By Twinkles (Rachel: spcale@ix.netcom.com), Tee (T:ackerman@dorsai.dorsai.org), Bullsrule (Will Temby: 23jordan@mhtc.net), and Fishstic (Meggy Wilkins: Meggy@juno.com)
Summary: Tempus escapes from jail with another time-traveling plan to destroy Lois and Clark. A round-robin story composed in the IRC undernet #fanfic channel by Twinkles, Tee, Bullsrule and Fishstic.
AUTHORS' NOTE: This is a story a group of us got together to write on IRC, in the undernet channel #fanfic. We each took turns at writing, similar to how "The Banana Story" <g> was done. We still get together in there every now and then to try to write a little something. If you've ever got extra time, come join us!
***
<Tee> "Clark Jerome Kent!" shouted Lois from the bedroom. "Get in here now!" Clark cringed. He knew Lois only called him by his middle name when she was mad at him.
"Coming honey," he called as he made his way into the bedroom.
"Clark," Lois began. "Look at the bed! It takes you just a second to make it, but you leave it looking like that anyway!"
Clark sighed. "Well, I'm gonna be going back to bed in it anyway, so why make it?" He reasoned.
<Twinkles> Lois sighed. "Well, not for a while! It's only 2 pm!"
Clark sighed again. Was it that time of month already??
<Bullsrule> Clark zipped around and made the bed. Then Lois pushed him out the door, and they flew off to meet Bobby Bigmouth.
<Fishstic> Bobby ate Luby's out of business while he gave Lois and Clark some information. "Tempus has escaped from jail," he said.
<Tee> "Tempus!" Lois and Clark exclaimed together, with looks of disbelief on their faces.
"Yeah! Tempus," repeated Bobby after sucking a lo mein noodle between his lips. "And the last thing he said to anyone before he escaped, was that he was going to get revenge on two reporters."
<Twinkles> Lois and Clark wondered what kind of revenge could be in store for them. As they walked home that night, they were soon to find out! Tempus appeared from around the corner. "Going somewhere?" he grinned menacingly.
<Bullsrule> Tempus quickly pulled out a gun, and led them into an alleyway. He made them get onto the time machine, but it seemed different this time. Tempus hopped on and pulled the lever.
<Fishstic> All of a sudden, they were in <dramatic pause> the past! <expected me to say the future, huh <g>> Tempus, having failed to kill Clark as a baby, was now going after Baby Lois, and brought Lois and Clark along to watch!
<Tee> "All right Ellen, push!!" chanted Sam Lane.
"Shut up!" screamed a tired Ellen. "You did this to me and you should be suffering too!"
Suddenly the room was filled with a baby's cry. Ellen and Sam held hands and looked in awe at the tiny bundle the doctor held up.
<Twinkles> "It's a girl!" the doctor exclaimed. Lois, Clark, and Tempus watched from the window. This was horrible! Lois felt herself growing cold with fear. If they didn't do something, she could be dead soon! Then Tempus....
<Bullsrule> started to pull out his gun again. Clark tried to stop him, but Tempus had the gun coated with Kryptonite. Clark fell to the ground like a ton of bricks. Just at the last second,
<Fishstic> Tempus had a heart attack, and died <hey, I'm writing, I can do this!> But then, with Tempus's life force <to quote Zara> ended, the time machine self-destructed! "Uh-oh" Lois and Clark said, looking at each other ...
<Tee> "Clark! What will we do??" Lois asked frantically. Clark, his usual calm self answered, "Lois, where there's a Will there's a way." <g>
<Twinkles> Clark picked up Lois and flew to the time machine as fast as possible. It was already beginning to fade from sight. They leaped at it....but...fell... THWOMP! Right onto the ground...The time machine was gone!!!
<Bullsrule> "OK, let's stop and think a while, Lois." Clark said rationally. Meanwhile, the new parents spotted Lois and Clark.
<Fishstic> Sam and Ellen, noticing the people looking at them in awe, were very confused.
<Tee> Sam walked over to them. "Excuse me, can we help you?" Lois and Clark's eyes brightened at the same time.
"Actually," began Lois, "I think you can!" Clark finished with a grin.
<Bullsrule> "Well, what do you need?" Sam asked. Lois quickly reconsidered, remembering the consequences in Back to the Future.
"Oh, I'm sorry, we are in the wrong room da...sir," Lois babbled. She grabbed Clark's arm and hustled out of the room.
<Fishstic> Clark and Lois decided to try to contact H. G. Wells, but how? Then an idea occurred to them ... take out an ad in the Daily Planet!
<Tee> Half an hour later Lois and Clark arrived at the DP. They heard shouting from the back of the newsroom. "Narcross! Judd! Would ya concentrate on your work and not each other!" came the bellow. It came from a handsome young man.
"Chief???" Lois and Clark said together.
<Bullsrule> Perry White continued on his rounds around the newsroom. He always hounded his reporters. He didn't hear Lois and Clark over the buzz of the room, luckily. He looked
<Fishstic> at them, and got the strangest look on his face. He turned away from what he was doing and approached them ...
<Tee> "Can I help you, folks?" he asked with just a trace of impatience in his voice.
"We'd like to place an ad," Lois managed to get out once she got hold of herself. Talking to Perry like this felt very odd.
<Bullsrule> "Well, what do you have in mind?" he asked, Lois and Clark having seemingly taken on new importance. Potential advertisers were always a priority.
<Tee> Lois and Clark looked at each other knowing that what was to come wouldn't be easy. They knew it would sound strange to Perry.
"Well, we want to take out a full page ad. In it should be written, 'Wells, L&C 1967.'" Clark said with a nervous look on his face.
<Fishstic> Perry just looked at them like they had two heads
<each>, and did what they said. 'I gat more and more weirdos in here everyday' said the expression on his face.
<Bullsrule> They went into his office and filled out the forms for the date (8/2051) and payment. Clark whipped out his wallet, and realized it was empty.
<Fishstic> He realized this is probably a good thing, considering the bill would be dated in later years... "Um, can we put in on some sort of credit?"
<Tee> Perry looked at Clark incredulously again. "Credit, son? You're saying in 2051, you'll drop in and pay me?"
"Well, Ah," laughed Clark nervously. "I was thinking more along the lines of having it dropped off on your desk in a plain envelope somewhere around, oh, say, 1997."
<Bullsrule> Lois and Clark thought that Perry figured "Well, if this isn't true, I can always not run the ad..." because he stuck out his hand for Clark to shake.
That done, HG Wells dropped by immediately. "How'd you two get into this mess?" Herbert asked, sounding like a parent.
<Fishstic> "Well, Tempus started it!" Lois said, sounding like a child. "Oh, BTW, he's dead, of course, that's what we keep thinking about Lex, and he never dies, so why do we keep thinking that he does? We need new writers, who ... " Clark stopped Lois's babbling by saying ...
<Tee> "Thank goodness you got here, Mr. Wells."
HG shook his head. "Tut tut," he admonished. "The two of you have a nasty habit of getting into the most ludicrous situations. I'm almost eager to hear what Tempus had planned for the two of you this time." Then Lois, Clark, and Wells simultaneously noticed Perry standing and staring at the three of them open mouthed.
<Bullsrule> "What in Sam Hill's going on here?!?!?!" Perry yelled, a little too loudly. Suddenly the whole newsroom was looking at them. This was an uncomfortable situation, and Perry didn't like it. Suddenly,
<Fishstic> Perry pulled them into the Ed-in Chief's office to escape all those eyes. (Perry was only in charge of part of the newsroom. He had not yet worked his way up to being editor.) "What did you say about Tempus?!!? If I could get my hands on him.
<Tee> "Mr. White, you know Tempus? I think you must be thinking of a different one," said Lois.
"Aw, Lois honey, cut out that Mr. White stuff. You haven't called me that in years!" Lois and Clark stared at Perry.
"That's right kids," Perry said. "It's me. Perry White of your time."
<Bullsrule> "But Chief, you're so....young!" Clark objected. "Well...that's hard to explain. See, Tempus wanted to destroy the Daily Planet. So, he got me and my double from 1966 and switched our bodies. This way, in 1996, I'd be inexperienced, and the paper would die. Now, do you know where he is?" Perry said, with a slight hatred in his eye. Clark had only seen this look once, and that was when Max Deter tried to steal Lois.
<Fishstic> "So, do you know ... everything?" <dramatic pause>
"Yes, son, I do. You'd think an old news hound like me would've seen it, but since it was the last thing I ever would have expected, I guess that's why I didn't. Anyway, the important thing is we get things back to the way they should be."
<Tee> Wells sighed with relief. "Yes, let's," he agreed with Perry. Wells turned and started walking to the door. Lois, Clark, and Perry followed. "Oh, Mr. White, that won't be necessary. You can wait here." Wells explained. "All we have to do is travel to the point just before Tempus switched you and the Mr. White of this time. Lois, Clark, and I simply stop that switch from taking place, and all is well."
<Bullsrule> "Well, we were switched about 2 months ago." With that Lois and Clark followed Wells to the outside of the building.
"Here. This is a handheld version of the time machine. Just enter the day, month and year and off you go!" And he went. Lois and Clark looked at each other with exasperation.
<Tee> "He seems so...perky" complained Lois.
"Well perky or not, here we go!" Clark said as he pressed the button on their little time machine, sending them after Wells to stop The Great Perry Switch. The three of them showed up just in time to catch Tempus before entering the DP building.
<Bullsrule> Clark zoomed over to Tempus. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked, in his most demanding voice.
"Ah, Clark. I thought you'd backtrack to this event," Tempus replied.
<Tee> "And that's why I made sure to bring this with me!" Tempus pulled out a chunk of kryptonite that immediately began to weaken Clark.
"That may work on him, but it doesn't work on me!" shouted Lois as she charged at Tempus.
<Bullsrule> "Haha...Lois, you were always the hotheaded one," Tempus said, pulling out the same Kryptonite coated gun he'd tried to use on Baby-Lois. "Now, step away. I have a job to do." That's when the shot rang out, and Tempus crumpled to the ground.
<Tee> Lois and Clark spun around in confusion. Wells stood behind them holding a small silver gun. "Oh my! My aim is quite good if I do say so myself!" he exclaimed.
Lois grabbed the Kryptonite and threw it as far away as she could.
Clark regained some of his strength and made his way over to feel for Tempus's pulse. He looked up. "He's dead," he announced. Suddenly, he and Lois realized that they were fading. "We're fading!"
"No," corrected Wells, "this OCCURENCE is fading."
<Bullsrule> "You're being returned. Since Tempus is dead, you no longer exist in this time. You will be returned back to the last thing you were doing."
"What about Perry?" Lois asked with concern.
<Tee> "Perry will be fine. Life will go on for him as if nothing out of the ordinary happened...because nothing out of the ordinary DID happen. We stopped it. And as for you, you won't remember any of this either."
<Bullsrule> Whoosh! "Clark Jerome Kent!" shouted Lois from the bedroom. "Get in here now!"
Clark cringed. He knew Lois only called him by his middle name when she was mad at him. "Coming, honey," he called as he made his way into the bedroom.
"Clark," Lois began. "Look at the bed! It takes you just a second to make it, but you leave it looking like that anyway!"
Clark sighed. "Well, I'm gonna be going back to bed in it anyway, so why make it?" He reasoned.
<Tee> Lois sighed. "Well, not for a while! It's only 2 pm!" Clark sighed again. Was it that time of month already??
"You know, Lois," Clark said with an impish grin, "We don't have any work to do, no sources to meet, in fact, we have absolutely nothing to do at all. And here's a bed, unmade and ready to be used, and here we are, the perfect people to use it."
<Bullsrule> "Clark..." Lois whispered, interrupted by the phone. Clark got it, angry about the interruption.
"Yes?" he said.
"Clark, this is Perry. We need to talk..."
<Tee> Clark looked at Lois with puppy dog sad eyes. So much for their little afternoon fun. "Sure, what is it Chief?" he forced himself to sound cheerful.
"Clark, you don't happen to know anything about a plain envelope on my desk, do ya? It has money in it, and I can't imagine where it came from. You didn't put it there, didja?"
Clark answered, "Money, Perry? No, I don't know anything about that."
"Oh," responded Perry sounding awfully confused. "Well where in the Sam hill did it come from?" he wondered as he thanked Clark and hung up.
Clark turned to Lois and grinned again...
<Tee> At the DP, outside of Perry's office, an older man stood with a satisfied smile on his face. He knew Perry wouldn't remember anything, but he felt he had to pay the money for the ad anyway. HG Wells went on his way.
THE END
(group.txt)