Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Tales from the Barman: Scoop

This may need a little explaining. Tales from the Barman is a round robin story posted at Twisting the Hellmouth , the big Buffy crossover fanfic site. It's by far the most popular round robin they've ever run, with 256 chapters by 111 authors so far. I've written several, and naturally one is a Lois and Clark crossover.

The premise of the story is simple - a couple of years after the last season of Buffy one of the main characters, Xander Harris, opens a bar in Cleveland, where various vampire slayers are now based. Characters from other fandoms visit the bar and have a drink, tell tall tales, and so forth. Often they leave souvenirs behind, kept on a trophy wall which in later stories has a SEP (someone else's problem) spell to avoid getting too much attention.

About all I need add is that in my previous chapter the bar was briefly linked to a black hole. This story describes one of the consequences...

Scoop

By Marcus L. Rowland

"Can I get you anything?" Xander asked.

The petite brunette thought for a second and said "Just a small red wine. Don't want to spoil my appetite."

"In town for the press convention?"

"How did you know that?"

"C'mon, most famous reporter on earth walks into my bar, think I won't recognize her?"

Lois Lane smiled and shook her head. "Most famous print journalist in the US, maybe. I'm still working on the world."

"You got the scoop on Superman, that's good enough for me."

"Actually my husband did," said Lois. "Clark let me share the credit, but I was just the first reporter to see him in action, Clark got the scoop."

"Is he in town too?"

"Sure, he's meeting me here in a few minutes."

"Why here?" asked Xander, a little warily.

"Actually," said Lois, "we're on a story." She took a GPS tracker out of her bag and checked the display. "The Prometheus space station has some very sensitive instruments. A couple of days ago their gravity wave tracker went crazy for a couple of minutes. The disturbance was centered on this bar."

"This bar?"

"Unless there's something else within ten or fifteen feet. To be honest, I was expecting to find a mad scientist's lair."

"Nope. Completely lair free," Xander said truthfully, "and has been since I opened the place a couple of years back."

"You own the bar?"

"Yep. Had to relocate to Cleveland, couldn't work construction any more because of depth perception, this seemed like a good way to earn a living."

"Where did you relocate from?"

"California."

"That's a big state," said a deep voice with a Kansas accent. Xander looked round to see a stocky dark-haired man, about his height but more heavily built, wearing a suit and a tie patterned with small reproductions of Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures.

"Clark Kent, I presume," said Xander, trying to conceal his reaction to what the bar's wards were telling him. Powerful, more so than anything below the deity level he'd seen before. Not human, though not far from it. They didn't show exact readings, not as such, but he was willing to bet that if they did they would show that Kent was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive...

"That's right," said Clark. "Whereabouts did you relocate from?"

"Sunnydale, if it matters. What can I get you?"

"Red wine please."

Xander poured another glass.

"You come from Sunnydale?" Lois said excitedly, "Murder capital of the USA! What's the story on that?"

"Gangs on PCP, or that's what they always said."

"PCP is a tranquillizer," said Clark.

Xander shrugged and said "It's what the papers always said. And if you can't trust the papers..."

"Did you see much of the disaster?"

"Not really," said Xander. Technically it was true, he hadn't had time to sight-see when the town was collapsing, he was too busy giving wounded Slayers first aid.

Clark seemed to be looking around the bar over the top of his glasses. Xander tried to remember if there was anything around that would show up on x-ray vision, but couldn't think of anything too damaging. There weren't even any heavily-armed Slayers around at this time of the afternoon, the younger ones were still in school, Buffy and Faith never came in until the evening, and none of the other older slayers were in town. And for once the SEP aversion spell that stopped people noticing the oddness of the trophy wall exhibits seemed to be working.

"Can I get you anything else?" asked Xander. "Some food, maybe?"

"You really have no idea about the gravity thing?" asked Lois.

"The highest technology around here is the computer in my office, and that's so old it still thinks Windows is a neat idea."

"Okay," said Lois. "Sorry to have wasted your time. We'd better get to the restaurant."

"You're paying customers, why should I need an apology?"

"If you see anything that might have caused the gravity waves, we'd really love to know about it," said Clark. "Here's my card."

"Okay," Xander said enthusiastically. "Want to autograph it?"

"If you like," said Clark, amusement in his voice.

"Both of you would be nice," said Xander. "It'd be great to show people, tell them I've met Lane and Kent."

Lois added her own signature. Xander smiled, pinned it to the wall, and said "If you come in again bring Superman, I'd really love to meet him."

"We'll do that if we can," said Lois, "but he's a pretty busy guy."

"Sure, always saving the world," said Xander. "Wonder what that's like?"

He watched them leave, smiling politely, and wondered if anyone would believe him if he announced he knew Superman's secret identity. Naaaah....

End