for have_no_mercy: After the End

[a_different_future]

Maybe if the whole world hadn't been firmly against him. Maybe if he'd gotten Jor-El's tutelage sooner. Maybe if his own Tess hadn't been gone when he'd gotten back from that other world the first time. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

It'd taken time and effort and study to find out the truth, to discover that he was but a mirror of a true universe, a darker view of what truly was. Kent was the world as it should be, and he was not Kent, would never be Kent. And apparently, the universe could only stand that truth so long.

The end had come and of course they'd blamed him, reality flickering out of existence, their world ceasing to be. He'd tried to help, tried to be what Kent and Jor-El had told him he could be, and he'd gotten a nasty sliver of kryptonite in his belly for the trouble. Ah, for what it was worth, he wasn't very good at this 'mercy' thing anyway. It required more patience than he could usually manage. And people were so very aggravating. It was that aggravation, that frustration, that powered him on his way back. And even then, it was only by a small miracle that he'd managed to get to the Fortress at all.

Then the world had turned upside down and sideways and everything was that much brighter in a way that he thought was... unfortunately (or fortunately) familiar. He was...

He was in that world. He was in Kent's world.

He still had the kryptonite in him, was still probably dying, but at least he was no longer in a universe that was slowly collapsing. And he was... in that clocktower where Queen had tried to kill him? How'd he get here? Why had Jor-El sent him here, to the home of his enemies? Except... was that-

There was only one other person in the Watchtower and it smelled like-

"Tess?"