laced his voice, "What might that be?"

The imp zipped around Clark, making him dizzy, trying to keep up. It was way too early for this.

"I heard about this shiny, new universe from my dear Ms. Gsptlsnz. So, I said hey, sounds like fun! Why don't I go take a peak?"

Mxy kept rambling, talking with his hands just as enthusiastically.

"What a show! There was action, drama, and character deaths—oops, sorry, spoilers! "

Mxy manifested a bag of popcorn and popped a kernel into his mouth. He titled the bag to Clark, to which Clark waved no thanks with a restrained grimace.

"Good guy versus bad guy in a truly epic fight scene, huuuge explosion, city destroyed! Oh and a flashy energy beam blasting into space!" Mxy waved a hand across the air as if painting a picture in front of them, finishing with a flare of his fingers to represent an explosive conclusion.

After a moment, he casually flicked another popcorn puff into his mouth.

A slack-jawed Clark blinked a few times and then shook his head. "Umm, haha, uh, what? You're losing me… I didn't understand half of that."

Mxy twirled his free hand like it didn't make a difference.

"Ok, here's the thing, pal." Mxy tossed the popcorn bag over his shoulder, but it just disappeared into thin air.

"With my awesome fifth-dimensional power, opening a gate to another universe is like child's play for me." He glanced down and buffed his fingernails on his tunic." Mxy sighed and paused for effect. He glanced subtly back over to Clark.

"Uh, so what are you getting at?" Clark asked, worried where this was going. He began to fidget with the zipper on his coat. He just wanted to take care of this Kryptonian ship, return to his house, and try to salvage the rest of his extended weekend.

"Anyway, the residual energy from lil ol' me clashes with that big ol' energy blasted into space by those super freaks. It's all very technical, relativistic physics, yada yada. I'd explain it to you, but you know, where's the fun in that? (I think it's all sci-fi anyway. Who comes up with this stuff?)"

Mxy turned to look at Clark with an uncharacteristically serious expression—no smirk, no shimmery twinkle in his eyes. "Now, see what I'm getting at?"

Clark frowned, worried but also perplexed. He shook his head. "Um… no? But I'm assuming it's something bad?"

Mxy rummaged through his cape and eventually whipped out what appeared to be a small whiteboard and dry-erase marker. He bobbed up, crossing his legs again in mid-air. Then, he doodled something for a minute, sticking his tongue out a little in concentration as he did so. Popping the marker cap back on, he turned the board to Clark.

The imp went on and one for a good couple of minutes explaining.

Clark followed along and examined the diagram. He was no astrophysicist but he'd always been top of his class, and he'd gotten a college degree—he's a pretty smart guy. "Okay, I think I follow…"

"I knew you could, Smarty Clark!" Mxy beamed, nudging Clark with a tiny elbow. Clark chuckled sarcastically and tried not to roll his eyes.

"Anyway…This…" he pointed with the marker. "This is where we got that itsy, bitsy problem I was talking 'bout." He raised his hand and pinched his finger and thumb together but left a little gap.

Clark remained silent, waiting for him to go on. When Mxy didn't continue right away, he sighed heavily. "Why do I feel like it's a whole lot bigger than that? What kind of chaos god only makes 'itsy bitsy' chaos?"

"Well, in the grand scheme of the omniverse... (You do realize how big the omniverse is, don't you? No. Probably not.) I believe this problem is pretty dang small in comparison to, say, some of your multiverse's crises, but that's for another story." Mxy winked to seemingly no one in particular. "I digress."

"Yes, please. Let's stay on one crisis at a time?" Clark grinned wearily.

He glanced across the fields, realizing the sun had risen well past the horizon. His parents, Lois, and Jimmy were probably awake or starting to get up by now. All of them were fairly early risers. He didn't want them to worry when they realized he wasn't there.

"Of course, of course, Priorities Clark. Let's see, how do I explain this?" Mxy made the whiteboard also magically disappear into thin air. He returned to his cross-legged pose with his hand on his chin.

"Ah! Got it." This time, he reached behind Clark, and when he pulled back, he held a box of off-brand plastic cling wrap. Mxy ripped two sheets of plastic and stuck them together.

Mxy's grin widened, his eyes back to sparkling. "Now, eye-laser right through the middle of both of these."

Clark took a step back in surprise and looked up sharply at the imp. "What? Why?"

Mxy just floated back so they were both close again. "Worrywart Clark. Just a little heat-vision and it'll alllll be clear."

Clark frowned but reluctantly gave in and did as instructed. The edges of the sheets wavered as they melted.

Before the hole spread too wide, Clark extinguished the heat from his eyes. Mxy then tugged at both sheets, but Clark realized they couldn't be easily separated, without the plastic tearing.

"Tada!" Mxy exclaimed, arms and palms wide. "This is what happened in the fabric of space and reality between two totally different universes. Just this is only like a one-to-one-trillionth scale. Neat, huh?"

"Neat? You mean… oh my gosh… there's what? A planet-sized melted hole connecting two universes? How is this a 'tiny' problem?!"

Mxy dismissively waved his hand, "Like I said, it's all proportional. So what do you say, Dependable Clark? Can I depend on your help?" He clasped his hands together and gave Clark the best puppy-dog eyes he could.

"Why me? What am I supposed to do to fix this?" Clark groaned and combed his hands through his hair, taking a seat on a nearby rock. He already had so much to worry about here in Smallville, one little rural town on his one little planet.

"Welp, just one reason is… Can you believe it, this sad, wasteland of a world doesn't even have a Superman?" Mxy wiped his eyes with a tissue. "But, oh do I have a plan! Don't worry your pretty little head." Mxy patted Clark on the head.

Clark heard that voice in the back of his mind saying he couldn't just turn his back on someone in need. He sighed again. "Look Mr. Mxyl-whatever your name was—"

"Mr. Mxyzptlk." He smiled and flipped to float on his back, gazing up into the sky.

"Mr. Mxyzptlk," Clark continued. He gestured to the alien ship. "Look at that. While I wish I could help you with this space-universe-hole issue, I have plenty of problems I need to handle here. Lois's dad, the Kryptonians, all this dangerous tech… People here are in danger. It's my responsibility to do something. Before things get worse."

Mxy smirked and couldn't suppress a good chuckle. "Hah, if you only knew what the other Big Bad General Lanes and the rest of your rogues gallery were like… Oh boy, this never gets old."

Clark did not find Mxy's nonchalance amusing or reassuring. He hated that this imp knew more about him and people he knew way more than he did. Clark crossed his arms, getting frustrated with this no-good so-called chaos god. Nothing but a royal pain in the…

"Well, it would help a whole lot if you shared a little about what you know… A lot of destruction could have been avoided." He didn't want to beg, but maybe the imp could be reasoned with.

Mxy wagged a finger, shaking his head, and began tsking him. He stopped just before the third "tsk" however.

"Ya know… You might be right."

—T&J—

"You scratch my back; I'll scratch yours, as the saying goes, eh? There is sooo much I could tell you," Mr. Mxyzptlk said with a crooked smile.

"Wh-what? You would? Really?" Clark gaped, standing back up in a flash.

Mxy turned around so his back faced the taller man. "Hmm, I don't know if I should, though." He shrugged, raising his hands. "It's really not my place to divulge such crucial information. I do follow a 5th-dimensional imp code of honor, ya know."

Mxy glanced over his shoulder to glimpse the hero's expression. The look of desperation on Clark's face must've been oh-so amusing to the troublemaker.

"Please, there's so many questions I have. I don't even fully know who I am. You'll tell me more if I agree to help?" Clark was getting close to begging, and he hated it.

The imp's grin widened, almost splitting his face. His eyes twinkled in pure delight. Mxy spun himself around with a flourish of his arms and cape.

"Sonny, you have a deal! Ready to pack your bags and get this show on the road?"

Clark almost tripped over the rock behind him. "Wait!"

"Whyyyy? What's the holdup?" Mxy groaned, flinging his arms.

"Well, how can I be sure you'll uphold your end of the bargain? I trusted you before, and then you attacked me and my friends! And you still haven't explained what I can do to help to begin with."

Mxy rolled his eyes and swiped his hand. "Psht, that wasn't anything personal. I may have overreacted because those mean Loises stole from me. You can't blame a guy? You'll forgive me?" The puppy-dog eyes returned, and his pointy ears drooped.

Clark starred deadpanned.

"Okay, okay. Gimme a sec." Mxy vanished, causing Clark to spin around, trying to find him.

A minute later, Clark heard the imp call out and pivoted to face him.

"Follow me~!"

Clark hesitated, so Mxy added, "No, we're not leaving your precious little Smallville yet. Just over there." He pointed toward the giant crater where Clark crash landed the day before.

Clark sighed yet again and followed as Mxy took off. As they flew over together, he couldn't help but think how weird his life had gotten.

Peering down into the crater from the air, Clark was still a little surprised at how much more damage he had caused to the earth as opposed to his own body. The hole tapered off about three hundred yards back and was maybe a good fifteen feet below ground level at its deepest.

He hoped his parents had always wanted a few olympic-sized swimming pools in their fields.

There wasn't much debris left from the small escape pod he crashed back to Earth in, but he did notice a few larger pieces wedged into the loosened dirt.

"Uh, what exactly are we here for?" Clark asked, turning his gaze back to the imp.

"Ain't sure what exactly it'll look like, but you're gonna look for something like one of these," Mxy said, making a few small objects float in the space between them. Some sort of semi-transparent crystal, a silvery-metallic hexagonal disc, a teal pyramid-shaped thing with strange patterns, and a sleek tablet-looking device, among other trinkets.

Clark examined each object, looking for something familiar. He tried grabbing one for a closer look, but his hand merely passed through it. Instead, he walked around to memorize each one. "What are they supposed to be?"

"Oh, usually it's something along the lines of your folk's parting words, or Krypton's millennia of history, or the knowledge of 28 known galaxies—or some combination of all the above—all stored in a little doohickey your old man sends along with you.

"Seems like you haven't gotten the 'Superman for Dummies' guidebook yet. Otherwise, you wouldn't keep asking."

Clark frowned, looking back into the crater. No, obviously, he hadn't. All he'd gotten was a hologram he couldn't understand, a traitorous spaceship that almost killed his family and friends, and other alien ships trying to invade the planet. Oh, and his costume that he sorta kinda liked now. It'd grown on him.

He sighed and hovered around the crash zone, using his enhanced vision to look through the debris.

At first, he didn't spot anything that stood out, certainly nothing that looked like the objects that Mxy'd shown him. But as he hovered over the far end of the impact site, he felt something hum or pulse—he couldn't quite describe the feeling. However, it reminded him of the feeling and sound his ship had made when it detected his presence and activated the obelisks. Following that sensation, he floated down and dug into the unended soil.

He uncovered an object buried shallowly in the dirt that, coincidently, was shaped just like those obelisks, only much smaller. The center crystal brightened in a blueish-green glow when he picked it up. Clark wasn't certain, but he had a strong feeling that was what he was looking for.

He super-leaped out of the crater, still staring at the object, not sure what to make of it. Holding it out to Mxy he asked, "Is this it?"

Mxy looked and considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Meh, no idea. But hey, it's doing the glowy, reacting-to-the-superboy thing, so I'd say there's a good chance that's it."

"So, how does it work then?" Clark prodded. He toyed with it in his hands, looking for buttons or something that indicated how to operate it.

"C'mon, Clarkie, even I don't know everything. (Drat, pretend I didn't say that.) Anyway, I can't give away all the secrets yet. You play around with your little toy on your own time, and if you still can't figure it out, maybe I can give you a hint later."

Clark stared at the imp for a moment before hmphing and storing the mini-obelisk in his jacket pocket. "Alright, I'll give you a pass on this. Now, what about my part in your multiverse problem?"

Mxy grinned widely and instead turned to the side, raising a palm in a sweeping gesture as it started to glow with a purple aura. "No more stalling, pal!"

Suddenly a blinding purple-tinged portal opened, and the two were sucked in with barely any warning. Fallen leaves swirled around them as Clark yelped and scrambled to hold on to something to no avail.

"I'll explain on the waayyyyyy," Mxy's voice trailed off, and the portal winked out.

~~Earth-? Lois Lane~~

Lois rolled her company jeep out from the shade of a tall outcropping, getting back onto the sand-packed caravan road. She flicked her sunglasses back down to rest over her eyes to temper the nearly blinding glare of the suns-washed desert landscape.

A few minutes ago, Lois checked the regional map, noting she was still at least another dozen miles from the next caravan rest station.

Both her vehicle and herself would need a recharge. Then, she'd scout a place to camp for the night before heading back on the figurative road in the morning. It'd take another couple of days to get back to New Metropolis, weather permitting.

The reporter flipped through the radio stations, hoping to find some decent music instead of the depressing news of bandit raids or religious (cough cultist) dredge.

Lois could only hear the radio host's voice repeat the same drivel so many times before she'd want to take up smoking.

She smirked, glancing at the can on the still full of cigar butts Perry had left as an unintended momento.

Perry White. Her former editor-in-chief of The Daily Stars, her mentor, and her almost father figure, had sadly been a victim in an anti-meta uprising just months ago.

Just last year Lois wrote a prize-worthy article, but Perry had refused to publish it. He thought she had gone a little crazy from being in the field for so long. Especially for just making it out of New Qurac with her life after the meta-human terrorist attack committed by Neo Bialyan extremists.

Lois was just about the only person who saw firsthand the metas—the heros—that defended New Qurac against the Bialyans. Only no one wanted to believe any metas could be good.

Instead, she shamefully wrote the article the people of the Alliance of Cities wanted and needed to read. A story full of only half-truths.

For a while, without Perry, she felt lost—an imposter of a reporter.

To lick her wounded pride and heal her heavy heart, Lois demanded to be put on any meta-human stories, to find both the truth for the good metas and justice for her mentor. The new editor reluctantly agreed after she put in a few months of solid work on puff pieces.

For the next year and a half, she worked alone, and that's the way she liked it. She could go where she wanted, and tackle the angle the way she wanted. She grew a backbone and stopped taking crap from her fellow reporters. The nickname Mad Wolf Lane arose from her fearless reputation.

One day, she was going to crack the story behind the meta-human heroes wide open. Show the people of this desolate sandball of a planet the truth.

Her coworkers couldn't see why she wouldn't let the story go. She'd never get anywhere in her career until she moved on.

To top everything off, the new Chief thought she'd needed a junior partner, huh? Some Jalana Olsen specifically requested to train under her?

Lois scoffed as the finicky driver's side fan stopped spinning and banged on wire fan guard until the blades sped back up. She tugged the front of her sweaty damp tank top clinging to her chest.

It was going to be a long, swelteringly hot drive back to New Metro.

—

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Please keep an eye out for more MAWS fics in this series!

I'd like to keep sharing more of this series with MAWS-only fans, without compromising the integrity of my original plot. So please let me know if you're interested in more of this story! Cause alternate universe Mad Wolf Lois Lane has a lot of potential. And will Clark's Lois and Jimmy come to his rescue again?

Also, here's more prompts for this series. Vote on the ones that sound most interesting~

• Intergalactic Batering Network (AKA space pirates)
• Superman Vs Lobo
• Lois to the Superman's Rescue… but in Suicide Slums
• Little Green Men and a Suspicious Police Detective
• Super rescue—cruise ship style. Plus, secret assassination attempt?