AN: The third Lois Lane will be referred to as “LL” except when being addressed.
Chaos erupted as Herb reappeared with Zara and another Lois Lane.
Silence was defeating in the face of the unexpected and clearly enraged tailgater.
Herb sputtered at her.
"I never intended for you to come -"
LL glared at him venomously, murder clearly glinting in her eyes when she saw the two Kal-Els.
"Where have you taken us,” she said in an ugly menacing tone that sounded as far from Lois as it was possible to sound. She rapidly advanced towards Herb, heedless of any possible danger and suddenly Herb pressed buttons on his gadget creating a haze around her that she couldn’t penetrate.
“What the hell have you done to me?” She looked at Zara and saw that her comrade was similarly restrained alongside her. Both Clarks could hear her heart-rate increase to an alarming rate. She was as equally terrified as she was enraged but she hid the fear well from those who couldn't detected it with special abilities.
“Be calm,” whispered Zara to her human ally. “I will not let any of these people harm you.”
“Are you insane,” LL hissed. “Do you see who’s here with us?”
Zara looked at the two Kryptonian men in the room. Her expression was impassive as she tried to figure out who they were.
“Neither of these two men are my husband,” she said quietly to LL. “I promise you that.”
LL stared at them in horror.
“They look exactly like him.”
“Do you trust me,” Zara asked her, looking intently into the other woman’s eyes.
“I trust you,” she said. “I trust you mean me no harm. I don’t trust that you can be sure that neither of these men are Kal-El. We’re trapped like rats, Zara. Even your abilities can’t help us if we can’t get out of here. Try shooting him with heat,” she indicated towards Herb considering him to be her first point of attack.
“I won’t harm him,” said Zara gently. “He has done nothing to harm us. Yet. If I feel the need… then… we will see.”
“Herb, what did you do,” asked Kent, looking at the haze worriedly. It seemed painfully familiar. “Tell me that isn’t a time window.”
At the sound of his voice, both women looked at him with the wariness of prey eying a predator.
“He sounds like Kal-El,” LL muttered to Zara.
She saw the pained look the Kryptonian man’s face at her words and it confused her.
“Well, yes. It’s a time window, Clark,” Herb began to respond to his friend’s anxious query. “But –“
“Have you lost your mind,” Kent interjected frantically. “They could get lost in that thing. You have no idea how horrible it is to be trapped like that –between dimension – out of time – it was horrific –“
“I assure you, they are in no danger.”
Kent looked worriedly back at Herb, his eyes continuing to radiate remembered fear.
“Not everything is always as you say it will be,” he said. “Sometimes your inventions haven’t done what you expected – you said you were bringing Zara, but you brought –“ he tailed off, not wanting to speak her name without her permission.
“She was not supposed to come along. I only intended to bring Zara. Zara and I worked together to free – this universe’s Lois Lane,” he said, indicating Lois, “and so I wasn’t expecting Zara to react with force. But Lois’s doppelganger is another story,” he said, stepping nervously away from the two women in the time window. “I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t be the victim of a broken neck had I not activated the time window.”
“Then please make it quick,” Kent begged. “Every second they are in there is … a chance that they could get lost in it forever.”
“Quite. Quite right. Ms Lane,” he said, addressing LL who was still emanating fury and rage. "You're in another universe. I - I brought - Miss - uh - Zara here - to talk with her... we've ... ah - we've learned some interesting things about your world and - we wanted to see if our - theories were correct -"
LL cast a venomous eye at the two Kryptonian men.
"There are two too many Kal-Els in this world," she hissed, making bold and angry eye contact at the two of them as she spoke. She was far too worked up to notice that they weren't holding themselves threateningly or that they seemed as unsure and bewildered as the man who had brought them here. "If you don't send us back this instant, I swear to you, your life is worth nothing. Or is this some kind of sick Lois Lane zoo you’re trying to form?"
"My ... my - ah - good woman," he said, trying to not say 'my dear', "I meant only to bring her. You - ah - you jumped in after us."
"To save my friend. You think I’d let you take her without a fight?"
Zara meanwhile was standing stock still as she observed all the people in the room. The presence of two Kal-Els was upsetting to her, but she kept herself under control.
"Who are these people,” she asked Herb.
"You may remember... the other Lois," he said, pointing at Lois. "You helped me rescue her from - that awful..."
"That was you," Zara asked Lois, noting that the other woman looked orders of magnitude better now that she was back in her own world. Furthermore, the woman was standing near what looked like two Kal-Els without displaying any signs of being a prisoner.
"Yes. That was me," she said, refusing to let her terror overtake her at being in the presence of one who had witnessed her suffering. "I am grateful to you for helping me escape.”
"It is my doing that you suffered," said Zara. "Kal-El is my husband. His actions are as much my responsibility as his, under our customs.”
She eyed both Kal-Els warily as she spoke. They both seemed highly discomfited by LL and her presence, but neither had spoken since one of them had argued with Herb about the time window.
"Both of you go by the name Kal-El,” she asked them carefully.
"Both of us were born with that name."
"You don't answer to it?"
"We both were raised on earth. Different universes - dimensions - whatever. Herb understands all that... but both of us came here after Krypton exploded. Our parents sent us here to avoid being killed. We both landed on earth as very young children - and were adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent."
LL hissed as she heard the names.
"That seems unlikely," she spat out, knowing how deeply the Kents hated Kryptonians.
“Why do you say that?”
LL refused to answer. To give information about her comrades was a number one sin in her book.
"Well... it's the truth," said Kent carefully, finally breaking the stony silence. "I suppose Herb could take you back to my home universe to meet my parents if you wanted proof."
"What happened to them in this world,” she asked the quiet Kal-El.
"They died in a car crash," he said. "When I was ten."
"Or... something more sinister, huh? An out of control super-powered -"
"Now wait a minute," said Lane. "That's uncalled for."
Lois flinched as she heard LL verbally abuse her husband and accuse him of killing his parents, but she herself had had similar theories and couldn't blame the other woman for having them. She was grateful to Lane for jumping to Clark’s defense.
"Really? Uncalled for. What do you know about anything? This is Kal-El. He's a vicious killer. He'd stop at nothing to get what he wants. Brutality is his drug of choice."
"Lois," said Zara. "They don't seem at all like that. I think we should at least hear what they have to say. The fact that the Lois that was trapped in our world isn't opposed to their presence logically indicates that he may be telling the truth."
"Okay, Spock," Lois said caustically back to her Kryptonian companion. "Let's give it a whirl. Why the hell did you kidnap Zara?”
"We wanted to ask her what Kal-El was like as a child," said Lois.
"What? Why the hell do you need to know that?”
"I met Zara ..." Kent offered nervously. "She indicated that had we grown up in the same world, we would have been friends from childhood due to the marriage pact, which - I'm guessing would have been how it was in your society?"
Zara forced herself not to react with fear. Kal-El terrified her and it was hard to talk to his doppelganger without that same sense of dread.
"If you grew up here, how did you meet her?"
"She came to Earth... looking for me... to - um.... join them, marry her…rule new krypton."
"And what happened? Did they settle here? Are you - ruler of -"
"I only agreed to participate for a short while. My plan was to figure out how to get Zara instated as ruler without needing - a ... man ... to validate her right to lead. Zara and I kept our relationship platonic because neither one of us felt anything ... remotely resembling love for each other," he paused at the reactions - LL scoffing and Zara flinching. "But then.... Nor attempted to invade earth. Trey refused to prosecute - or whatever you call it. I ended up in trouble for treason for supporting Earth and the human race, and finally Earth's armed forces managed to kill Nor. Once he was out of the way, Trey backed off the treason charges, seeing that what Nor had done was clearly wrong, and I was able to talk them into accepting Ching and Zara as the ruling couple."
"You... gave your power to Ching?" Zara's face showed her amazement.
"It was never mine to give. I had no idea they even existed until they came here and I had no desire to be a part of their society."
"Why would you... why be a 'man' when you could be a 'god',” said LL bitterly.
"If he wanted that," said Lane, "He would have approved the invasion of Earth. Then he could have had the powers on both levels."
"But they had weapons to kill you," said LL. "You aren't stupid."
"Seriously,” said Lane angrily, “if he wanted to neutralize human threat, he could have. He didn't because he's not that kind of person. You can hate the leader of Krypton in your world all you want for obviously good reason, but lay off of Clark."
LL looked at Lane searchingly
"I'm getting the really repulsive notion that the two of you are together."
Lane glared at her, but said nothing.
"So... Clark - is your name Clark too," LL asked Clark, her tone dripping with scorn.
"Yes,” he said evenly, not wavering from the intensity and bitter hate in her glare.
"Are you two together," she asked with deceptive calmness, indicating Lois and him.
"We're together," said Lois, suddenly standing up and being heard. "And before you go off on me for that let me tell you that unlike her, I've been to your world, I've suffered - I've been as much a victim as you ever were and I will not stand by and let you denigrate me for my choice. Clark’s a good man. They both are.”
LL glared at Lois, but did not respond. She knew the other woman was right in that she had no right to denigrate her.
"So what did you want to know if Kal-El was a decent child for," she asked, switching tactics.
"We'd like an answer to our question before we answer you," said Kent boldly, noticing how she barely acknowledge his presence.
"I see no harm in answering," said Zara carefully eyeing the other double of her husband. Kal would have reached over and grabbed her roughly for not answering anything he put forth to her. Although earth gave her powers and invulnerability, Kal-El had social power by divine right and he could have her apartments flooded with red radiation at any time to neutralize her threat and hurt her as badly as he could ever hurt a human woman. He had done it before.
"Thank you," said Kent gently, sensing her fear and aversion. The kind of husband Kal-El had been was fairly obvious to him by her reactions and he wanted to minimize her having to deal with him as much as possible.
"He was my friend," Zara said shortly, drawing a gasp from LL. "He was nothing like the man he is now. He was fair, and ethical. He played well with others as a child and he didn't hold his future leadership as something that required compliance to his wishes even then. He never physically dominated or hurt others and he enjoyed competition for what it was - a chance to pit your own will and effort against others. He was a gracious winner and a gracious loser at games of sport or strategy. I always thought he would make a wonderful leader and a good husband."
"What do you think happened along the way," Lane asked her carefully, trying to see if Zara knew anything.
Zara showed confusion and dismay on her face as she continued.
"We were separated at the onset of adolescence. They wouldn’t allow us together again until our marriage day. I didn't see him for five years. When I saw him on our wedding day, he radiated menace and power. I was afraid of him but didn't really understand why. I thought perhaps I was just afraid of my new life and my new duties... I - I had no idea - that he had ... become so different."
"A decent man turned into a monster," said Kent.
Zara looked at him searchingly, afraid to agree. Finally, she nodded.
"Yes."
"Did you question that at all," Lane pushed, still not fully trusting that Zara wasn't actually in on it.
"I know that the training for leadership is arduous. I know leaders are taught to be implacable when times require, and we were facing a problem of survival of our species. I know that living on earth was something that my former friend might have thought as giving us an unfair advantage against a people who couldn't hope to stand up against us should we decide to - subvert them... which is exactly what happened. But I know a lot happens on the journey from child to ruler, and in these - desperate times - the training could have been cold and hard enough to - forge a different man from the boy I knew."
"Having never lived through desperate times," said Kent, "to the extent you describe... I have no actual clue if that's right. It seems right that one would be changed, but to go from kind to cruel... seems unlikely."
"Unless they - brainwashed him," said Zara. "A fact that I’ve often considered."
"If they had, could you not restore him in some way,” LL asked Zara, beginning to have major questions about this new information. How could her sadistic tormentor ever have been a decent child?
"Kal-El is dangerous and vicious. I have no power or credibility with him. I am simply another woman for him to abuse."
Both Clarks winced at that, and Kent dropped his gaze away from her. He remembered his own ridiculous wedding night with Zara and wondered how awful it would have been to face that other Kal-El instead of an equally recalcitrant Clark.
"Why all these questions," LL snapped at both men. "Other than hurting my friend here with these awful memories, what can you possibly hope to gain?”
There was a long silence and then Herb spoke.
"We have reason to believe that Kal-El is actually a clone of the original. The original is still alive... but we have no idea whether he can be revived - we just know he's somewhere... and he's in pain. He’s suffering.”
Both women stared at him in shock.
"How can you possibly know any of this," asked Zara.
Herb used that as an opening to explain what they had found. After a long silence following his explanation, Zara spoke.
"It's possible. It's... highly possible. It explains his personality change. I ... don't trust Nor, nor do I trust Trey. They could have masterminded this. Then... I married a clone? I - betrayed my true husband - I committed treason.”
"If he's anything like us," Kent said quickly, "He won't see it as that."
She looked at him wildly.
"You're an earth-raised man. You have no idea of our customs and laws -"
He stopped, realizing she was right. His own experiences had taught him that.
"Seems you're as much a victim as he was, anyway," he tried to weigh in.
"We wanted you to know,” Clark said. “I'm sure you'll require other methods of validation - but Herb's soul tracker is rock solid technology. If you rescue the original Kal-El, can't you overthrow the existing regime?”
"Sure," said LL. "We'll have it done by next week. No problem."
"I know it's far more dangerous and difficult than what I make it out to be. But it's a chance... it's a chance to liberate Earth."
"Kal-El could just as easily condone the current status quo. It's a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It’s not worth the risk."
"Based on what Zara recollects about him," persisted Kent. “That probably isn’t going to be the case.”
“Really? Because you understand Kryptonian culture so well.”
Kent tried not to laugh at the unerring spirit of Lois Lane that had never been broken from this hardened variation of the woman he loved. He wasn’t so much amused as he was enlivened.
“Zara, what do you think,” he asked her carefully.
“I think that it’s worth doing,” she said. “But without involving the human resistance,” she said hastily to LL. “I’d never ask any of you to risk yourselves or the future of your world on this rescue mission.”
“Well, congratulations,” said LL angrily to the two Kryptonians. “Whether or not you planned this, you’ve managed to doom our world to continued enslavement.”
“Where do you even get that,” asked Lois, frustrated by her rage.
“Zara and the other sympathetic Kryptonians go on this fools mission. Many of them die. The resistance has no hope of succeeding.”
“Or… they save the real Kal-El,” said Lane, “And he takes the bad regime out of power and things change for the better. I am absolutely positive that he would not condone this kind of treatment of another species.”
“Really?”
“I know two different variations of him that give me that complete confidence.”
“Are you willing to be your life on it? Because you sure as hell seem willing to be mine.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am willing to go into your world and do my part to rescue Kal-El and make your world a better place. Absolutely.”
“Well,” said LL, eying her up and down. “You would make interesting bait.”
