Tina cried out as she fell, tripping over a piece of rubble, bringing Chloe down with her. Chloe fell hard on her burned leg, crying out as well. They lay there in the smoky blackness, alarms going off somewhere in what was left of the labs. Rubble littered the corridors, pieces of cement and ceiling with steel bars that stuck up waiting to trip them. They could hear the roar of a fire raging somewhere nearby, and beyond that were the frail calls for help. Chloe tried to piece together how exactly they were still alive.

As the base had started to shake, Tina had sprinted out the inner room and grabbed Chloe, hurling both of them out of the monitor chamber. Then everything had seemed to explode and all Chloe could remember was a rush of ear-splitting noise. Then she’d come out of the blackness suddenly to find half her leg on fire. Tina had been beside her in an instant, beating it out with her hands. Then without a word, she’d scooped up Chloe and started to carry her out through the labs. But then, another explosion had gone off behind them, picking the girls up and hurling them down the halls. Tina had taken the brunt of it and could hardly move. And so now, both of them were trying to hobble to safety, each supporting the other, as they tried to get out of the labs.

“Where are we now?” Chloe asked, pushing herself up to her knees. Her arms were quivering dangerously. She didn’t know if she even had the strength to get herself up, let alone help Tina.

“Lift my head,” Tina rasped at her. Chloe winced as she touched her shoulder, feeling her fingers sink into her skin a little. Tina was worse off than she’d thought if she couldn’t even keep herself together anymore.

She pulled her up and tried to hold her as best she could. “Hurry,” she wheezed.

Tina squinted around them. Her eyes were almost swollen shut. “I think… I think we’re going in the wrong way. We need to go back, that way,” she nodded her head slightly to the right. She closed her eyes and Chloe let her sink back down gratefully. They lay there amongst the rubble for a while, listening to explosions going off around the base.

“Where’s Lex?” she asked weakly.

“Back there, I think,” Tina said weakly. “I don’t know.”

“What about Clark?”

“I don’t…” Tina trailed off and then she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Chloe closed her eyes and breathed out, trying to gather her strength. “Come’on,” she said, pushing herself back up. “We have to keep going.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Tina’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Try,” Chloe wheezed at her. She grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up. The strain almost put her back on her knees again. “Come’on,” she grunted, staggering forwards.

“Someone’s coming,” Tina wheezed into her ear. “Up… ahead.”

Chloe looked up, trying to see through the smoke. She could just make out a figure coming towards them. It was a man’s figure, tall with broad shoulders and a walk she thought she recognized. “Clark!” she cried out, pulling Tina with her a few feet. Her voice died out as he came closer.

He looked like Clark, but it wasn’t him. Still, the resemblance was too great for him to be anyone other than his ‘brother’. There were differences though, the metal patch over his eye, his wild and shaggy hair, even the line of his jaw seemed more narrower. Chloe stared at him, feeling her heart thumping. His clothing was ripped and he seemed to be bleeding from one of his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to notice the wound. He stared at them intensely, one of his hands clenching up.

“Who are you?” Even his voice sounded different from Clark’s. It was more abrupt and colder. “You’re not LuthorCorp.”

“We’re not,” Tina rasped at him. “We’re friends. Clark’s friends.”

He stared down at Tina, his eye narrowing. “You are different. You’re not human.” He looked up at Chloe. “What about you?’

Chloe stared back at him hard. For a moment, what Lana had said reared back up in her mind, but she pushed it back down, thinking about Tina. “I’m a friend too. She needs help. You have to get her out of here.”

He looked at her and then back down at Tina. Finally he stared back down the hall. “In a minute,” he said quietly. And then amazingly, he started to walk past them.

“No! Not in a minute, right fucking now!” Chloe yelled at him. He kept going, ignoring her. Chloe let Tina fall to the ground and searched around frantically.

“What are you doing?” Tina mumbled, wincing.

Chloe scooped up a fist-sized hunk of concrete in her hand and chucked it at him with all her strength. It stuck the back of his head and he stumbled, probably more from surprise than anything. He spun around, snarling at her.

“Chloe!” Tina rasped. Chloe ignored her though, watching Clark’s brother as he stomped back down the hallway towards her. He stopped in front of her, towering over her. He was literally quivering with rage as he stood over her, both of his hands now clenching and unclenching. She glared right back at him, not budging an inch.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Who do you think you are?” he snarled at her.

“Somebody you owe.” His eye narrowed slightly as she went on. “She needs to get to a hospital; she’ll die if she doesn’t.” He didn’t respond. “Look, she risked her life for you, the least you can do-“

“Alright,” he grunted. “Don’t ever do that again though.” He bent down and none to gently picked up Tina and slung her over his shoulder. She moaned slightly and then was quiet. He reached for Chloe brusquely, but she fell back, smacking at his hand.

“Don’t-, just don’t touch me,” she muttered, stepping away from him. “I can manage.”

“Suit yourself, girl,” he remarked.

“It’s Chloe, Chloe Sullivan,” she snapped at him.

He shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

“Fine, whatever. Look, do you know the way out of here?”

“It’s back that way,” he nodded where he had come from. “I left the other one, Pete, there.”

“Pete, is he okay?”

“He was when I left, but that was before someone decided to blow this place up.” He paused and looked back at her. “That wasn’t you, was it?”

“Lex did it,” she remarked. He stared at her a moment and then grunted, thinking. Without another word he started down the hallway, making Chloe limp after him to keep up. He seemed not to notice his wounds, the uneven ground, or the still raging fires throughout the base. Chloe sweated and groaned as she hobbled after them as best she could.

Coughing, she paused at an intersecting hallway to try and catch her breath. The air was full of smoke and she couldn’t see which hall he and Tina had disappeared down. “Hey!” she tried to yell, unsure of what to call him. “Hey, you! Clark’s brother!” She listened, but there wasn’t any response.

She stumbled forwards a few more steps and her feet kicked something soft and yielding. It was a LuthorCorp soldier, lying on his side. Unsure of whether he was dead or just unconscious, Chloe started to edge around him, but something caught her eye. Clutched in one of his hands, was a meteor gun. She paused for a moment, thinking, and then she bent down and pried it away from him. The light on its side was still green; it still seemed to be working. Quickly, she shoved it into her waistband behind her, and continued on.

“Are all of you this fragile?” a voice called idly down the hallway, making her jump. She looked up to see Clark’s brother walking back down the hallway towards her. Tina was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened to Tina?” Chloe coughed, choking on some smoke. She wondered, afraid, if he’d seen what she’d done.

If he had, he didn’t seem to show it. “I dropped her off with the others. Your friend, Pete, is fine,” he added.

“Good,” she coughed, hobbling towards him.

He stared at her. “This would be quicker if you let me help you,” he remarked.

“I don’t need it,” she snapped at him, giving him a wide berth as she limped past him. He turned around and shrugged, watching her. “How much farther is it?”

“Not too much,” he said, following her slowly. She glanced back at him nervously, not liking him behind her. The bulge behind her waist felt very noticeable right now. “By the way,” he said suddenly, “it’s Joseph, not ‘Clark’s brother’.”

She almost stumbled. “You heard me?”

“I hear a lot,” he said, glancing back down the hallway. For the first time, he seemed impatient. “Are you going to be alright now?” he asked hurriedly.

“What? Why? Do you hear something?”

“Someone,” he answered. “Can you make it the rest of the way? It’s just down the end of his hallway.”

“I think so,” she said slowly.

“Good,” he said shortly and just like that, he was gone.

Chloe stared after him and then went on. “Joseph, huh,” she muttered to herself. She felt the cold metal pressed against her back and shivered briefly.

A hand poked itself out of a mass of debris and then slowly, another followed. The rubble shifted and a man’s head appeared, gasping for air loudly. Groaning with effort, he clawed his way out of pile of rubble until, shivering and moaning, he pulled himself free. His clothing, once a finely tailored suit, was reduced to rags. Blood and dust caked his wild brown hair together in clumps. He lay there, shivering in the darkness, his body covered with welts and cuts. Battered, bloody, but still alive.

“Alive!” Lionel gasped, triumphant. Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet and stared around. The monitoring room was in shambles, the bodies of soldiers were strewn about. He glanced around for any other survivors, but he couldn’t find any. He couldn’t even find Lana or that other girl’s bodies. The bombs had done their work well. His lab, his precious lab, was in ruins. But he was still alive, he assured himself. Somehow, he had survived it all. He could rebuild, he could always rebuild. “Too bad, Lex,” he said. “I win after all.”

“Not quite,” a voice disagreed with him. He spun around, staring around him wildly. The lights had all been knocked out by the explosions, leaving most of the room in darkness. Somewhere, he could hear footsteps echoing towards him, coming closer.

“Who’s there?” he called out. There was no answer save for the footsteps, getting louder and louder. “Anyone?” Faintly, he saw a red glow appear out of the darkness. “Is anyone there?” he yelled.

The light kept growing brighter and brighter. He wiped at his forehead, suddenly sweating. It was coming nearer, he realized. “Who’s out there?” he tried one last time. As Lionel listened, incredibly, he began to hear someone humming. It took him a few moments to place the tune, but when he did, he felt his heart give a lurch. He could feel the heat radiating from the light like some great furnace as it came closer. “Oh no,” he moaned softly. “Oh no.”

As the final few bars of ‘Ding-Dong The Witch is Dead,’ faded away, a great rush of light and heat engulfed Lionel and in an instant, he was consumed.

Joseph knelt down and pushed his fingers through the pile of ash on the floor, humming cheerfully to himself once again. Then he rubbed his hands together to get the ash off them and stood up. Still humming, he peered around the room for a moment and then found what he was looking for. Making sure to step on the pile of ash, he crossed through the monitoring chamber and climbed haphazardly toward the remains of the inner room.

The walls had held up well against the force of the blast, but the computer consoles hadn’t faired as well. Grunting, Joseph lifted them up and tossed them away, searching through the rubble. Finally he found what he was looking for. He threw aside the last computer and stared down at the body hidden underneath it.

He was still alive, Joseph realized. For a moment, he was sorely tempted to fix that, despite everything Clark had told him. It would be so easy, no one would know, he told himself. He should have died in a blast like that. It would have wrapped up everything so much nicer. Still debating with himself, he reached out towards him slowly.

The body shook suddenly and started to cough. Joseph paused and then pulled his hand back, watching him. Still coughing, the man rolled over, his eyes going wide as he saw him. Joseph stared back at him, evenly. “You’re Lex Luthor, aren’t you?” he asked.

Lex nodded, spitting out a wad of blood on the floor. He coughed again and glanced at him. “Yes, I am.” He tried to stand, but fell back, his face going pale as he clutched at his leg.

“It’s broken in three places,” Joseph told him coolly, not making a move to help him up. “There’s no way you can walk on it.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Lex muttered. He looked up at Joseph, breathing heavily, his face strained. Joseph saw his gaze flash towards his eye patch and then move quickly away, something he was getting used to people doing.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I couldn’t do this sooner,” Lex told him.

Joseph looked back down, through the walls, towards the pile of ash on the floor. He hesitated, thinking for a moment. “Did you really blow this place up?” he asked quietly.

“Clark did it really, but I told him too.” He stared at him. “Did he get his mother out?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“My father… Chloe and Tina? Did they…?”

“Alive enough to throw a rock at me. They’re fine.”

“And my father?”

Joseph just stared at him. “I doubt you’d be able to find much left of him.”

Lex nodded, lying back down. “So what now? Are you going to get it over with or what?”

Joseph paused and then reached down and pulled him up so that he was an inch in front of his face. “This is what Clark wanted, not me,” he said tightly. “If I had my way…”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Lex said back to him, unafraid. “If the situations were reversed, who knows what I’d do?”

Joseph carried him down the stairs. “Just so we’re clear: if you ever try and put me in a box again, you’ll be dead before you know it,” he warned him.

“Noted,” Lex grunted, wincing. They reached the bottom of the stairs and Lex signaled for him to stop. “Wait, is there anyone else alive?” he asked, staring around.

“No one, why?” Joseph asked, staring around with his x-ray vision.

“Never-mind,” Lex muttered.

“Are we done here now” he snapped, hefting Lex. “I’m sick of this place.”

“That’s the one thing we can both agree on,” Lex told him.