Beyond Smallville: Fan Fiction

Edge of Darkness pt 2
Chapter 13 of Evolutions

Clark had specifically told the SWAT team leader that the terrorist was insane, and ought to be sedated. The cocky SWAT sergeant waved him away. "You’ve done enough meddling for one day. By the way, how did you get past my team members?"

Clark was discouraged with his attitude. "I guess that your team isn’t as good as you think they are." He scoffed, walking away towards Lois who was getting the final details of her story from Turpin. "Hey, Smallville, turn that frown upside down." She quipped. "We have the inside scoop."

"I sweet talked Turpin into waiting fifteen minutes or so before he calls a press conference for the media. He muttered thanks for your help, though I left him deliberately vague on the details." Lois grabbed Clark’s hand, in an unusually affectionate manner. Kara was wandering around nearby.

"What’s up little sis’?" Lois noted Kara’s obvious distraction. "I don’t understand, Lois. Why weren’t the police happy we helped them out?" The confused teen asked with a bit of a very humanlike whine in her tone. "That my dear, is called the ‘male ego issue’, present company excepted, Smallville."

"We stole their glory." Lois continued. "Trust me on this. I spent more than half my life with my dad, the General. He and his cohorts were prime examples of alpha male egotists. It doesn’t mean that I love him any less." Clark took Lois’s advice to heart, as well.

"Any other nuggets of wisdom will have to wait. I have a story to file." Lois said as she flipped open her cell phone. "Gina? Tell Perry that I’ve got a page one on the Dairyland Mall hostage crisis…I’ll hold." Clark and Kara left Lois to do what she did best as they rested against a grassy knoll.

"You heard that name?" Clark asked his young cousin. "Yes. Mobus Kahn? I don’t know of any Kryptonian criminals by that name. Maybe he was just ranting?" Clark wondered aloud. "It could be a human criminal that presents that threat. Or possibly one of Lex’s leftover meteor freaks."

Suddenly the SWAT van exploded in a huge fireball. The metal from the van acted as shrapnel, slicing through everything in it’s path. Lois dove out of the way, mostly out of habit. "Whoa!" She rolled over in a ditch. "You better hold off on that final paragraph, Gina!" She yelled into the phone.

Clark and Kara bolted for the flaming van, but it had nearly melted. If any SWAT members were in the truck, it was all over for them. Clark was furious. "I told them to sedate the freak!" He snapped. Kara was saddened, but understanding. "You did all you could, Kal. It’s not your fault that the police didn’t listen." Lois had gathered her composure and came running towards them.

"Geez! What the hell happened?" She shouted over the din, feeling the heat from the molten truck. Dan Turpin lay behind a police car, stunned by the blast. Several officers were injured, some critically. Immediately, sirens wailed.

The officers were lucky that they had a number of ambulances and rescue vehicles close at hand. Clark zipped around, but there was little he could do without medical training. He and Kara were limited to moving flaming shrapnel from atop injured officers and their vehicles.

Lois helped Turpin to his feet, and he wobbled, feeling his head. "I see you have all of your appendages, detective." She joshed. "What are you people, cursed?" Dan complained as he surveyed the damage. The EMT squad was already busy patching up the luckier officers.

"Sometimes I wonder, detective." Lois shook her head. "Please tell me that we at least knew who Mr. Dynamite was." Turpin was a bit dazed, but recalled the information he’d just gotten before the blast. "Yeah, Lane, the deceased was known as Bertram Ellis. He had no criminal record, was about forty- seven years old, no history of mental illness. The guy didn’t have so much as a parking ticket."

"Maybe he just snapped." Lois tried to apply some logic to it. Clark fumed. "Kara, let’s go!" Lois waved him back in. "Freeze, Smallville. We still have to get this story in to Perry. The networks are begging the Planet for details." Clark calmed down slightly. "What do you need?"

"For starters, a good solid laptop port to hook into." Lois pleaded to Clark with her eyes. "You want to super speed to the car?" Superman guessed. "Okay. Go. Kara and I will block the view." The aliens blew a cloud of dust up between Turpin and Lois, giving her the cover she needed.

After filing her report, Lois returned to the waiting superheroes. "I guess we’re done here." Clark remarked in a depressed tone. Lois again hugged Superman. "Clark, remember…you can’t save everyone." She whispered in his ear. "That goes for you, too, Kara. That doesn’t mean that we should stop trying. Think about it, we saved thirteen other people today."

"On the whole, when the balance sheets are tallied, we hope that we saved more people than we lost." Lois said with unusual philosophical insight. "Humans die every day, Clark, Kara. It’s who we are. Yeah, some of it is senseless, and some of it is what it is."

Clark and Kara silently considered Lois’s comments. "Thanks Lois." Superman said as Kara nodded in agreement. "We should think of ourselves as police officers, firefighters, armed services members, emergency medical technicians, or ever vigilant concerned citizens."

**Dedicated to everyone who remembers 9/11**

"Now buck up, kiddies. I’ll get off my high horse now." Lois smiled brightly, having given them the pep talk of their young lives. "Lois, you are one in a million." Clark praised, in a much more cheerful mood. "Of course I am." She added facetiously. Their lighthearted mood wouldn’t last however…