By Lynn S. M. <lois_and_clark_fan_at_verizon.net> (Replace_at_with@)
Rated: G
Submitted: November 2011
Summary: Tempus learns that even when it comes to irony, there can be too much of a good thing.
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None of the characters discussed herein belong to me. They are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I am only borrowing them for a little not-for-profit fun.
***
And to think, Tempus used to love irony.
As Tempus paced his cell, he wondered anew at how such a seemingly good idea could go so amiss. He had thought back then that the idea was sheer genius: If Krypton had never been doomed, the baby Kal-El would never have been sent to Earth, and the world would be gloriously free of both Superman and Utopia.
He had spent the better part of a year assembling data on the distant planet’s demise, and another two years consulting with the most intelligent scientists on Earth to determine how to prevent the planet’s destruction. (The fools had thought they were working on a way to save Earth should something similar happen to it.) Then more of his life was wasted finding the means to accomplish interplanetary time travel.
His evidence, along with Jor-El’s testimony, had convinced the ruling council that action must be taken. The red planet’s scientists had pored over the writings of their Terran counterparts and had quickly determined how to adapt the results for their own purposes. Holes of great depth were drilled in strategic locations around the planet, thereby relieving it of the internal pressure which would have caused it to explode.
Tempus had saved Krypton.
He was a hero.
And because of him, a certain baby would never reach earth, thereby giving Tempus free reign to practice his villainy in a decidedly un-Utopian society.
Tempus sighed as he continued his pacing. He had reveled for two decades in that delicious irony — that he had become a hero on one world for the sole purpose of being free to be a villain in another. If only the irony had stopped there. But as he had found out recently, even with irony there can be too much of a good thing.
They came a month ago. Kal-El and his cronies. Apparently, the denizens of Krypton had been so grateful to Tempus for saving their planet that they started observing his doings and the happenings of Earth. They had been disturbed to realize that their planet’s savior was not as savory as they had imagined. They also recognized that if they were to travel to Earth, they would have special powers. To repay their debt to Earth, they had decided to send some of their most honorable citizens there as a force for good.
Shortly after their arrival, that perpetual do-gooder Wells had given Kal-El a lift through time, and the end result was that Tempus was stuck here, in a prison cell. And now, out there, instead of a single Superman, there was a League of Supermen. Tempus hadn’t destroyed Utopia; he had hastened its arrival.
God, he hated irony!
THE END