Zod!preg
Sorry this took so long.
Title: You Have Your Father’s Eyes
Summary: Zod has babies. What’s an evil warlord to do?
Pairing: Zod/Jor-El, Zod/ many others. He’s a sex god. Expect everything warm to be fucked, so…
Rating: NC-17 because I’m a perv
Warning: Severe plot bastardization (and Clark bastardization), but IC (I hope), and MPREG. Twice!
Spoilers: Smallville through season five, Superman II, basic Batman and Superman comic canon.
Earth
Present
Zod’s Tower
Lal-Ursa had quickly surveyed the lab where Zod and the ship had pulled her out of the Phantom Zone and into her new body, examining and cataloguing the minute details of all the objects around her. Her naked body immediately reverted to a defensive stance, but she reserved showing signs of strength until she had more information. Zod was fondly reminded of the day he’d fetched her out of the Rado City ghetto before they’d had to shut the area down for extreme spread of the Green Plague. She’d taken down three enforcement officers before he’d convinced her that he had no intention of killing her or putting her family into camps.
“Where’s this?” she demanded in her low-class accented Kryptonian, which Zod had always found amusing. She was already noting all of his features and trying to discern who he was or what he wanted from her. Zod narrowed his eyes in pleasure. She had been his favorite disciple. “You Kal-El?”
“What would give you that impression?”
“Are you or not?” He reached out to touch her hair. She jerked back crossly. “Even if you is Kal-El, you don’t get to touch me!”
“Isn’t she interesting,” Fine remarked dryly, in English. Zod exchanged a look with Fine then fixed his eyes intensely on Ursa. There was a fierce intelligence behind the low-born exterior; she met his eyes and began pulling together the puzzle.
“Zod? That you?”
“Clever as ever.” He offered her his hand, and she relaxed and took it.
“What happen you hair?”
He favored his disciple with a soft smile. “I have had to procure new bodies, after what Jor-El did to us.” He guided her to a mirror. “It is a new day for us, Ursa. No longer trapped. No longer bound by outdated guidelines of what is good for our people. We will rule unchallenged and destroy all who dare move against us.”
Ursa curled her lip and turned looking at her reflection. “This bitch ain’t got no ass.”
“I assume you can make do.”
”'Spose so.” She flexed her arms. “Looks strong enough.”
“I assure you, it will be strong enough.” He pulled her lithe naked form close to him. The first course of action would be to download this planet’s languages and general history into her memory. Then to show her their new powers. “We have much work to do to make this planet our own.”
Three and a half weeks after Zod began his conquest of Earth, he had North America fairly under wraps. With the help of the ship, which had actively interfered with the acquisitions of LuthorCorp prior to his coming and which currently provided a physical presence for his sovereignty throughout the continent, and Ursa, who acted as a second to his ‘negotiations’ with the countries’ leaders, he was now comfortably working in his quarters on writing up the new laws for this world and answering pleas for mercy from the other countries he’d begun to invade. Ursa increasingly became the face of terror for his campaign, with relish. This was the work she truly loved, and though he disliked relinquishing control to anyone, Zod was happy to let such a capable disciple handle more mundane matters while he awaited the end of his pregnancy. He could tell this was going to be more difficult on him than he’d initially thought.
He was showing more at this point than he had with Kal-El, and although that could have been attributed to the build of his new body, increased activity from the spawn inside him told him that without a doubt he would be bearing more than one offspring.
“They fold so easily,” Ursa commented with disappointment. Even in English her voice seemed coarse. She sat at his feet and looked up with a raised brow. She had cut her Vessel’s hair quite short; it was now a soft brown cap of hair, the way she preferred. In her old body, it had enhanced her female characteristics. In the present one, she looked rather androgynous, but Zod hardly minded such a thing.
“They’ve put their faith in their accomplishments and not in themselves. When the ship took those away… few have the capability to muster a resistance.” Zod circled two fingers over his curving midsection. “Our task has only been to quell the efforts of those few.”
“I think your Vessel would have been one of them.” Ursa was playing with a small silver object she’d taken from a rather angry human uprising that morning. The old man had bared the silver X at her and told her to begone. She’d snatched the symbol and kicked the creature in between its legs so hard that it halfway split in two before splattering against a large brick building with the same symbol cut into the windows. The others had cowed immediately. “Perhaps Kal-El would be too. I don’t see what he sees in these creatures. Most of them are so flimsy, so… childlike. They believe these toys have power. I wonder why they do such things.”
“Kal-El is misguided.” He touched his finger to a small flutter on the lower part of his abdomen and continued to write. “When I have the planet secured, I will open the Phantom Zone, and he will be given his final chance to join us.” Zod was interested in what role his heirs were to play in the building of their new world. Soon he would have the planet, and he could release not only the political prisoners held in the Phantom Zone, but the individuals that the Brainiac computer had kidnapped. Then he could give his heirs a proper welcome to life, but he would not give the matter his full attention yet. Kryptonians did not name their offspring until they came to fruition.
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he can join the humans he loves so. I’ll strip him of his power, and he can work alongside them.”
Ursa crawled up to his lap and laid her head on his legs. “Jor-El stole him from you. He deserves to pay.”
“It is difficult to have your revenge on those already dead, but I may have it yet.” Zod hoped that Kal-El would not be a complete disappointment, but in any case, he had other heirs on the way who could be brought up properly.
***
Earth
Present
Underground Resistance Base in Metropolis
Chloe Sullivan felt as though someone had her on a string, and a careless and selfish cat was batting her about. She had no idea where Clark was, hadn’t even seen him since he’d left to face Zod. Since they’d kissed. She had woken herself, battered and bruised from the riots, at the farm with Lionel Luthor tending his own injuries. Mrs. Kent and Lois had appeared inexplicably, but safe and sound, a few days later. Then in an attempt to save Lana, Chloe had lost Lois again, and she understood from what had been said at that meeting that her cousin might well be dead or worse. Lex was certainly dead, and now she felt guilty for having felt a lot of antagonism toward him ever since they’d met. Not that she would have changed her mind about him. He was a snake, and he wanted something from Clark, and she’d always known it. But it didn’t seem right to hate someone who had become a casualty of this war. It seemed as though everyone were dying around her, and she had no powers, never had any to begin with, to protect them.
If only Clark would come back.
She wrung her hair out into the bucket and pulled on a mostly clean shirt. Working her fingers though her hair, she walked out of the small cordoned bathing area into the larger space of the hideout. One of their members had found this place quite easily, explaining once they’d discussed a need for a place that Zod and his new sidekick couldn’t simply X-ray into and blow them all to bits, that there were several abandoned nightclubs in this area that had lead in the walls and floor. How he’d known that given he wasn’t from the area, she had no idea, but after-hours entertainment seem to occupy the bulk of his thinking. He seemed like a moron. Chloe’s biggest fear at the moment was that one of the people they’d picked up was actually a Fine clone and that any minute they would all be wiped out. But there was no way to test. At least no way that she could think of given the supplies they had.
“Mrs. Kent…” she started softly, walking up behind Martha, who was restlessly organizing supplies. The older woman looked up to reveal a tear-stained face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Chloe.”
Chloe sat on the floor beside her. “Don’t worry about it. That’s kind of how I feel right now. Heh.” She looked down. “Every time I see that thing on the television broadcasts with Lois’ face.”
Martha nodded readily and wiped her cheeks quickly with her hands. “I know. Everyone’s lost someone…”
”And I just feel like I shouldn’t be one of the ones still alive.”
“No, Chloe.” Martha grasped her shoulder. “You can’t think like that. Lois wouldn’t want you to be angry at yourself.”
”Tell me you don’t feel just awful. You son is missing.”
“I’m worried, of course. But… it’s Clark. He’ll be all right. I know he will.”
Chloe shrugged and gave her both a frown and a smile. “Holding out for a hero?”
Chloe heard a laugh. A shrill sound out of place in the end of the world. That dark haired playboy who’d been so familiar with the Metropolis club scene was chatting up Lana Lang, who had just managed to lose both Clark and Lex and was somehow laughing. Not to mention that there were people present mourning their dead, or that they should be quiet in case one of the Fine clones or the aliens were scouting the area. Chloe had a thought then that she immediately hated herself for.
She missed Lois. She wished that they had left Lana to die.
“Chloe!”
Chloe found herself being held tightly by Mrs. Kent. She was bawling into the older woman’s dress shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” She pulled away and fanned her face, trying to stop sobbing so hard. “I’ve got to try to be stronger.”
“Honey, I think we’re all trying to be as strong as we can.”
Chloe found herself being fussed over and mothered for the first time since she was a small child.
“Would you mind shutting the fuck up?” The petite redheaded teenager who had saved them on the rooftop trotted over in Lana’s direction. When the city had lost power, every freak from Level Three had escaped. There were more than a few mutants from the LuthorCorp labs in their midst. “I don’t feel like being mauled by aliens today.”
“I- I’m sorry. We were just trying to cut some of the tension in here,” Lana replied defensively.
“Lighten up, little girl.” The man shot her a charming smile and leaned back on his elbows.
“Um, no, I won’t. And you shouldn’t either. Maybe next time I’ll let you lot roast on the rooftop.” Her tiny voice certainly did make her seem childish, but it would be impossible to forget how the girl had walked through that ring of fire, her amber eyes overflowing with the flames. She took her little girl steps over to Chloe and Martha. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I will be, Nevaeh. Uh, thanks.” Chloe gave the girl a watery smile. “She- Don’t hold it against Lana. This is just kind of how she deals with things.”
”Well...” Nevaeh took a bottle of water into her small hands. She wrinkled her freckle speckled button nose and raised a brow. “I’m an evil bitch, and I deal with things by setting them on fire. I’m sure she wouldn’t hold it against me.”
“Heh… Ahahah…” A few more tears came. “I… haha… I’d hold it against you, okay? Please don’t set my last friend on fire.”
“Oh… fine. But only because you’re so cute.” The girl pinched her cheek then hopped up to rejoin the other mutants.
“Better?” Martha asked.
“Yeah. You?”
“It helps when I’m doing something.”
“Yeah.”
“I think you have a fan.”
“What?”
Martha leaned her head in the direction of the mutants. The reaction to them had originally not been very good, so they tended to stay by themselves unless someone specifically reached out.
“Nevaeh? Oh, she’s just teasing me. I saw her pretending to flash someone earlier today. Or… maybe she actually did it, I’m not sure.” Chloe sighed and steadied herself. “I need to get back to trying to make some kind of plan.”
“I’ll be with you guys in minute.”
Walking through the hideout, Chloe saw the various sorts of people and wondered what this place looked like as a nightclub. People around her age packed in, dancing to deafening hip hop, or probably some wacky 90s techno group. Drunk off their asses and completely oblivious to the existence of mutants, aliens, and skanky French witches.
“Miss Sullivan.”
She refused to show it, but she still got a chill down her spine whenever Lionel Luthor said her name. “Any progress on the prom committee?”
Lionel gave her a dubious look then resumed studying a map of the city. An Asian meta-human with blue stripes down his hair peered over his shoulder. “The Luthors are resourceful but we do need something to work with.” He shook his head. “If we could possibly reach the AI in the arctic…”
“But as you said, no resources and Cla- we don’t have the key, so even if we could get to the caves easily it wouldn’t matter. Unless you think Zod would lend us a plane from LuthorCorp.”
“Of course not.”
“So…”
“So we’re still marshalling our forces. I’d be loathe to lose anyone on a plan with so little chance of success… Particularly when Lex was so generous as to make us a little army of mutants from his stock in Belle Reve.”
“We’re not all from Belle Reve," said the blue haired man. "Or I’m not. I’m just going on what the others have told me.”
“Nevertheless. We have no power or infrastructure, no real transportation, and our enemies have overwhelming access to both. You’re our best asset right now.”
Chloe grimaced. “Makes you feel useful, doesn’t it?”
“Awww. Being completely useless is something I’m very accustomed to.” Chloe rolled her eyes at the devil-may-care tone of what’s his name. The nightclub guy. He just kept buzzing around like a social gadfly who didn’t realize that the world had become very serious recently. “I’d think Mr. Luthor would be getting used to it by now as well. Lex yoinked the company away from you quite awhile ago, didn’t he?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Lionel sounded rather annoyed.
The man grinned, in an obvious attempt to be charming. It was obnoxious. “I’ve been listening. I think you’re underestimating what Lex has probably left you to work with. He’s been tilting at windmills, or chasing spacecrafts rather, since the day I met him. He’s paranoid enough to have some sort of system in place in the case of an alien invasion.”
“Maybe you missed the debrief, but Lex is dead. You’re looking for the past tense.” Chloe wanted to smack him when he smiled again.
“I’ll believe Lex is dead when I see his rotting corpse. Maybe not even then.” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned his head back to regard them critically, before wandering off to make Lana giggle some more. Martha approached the circle, brushing her hair behind her shoulders.
“I’ve seen his rotting corpse. It calls itself Zod.” Lionel shook his head and acknowledged Martha’s presence, but she did not directly look at him.
“Ugh.” Chloe was just glad the man had left. Not everyone who’d decided to join them was going to pull their weight, apparently. “He’s right, though. If we don’t have resources, we should find some, and Lex had enough bizarro projects going that there should be something we could use.”
“Did he know Lex?” Martha asked, trying to catch up on the discussion.
“I’m remembering who that boy is now.” Lionel rolled his eyes. “It might be worth the effort.”
“So,” Chloe asked. “Where would Lex keep information on the evil secret labs?”
“Maybe at the castle?” Martha offered.
Lionel shook his head. “He wouldn’t keep any direct information on his projects. We would have to know where to start looking. You should know that, Miss Sullivan.”
Chloe suppressed another shiver. Luthor Senior had always been so skeezy. The meta raised his hand. “No… but he might have told some of the people who were working for him if they needed to know.”
“So do you have a list of LuthorCorp employees? Cause I can’t hack into anything if there’s no power in the LuthorCorp computers,” Chloe asked. He shrugged.
“Like I said before, not all of us are from Belle Reve, but some of them, I know, worked for him before the power out. Nevaeh and Feign were patrolling the city for escaped Revers before they came here. At least the dangerous ones, and they’ve given us some pretty specific descriptions on ones to watch out for.”
“Really.” Chloe looked over at the group of metas. Nevaeh was doing some sort of duck walk, as Feign shielded her eyes in embarrassment. This young woman, Chloe had been told, could project illusions with her mind. She was a bit short, and she had nothing but peach fuzz on her head. Chloe's mouth quirked. “This is Lex’s crack team for tracking down meteor freaks?”
“From what I hear, Fine took out his crack team just before the power when out.”
Chloe raised both eyebrows and grimaced at their prospects.
***
In Ursa’s opinion, of all the new powers they had on this planet, the ability to fly was certainly the best. Zod didn’t quite appreciate it, but he enjoyed watching her launch herself out the window. She loved to soar over the city. She loved to shoot past unsuspecting humans so fast that she could only hear a few snippets of noise from their screaming. She loved to set fire to their buildings as she flew past and to hear that screaming.
Most of all, though, she loved to watch them from on high and try to figure out why they performed their strange little rituals. It was almost like they were people, or they were trying to figure out how to be people, with their little interactions and attachments to one another. She wondered if they might not one day figure that out and dismiss all of their meaningless symbols and take up reality.
Something caught her eye in the north side of the city. Perhaps some humans had decided to settle there outside of the areas Zod had allowed for them. She soared in that direction, activating her X-ray vision to see through the buildings obstructing her view.
“Should have been a lockdown, but…”
“…might have a backup power grid…”
“I’m in. Hurry.”
She hovered over what appeared to be an abandoned factory and looked for moving humans. There were several sneaking about inside. One sitting outside on the ground, close to the building. One walking around the perimeter of the building near the fence. A lookout? How clever of them. How had they gotten this far in the first place?
Ursa lowered herself slowly behind the lookout and quickly snapped its neck before it could make a noise. She scanned its body and found nothing of interest, but noticed a small bit of metal through its eyebrow, and another in its ear. A skull made of a nickel, iron mix.
”Why would you wear this?” She wondered to herself quietly. She took the metal skull, dropped the body on the ground, and walked leisurely in the direction of the other human. She could see it through the wall of the building, crouching on the other side. She could hear it.
“Just take the files. I’ll decode them later…”
Its heart sped up considerably.
***
Chloe looked up from her laptop and realized that she had no desire to ever see Lois dressed as a dominatrix. The Kryptonian walked toward her with a heavy, deliberate heel-to-toe stride that told her quite clearly that she was one of the most insignificant and expendable creatures that this thing had ever seen.
“Banana,” she said clearly into her microphone. Where was Feign? The alien tilted its head curiously and paused before moving in on her and crouching down to her level. It dangled something in front of her. An ear. “Oh, gross.”
“What is this? Why would a human wear this?”
Chloe fixed her eyes on the human part being offered to her. The ear or the earring? “Uh... I uh... don’t know? To look tough?”
“You would give the appearance of strength without having it?”
“I don’t know that I manage to, but…”
“What benefit would that human have had if it ‘looked tough?’ Why would it want to?”
Chloe could barely hear. Her heart was beating so quickly, and this thing wore Lois’ face. It had Lois’ face, but its eyes were so cold and vicious. It was so clearly not human and not of this earth that she could feel the hair on her arms rising in response.
Why don’t I ever feel that way around Clark?
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know why?”
“Um. Sometimes, to keep people away that might hurt you… or to attract girls?”
It snatched the microphone out of her ear and looked it over. Then it turned its fierce gaze back on Chloe. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Chloe was shaking. She wasn’t sure if she could stand up and run if she tried. “Do you have her memories?”
“Whose memories?”
“Lois…”
***
Ursa looked back blankly.
”The body you stole!” It shouted at her angrily. Ursa grabbed it by the neck and lifted it into the air.
“You knew it. You knew this Vessel.”
”How can you talk about people like that?!” It rasped out the words. Ursa saw in its eyes that it knew it was going to die. “Lois was a person! Even Lex was a person, and you just talk about them like they’re objects, you horrible disgusting thing!”
Ursa squeezed a little tighter. It choked and started to cry.
“Why do you speak to me like this when I could kill you?”
It couldn’t answer. Just frantically tried to force its fingertips between her hand and its neck.
“They did not give me any of this Vessel’s memories.” Ursa dropped it and watched to see what it would do. Its eyes fixed on her. She could see it thinking, trying to discern a means of escape. There was none. It knew what she was, that she was fast and strong. She could see it decide. It moved to the left, and she pinned it against the wall with one arm. “Why do you try to run away when you know I will kill you?”
“Because I have… to try.” It struggled futilely against Ursa’s strength.
“Not all of you try. Some of you falter. You stop moving. You give in.”
“Yeah, well, that’s humans for you. We’re all different.”
Just then the obnoxious black haired man launched a kick at Ursa’s head. She caught his foot and flung him out of eyeshot like he was a ragdoll. She licked her lips ferociously.
“Bruce!” The blond human tried to see where the other had landed but it was too far.
“You are strange. I don’t understand you. Are you concerned for that human when you are in danger?” Ursa ran her finger in a hard stroke the human’s cheekbone, slowly turning her nail inward to cut its face. Her thumb pressed into the other side of its jaw, and her wet lips moved closer to its face.
Chloe screamed into the kiss.
AN: The safety word is banana. Batman got pwned.
I’m mean to Chloe because I love her.
I’m mean to Lana because I hate her so much I can’t be objective.
And I need to come up with some names for the twins. :)
Nevaeh: Neh-VAY-yuh. It’s heaven spelled backwards, and there are people who actually for serious name their daughters this thinking somehow it is appropriate for Xtians to name their children the opposite of heaven. Which would, uh, be hell? She’s patterned off of a friend I used to have who was deceptively small and cute for her level of evil. Although she was blond, a model, and had no superpowers that I am aware of. She did have a good duck walk, though.
Title: You Have Your Father’s Eyes
Summary: Zod has babies. What’s an evil warlord to do?
Pairing: Zod/Jor-El, Zod/ many others. He’s a sex god. Expect everything warm to be fucked, so…
Rating: NC-17 because I’m a perv
Warning: Severe plot bastardization (and Clark bastardization), but IC (I hope), and MPREG. Twice!
Spoilers: Smallville through season five, Superman II, basic Batman and Superman comic canon.
Earth
Present
Zod’s Tower
Lal-Ursa had quickly surveyed the lab where Zod and the ship had pulled her out of the Phantom Zone and into her new body, examining and cataloguing the minute details of all the objects around her. Her naked body immediately reverted to a defensive stance, but she reserved showing signs of strength until she had more information. Zod was fondly reminded of the day he’d fetched her out of the Rado City ghetto before they’d had to shut the area down for extreme spread of the Green Plague. She’d taken down three enforcement officers before he’d convinced her that he had no intention of killing her or putting her family into camps.
“Where’s this?” she demanded in her low-class accented Kryptonian, which Zod had always found amusing. She was already noting all of his features and trying to discern who he was or what he wanted from her. Zod narrowed his eyes in pleasure. She had been his favorite disciple. “You Kal-El?”
“What would give you that impression?”
“Are you or not?” He reached out to touch her hair. She jerked back crossly. “Even if you is Kal-El, you don’t get to touch me!”
“Isn’t she interesting,” Fine remarked dryly, in English. Zod exchanged a look with Fine then fixed his eyes intensely on Ursa. There was a fierce intelligence behind the low-born exterior; she met his eyes and began pulling together the puzzle.
“Zod? That you?”
“Clever as ever.” He offered her his hand, and she relaxed and took it.
“What happen you hair?”
He favored his disciple with a soft smile. “I have had to procure new bodies, after what Jor-El did to us.” He guided her to a mirror. “It is a new day for us, Ursa. No longer trapped. No longer bound by outdated guidelines of what is good for our people. We will rule unchallenged and destroy all who dare move against us.”
Ursa curled her lip and turned looking at her reflection. “This bitch ain’t got no ass.”
“I assume you can make do.”
”'Spose so.” She flexed her arms. “Looks strong enough.”
“I assure you, it will be strong enough.” He pulled her lithe naked form close to him. The first course of action would be to download this planet’s languages and general history into her memory. Then to show her their new powers. “We have much work to do to make this planet our own.”
Three and a half weeks after Zod began his conquest of Earth, he had North America fairly under wraps. With the help of the ship, which had actively interfered with the acquisitions of LuthorCorp prior to his coming and which currently provided a physical presence for his sovereignty throughout the continent, and Ursa, who acted as a second to his ‘negotiations’ with the countries’ leaders, he was now comfortably working in his quarters on writing up the new laws for this world and answering pleas for mercy from the other countries he’d begun to invade. Ursa increasingly became the face of terror for his campaign, with relish. This was the work she truly loved, and though he disliked relinquishing control to anyone, Zod was happy to let such a capable disciple handle more mundane matters while he awaited the end of his pregnancy. He could tell this was going to be more difficult on him than he’d initially thought.
He was showing more at this point than he had with Kal-El, and although that could have been attributed to the build of his new body, increased activity from the spawn inside him told him that without a doubt he would be bearing more than one offspring.
“They fold so easily,” Ursa commented with disappointment. Even in English her voice seemed coarse. She sat at his feet and looked up with a raised brow. She had cut her Vessel’s hair quite short; it was now a soft brown cap of hair, the way she preferred. In her old body, it had enhanced her female characteristics. In the present one, she looked rather androgynous, but Zod hardly minded such a thing.
“They’ve put their faith in their accomplishments and not in themselves. When the ship took those away… few have the capability to muster a resistance.” Zod circled two fingers over his curving midsection. “Our task has only been to quell the efforts of those few.”
“I think your Vessel would have been one of them.” Ursa was playing with a small silver object she’d taken from a rather angry human uprising that morning. The old man had bared the silver X at her and told her to begone. She’d snatched the symbol and kicked the creature in between its legs so hard that it halfway split in two before splattering against a large brick building with the same symbol cut into the windows. The others had cowed immediately. “Perhaps Kal-El would be too. I don’t see what he sees in these creatures. Most of them are so flimsy, so… childlike. They believe these toys have power. I wonder why they do such things.”
“Kal-El is misguided.” He touched his finger to a small flutter on the lower part of his abdomen and continued to write. “When I have the planet secured, I will open the Phantom Zone, and he will be given his final chance to join us.” Zod was interested in what role his heirs were to play in the building of their new world. Soon he would have the planet, and he could release not only the political prisoners held in the Phantom Zone, but the individuals that the Brainiac computer had kidnapped. Then he could give his heirs a proper welcome to life, but he would not give the matter his full attention yet. Kryptonians did not name their offspring until they came to fruition.
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he can join the humans he loves so. I’ll strip him of his power, and he can work alongside them.”
Ursa crawled up to his lap and laid her head on his legs. “Jor-El stole him from you. He deserves to pay.”
“It is difficult to have your revenge on those already dead, but I may have it yet.” Zod hoped that Kal-El would not be a complete disappointment, but in any case, he had other heirs on the way who could be brought up properly.
***
Earth
Present
Underground Resistance Base in Metropolis
Chloe Sullivan felt as though someone had her on a string, and a careless and selfish cat was batting her about. She had no idea where Clark was, hadn’t even seen him since he’d left to face Zod. Since they’d kissed. She had woken herself, battered and bruised from the riots, at the farm with Lionel Luthor tending his own injuries. Mrs. Kent and Lois had appeared inexplicably, but safe and sound, a few days later. Then in an attempt to save Lana, Chloe had lost Lois again, and she understood from what had been said at that meeting that her cousin might well be dead or worse. Lex was certainly dead, and now she felt guilty for having felt a lot of antagonism toward him ever since they’d met. Not that she would have changed her mind about him. He was a snake, and he wanted something from Clark, and she’d always known it. But it didn’t seem right to hate someone who had become a casualty of this war. It seemed as though everyone were dying around her, and she had no powers, never had any to begin with, to protect them.
If only Clark would come back.
She wrung her hair out into the bucket and pulled on a mostly clean shirt. Working her fingers though her hair, she walked out of the small cordoned bathing area into the larger space of the hideout. One of their members had found this place quite easily, explaining once they’d discussed a need for a place that Zod and his new sidekick couldn’t simply X-ray into and blow them all to bits, that there were several abandoned nightclubs in this area that had lead in the walls and floor. How he’d known that given he wasn’t from the area, she had no idea, but after-hours entertainment seem to occupy the bulk of his thinking. He seemed like a moron. Chloe’s biggest fear at the moment was that one of the people they’d picked up was actually a Fine clone and that any minute they would all be wiped out. But there was no way to test. At least no way that she could think of given the supplies they had.
“Mrs. Kent…” she started softly, walking up behind Martha, who was restlessly organizing supplies. The older woman looked up to reveal a tear-stained face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Chloe.”
Chloe sat on the floor beside her. “Don’t worry about it. That’s kind of how I feel right now. Heh.” She looked down. “Every time I see that thing on the television broadcasts with Lois’ face.”
Martha nodded readily and wiped her cheeks quickly with her hands. “I know. Everyone’s lost someone…”
”And I just feel like I shouldn’t be one of the ones still alive.”
“No, Chloe.” Martha grasped her shoulder. “You can’t think like that. Lois wouldn’t want you to be angry at yourself.”
”Tell me you don’t feel just awful. You son is missing.”
“I’m worried, of course. But… it’s Clark. He’ll be all right. I know he will.”
Chloe shrugged and gave her both a frown and a smile. “Holding out for a hero?”
Chloe heard a laugh. A shrill sound out of place in the end of the world. That dark haired playboy who’d been so familiar with the Metropolis club scene was chatting up Lana Lang, who had just managed to lose both Clark and Lex and was somehow laughing. Not to mention that there were people present mourning their dead, or that they should be quiet in case one of the Fine clones or the aliens were scouting the area. Chloe had a thought then that she immediately hated herself for.
She missed Lois. She wished that they had left Lana to die.
“Chloe!”
Chloe found herself being held tightly by Mrs. Kent. She was bawling into the older woman’s dress shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” She pulled away and fanned her face, trying to stop sobbing so hard. “I’ve got to try to be stronger.”
“Honey, I think we’re all trying to be as strong as we can.”
Chloe found herself being fussed over and mothered for the first time since she was a small child.
“Would you mind shutting the fuck up?” The petite redheaded teenager who had saved them on the rooftop trotted over in Lana’s direction. When the city had lost power, every freak from Level Three had escaped. There were more than a few mutants from the LuthorCorp labs in their midst. “I don’t feel like being mauled by aliens today.”
“I- I’m sorry. We were just trying to cut some of the tension in here,” Lana replied defensively.
“Lighten up, little girl.” The man shot her a charming smile and leaned back on his elbows.
“Um, no, I won’t. And you shouldn’t either. Maybe next time I’ll let you lot roast on the rooftop.” Her tiny voice certainly did make her seem childish, but it would be impossible to forget how the girl had walked through that ring of fire, her amber eyes overflowing with the flames. She took her little girl steps over to Chloe and Martha. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I will be, Nevaeh. Uh, thanks.” Chloe gave the girl a watery smile. “She- Don’t hold it against Lana. This is just kind of how she deals with things.”
”Well...” Nevaeh took a bottle of water into her small hands. She wrinkled her freckle speckled button nose and raised a brow. “I’m an evil bitch, and I deal with things by setting them on fire. I’m sure she wouldn’t hold it against me.”
“Heh… Ahahah…” A few more tears came. “I… haha… I’d hold it against you, okay? Please don’t set my last friend on fire.”
“Oh… fine. But only because you’re so cute.” The girl pinched her cheek then hopped up to rejoin the other mutants.
“Better?” Martha asked.
“Yeah. You?”
“It helps when I’m doing something.”
“Yeah.”
“I think you have a fan.”
“What?”
Martha leaned her head in the direction of the mutants. The reaction to them had originally not been very good, so they tended to stay by themselves unless someone specifically reached out.
“Nevaeh? Oh, she’s just teasing me. I saw her pretending to flash someone earlier today. Or… maybe she actually did it, I’m not sure.” Chloe sighed and steadied herself. “I need to get back to trying to make some kind of plan.”
“I’ll be with you guys in minute.”
Walking through the hideout, Chloe saw the various sorts of people and wondered what this place looked like as a nightclub. People around her age packed in, dancing to deafening hip hop, or probably some wacky 90s techno group. Drunk off their asses and completely oblivious to the existence of mutants, aliens, and skanky French witches.
“Miss Sullivan.”
She refused to show it, but she still got a chill down her spine whenever Lionel Luthor said her name. “Any progress on the prom committee?”
Lionel gave her a dubious look then resumed studying a map of the city. An Asian meta-human with blue stripes down his hair peered over his shoulder. “The Luthors are resourceful but we do need something to work with.” He shook his head. “If we could possibly reach the AI in the arctic…”
“But as you said, no resources and Cla- we don’t have the key, so even if we could get to the caves easily it wouldn’t matter. Unless you think Zod would lend us a plane from LuthorCorp.”
“Of course not.”
“So…”
“So we’re still marshalling our forces. I’d be loathe to lose anyone on a plan with so little chance of success… Particularly when Lex was so generous as to make us a little army of mutants from his stock in Belle Reve.”
“We’re not all from Belle Reve," said the blue haired man. "Or I’m not. I’m just going on what the others have told me.”
“Nevertheless. We have no power or infrastructure, no real transportation, and our enemies have overwhelming access to both. You’re our best asset right now.”
Chloe grimaced. “Makes you feel useful, doesn’t it?”
“Awww. Being completely useless is something I’m very accustomed to.” Chloe rolled her eyes at the devil-may-care tone of what’s his name. The nightclub guy. He just kept buzzing around like a social gadfly who didn’t realize that the world had become very serious recently. “I’d think Mr. Luthor would be getting used to it by now as well. Lex yoinked the company away from you quite awhile ago, didn’t he?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Lionel sounded rather annoyed.
The man grinned, in an obvious attempt to be charming. It was obnoxious. “I’ve been listening. I think you’re underestimating what Lex has probably left you to work with. He’s been tilting at windmills, or chasing spacecrafts rather, since the day I met him. He’s paranoid enough to have some sort of system in place in the case of an alien invasion.”
“Maybe you missed the debrief, but Lex is dead. You’re looking for the past tense.” Chloe wanted to smack him when he smiled again.
“I’ll believe Lex is dead when I see his rotting corpse. Maybe not even then.” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned his head back to regard them critically, before wandering off to make Lana giggle some more. Martha approached the circle, brushing her hair behind her shoulders.
“I’ve seen his rotting corpse. It calls itself Zod.” Lionel shook his head and acknowledged Martha’s presence, but she did not directly look at him.
“Ugh.” Chloe was just glad the man had left. Not everyone who’d decided to join them was going to pull their weight, apparently. “He’s right, though. If we don’t have resources, we should find some, and Lex had enough bizarro projects going that there should be something we could use.”
“Did he know Lex?” Martha asked, trying to catch up on the discussion.
“I’m remembering who that boy is now.” Lionel rolled his eyes. “It might be worth the effort.”
“So,” Chloe asked. “Where would Lex keep information on the evil secret labs?”
“Maybe at the castle?” Martha offered.
Lionel shook his head. “He wouldn’t keep any direct information on his projects. We would have to know where to start looking. You should know that, Miss Sullivan.”
Chloe suppressed another shiver. Luthor Senior had always been so skeezy. The meta raised his hand. “No… but he might have told some of the people who were working for him if they needed to know.”
“So do you have a list of LuthorCorp employees? Cause I can’t hack into anything if there’s no power in the LuthorCorp computers,” Chloe asked. He shrugged.
“Like I said before, not all of us are from Belle Reve, but some of them, I know, worked for him before the power out. Nevaeh and Feign were patrolling the city for escaped Revers before they came here. At least the dangerous ones, and they’ve given us some pretty specific descriptions on ones to watch out for.”
“Really.” Chloe looked over at the group of metas. Nevaeh was doing some sort of duck walk, as Feign shielded her eyes in embarrassment. This young woman, Chloe had been told, could project illusions with her mind. She was a bit short, and she had nothing but peach fuzz on her head. Chloe's mouth quirked. “This is Lex’s crack team for tracking down meteor freaks?”
“From what I hear, Fine took out his crack team just before the power when out.”
Chloe raised both eyebrows and grimaced at their prospects.
***
In Ursa’s opinion, of all the new powers they had on this planet, the ability to fly was certainly the best. Zod didn’t quite appreciate it, but he enjoyed watching her launch herself out the window. She loved to soar over the city. She loved to shoot past unsuspecting humans so fast that she could only hear a few snippets of noise from their screaming. She loved to set fire to their buildings as she flew past and to hear that screaming.
Most of all, though, she loved to watch them from on high and try to figure out why they performed their strange little rituals. It was almost like they were people, or they were trying to figure out how to be people, with their little interactions and attachments to one another. She wondered if they might not one day figure that out and dismiss all of their meaningless symbols and take up reality.
Something caught her eye in the north side of the city. Perhaps some humans had decided to settle there outside of the areas Zod had allowed for them. She soared in that direction, activating her X-ray vision to see through the buildings obstructing her view.
“Should have been a lockdown, but…”
“…might have a backup power grid…”
“I’m in. Hurry.”
She hovered over what appeared to be an abandoned factory and looked for moving humans. There were several sneaking about inside. One sitting outside on the ground, close to the building. One walking around the perimeter of the building near the fence. A lookout? How clever of them. How had they gotten this far in the first place?
Ursa lowered herself slowly behind the lookout and quickly snapped its neck before it could make a noise. She scanned its body and found nothing of interest, but noticed a small bit of metal through its eyebrow, and another in its ear. A skull made of a nickel, iron mix.
”Why would you wear this?” She wondered to herself quietly. She took the metal skull, dropped the body on the ground, and walked leisurely in the direction of the other human. She could see it through the wall of the building, crouching on the other side. She could hear it.
“Just take the files. I’ll decode them later…”
Its heart sped up considerably.
***
Chloe looked up from her laptop and realized that she had no desire to ever see Lois dressed as a dominatrix. The Kryptonian walked toward her with a heavy, deliberate heel-to-toe stride that told her quite clearly that she was one of the most insignificant and expendable creatures that this thing had ever seen.
“Banana,” she said clearly into her microphone. Where was Feign? The alien tilted its head curiously and paused before moving in on her and crouching down to her level. It dangled something in front of her. An ear. “Oh, gross.”
“What is this? Why would a human wear this?”
Chloe fixed her eyes on the human part being offered to her. The ear or the earring? “Uh... I uh... don’t know? To look tough?”
“You would give the appearance of strength without having it?”
“I don’t know that I manage to, but…”
“What benefit would that human have had if it ‘looked tough?’ Why would it want to?”
Chloe could barely hear. Her heart was beating so quickly, and this thing wore Lois’ face. It had Lois’ face, but its eyes were so cold and vicious. It was so clearly not human and not of this earth that she could feel the hair on her arms rising in response.
Why don’t I ever feel that way around Clark?
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know why?”
“Um. Sometimes, to keep people away that might hurt you… or to attract girls?”
It snatched the microphone out of her ear and looked it over. Then it turned its fierce gaze back on Chloe. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Chloe was shaking. She wasn’t sure if she could stand up and run if she tried. “Do you have her memories?”
“Whose memories?”
“Lois…”
***
Ursa looked back blankly.
”The body you stole!” It shouted at her angrily. Ursa grabbed it by the neck and lifted it into the air.
“You knew it. You knew this Vessel.”
”How can you talk about people like that?!” It rasped out the words. Ursa saw in its eyes that it knew it was going to die. “Lois was a person! Even Lex was a person, and you just talk about them like they’re objects, you horrible disgusting thing!”
Ursa squeezed a little tighter. It choked and started to cry.
“Why do you speak to me like this when I could kill you?”
It couldn’t answer. Just frantically tried to force its fingertips between her hand and its neck.
“They did not give me any of this Vessel’s memories.” Ursa dropped it and watched to see what it would do. Its eyes fixed on her. She could see it thinking, trying to discern a means of escape. There was none. It knew what she was, that she was fast and strong. She could see it decide. It moved to the left, and she pinned it against the wall with one arm. “Why do you try to run away when you know I will kill you?”
“Because I have… to try.” It struggled futilely against Ursa’s strength.
“Not all of you try. Some of you falter. You stop moving. You give in.”
“Yeah, well, that’s humans for you. We’re all different.”
Just then the obnoxious black haired man launched a kick at Ursa’s head. She caught his foot and flung him out of eyeshot like he was a ragdoll. She licked her lips ferociously.
“Bruce!” The blond human tried to see where the other had landed but it was too far.
“You are strange. I don’t understand you. Are you concerned for that human when you are in danger?” Ursa ran her finger in a hard stroke the human’s cheekbone, slowly turning her nail inward to cut its face. Her thumb pressed into the other side of its jaw, and her wet lips moved closer to its face.
Chloe screamed into the kiss.
AN: The safety word is banana. Batman got pwned.
I’m mean to Chloe because I love her.
I’m mean to Lana because I hate her so much I can’t be objective.
And I need to come up with some names for the twins. :)
Nevaeh: Neh-VAY-yuh. It’s heaven spelled backwards, and there are people who actually for serious name their daughters this thinking somehow it is appropriate for Xtians to name their children the opposite of heaven. Which would, uh, be hell? She’s patterned off of a friend I used to have who was deceptively small and cute for her level of evil. Although she was blond, a model, and had no superpowers that I am aware of. She did have a good duck walk, though.