Clark Luthor

CHARACTER NAME: Clark Luthor
CHARACTER SERIES: Smallville

[OOC]
Backtagging: Yep.
Threadhopping: Yep.
Fourthwalling: Prefer not.
Offensive subjects: None at the moment, will change if situations apply.

[IC]
Hugging this character: You can try but he won't like it.
Kissing this character: Same as above.
Flirting with this character: Fine if your character is female, but he'll probably see it as an invitation for manipulation.
Fighting with this character: Ask first.
Injuring this character: Ask first. You'll need kryptonite or magic to do anything to him anyway.
Killing this character: No.
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: Within reason.

Warnings: This version of Clark was raised by Lionel Luthor to be a ruthless businessman as well as an assassin of sorts. He is always looking out for his own interests and has zero qualms against killing. He's a villain but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a douche, particularly if your character is potentially useful to him, but he is not a nice guy by nature. And he expects to collect on any debts.


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Clark's desk is normally neat and organized, with folders and papers filed cleanly in their places. There may be a glass of scotch or wine, some small item of interest from one of his development companies, and his laptop docked into its charging station.

Zara's heated basking box has rather taken over the desk now. The nesting fire-lizard has scattered sand across most of its surface, picky about which grains go where, before creating a little hollow in which to lay her eggs. A small clutch of six, guarded jealously by the hawk-sized golden queen. Her eyes whirl with purple and orange as she watches everyone who approaches.

Since moving into the CEO's office of LuthorCorp Tower, Clark has made several changes to how his father liked to keep things. The expensive paintings and high-class liquor bottles are still there, of course, but the desk has been completely redecorated to suit Clark's personal style. It's clean and organized, hosting a slim modern computer and materials relevant to his current projects, as well as a landline telephone. On one side of the desk, however, there is what many might take to be a Zen sand garden, but the sands are warmed from below with a thermal generator hidden inside, and this is where Zara tends to spend her time in his office, soaking up the heat like a little golden sponge.

She's stretched out in it now, dozing as she listens to Clark at work, sleepily content. Little does she know that shortly, a friend will be stopping in.

Clark glances at the time, and saves his work, closing down the program. Doc should be arriving in his office any moment now, and shortly thereafter, their visitor will be here.

Things at LuthorCorp have settled down significantly since Lionel was officially declared dead, and as far as Clark is concerned, it's for the better. He has free rein over the company now, and while he also has far more business responsibilities than before, it's no more than he was expecting.

He's also been branching out into the Nexus, little by little, searching for ideas and resources that would be helpful here. Sometimes it leads him down unexpected paths.

He stands behind his desk on the top floor of the LuthorCorp tower, looking out the window at the city below.

The day began like any other day. Lionel is still gone, Clark is still CEO and sole heir of LuthorCorp, and things are going better than they ever have.

But today, there's something different. He's found the mirror box again, hidden amongst Lionel's things that he left behind, and Clark decides perhaps it's worth investigating.

Doc is not at the mansion at the moment, but he hardly needs her there to talk to her, and gives her a call as he looks the artifact over.

So. This is it.

Clark turns the silver device over in his hands. It looks so simple. So... ordinary. Yet it has the power to change the world.

This is the one thing he can't risk on a foolhardy move. It has to be studied, thoroughly and in detail, before activating it. Who knows if it could leave a passageway open behind him, to let Lionel follow him?

And besides, Tess is out of town right now. He could have her back in a heartbeat, but he decides to let her have her fun while he and Doc satisfy their suspicions about the device first.

The basement of the Luthor mansion is many things. Wine cellar, storage unit, kinky sex dungeon. Today sees the use of one of the barred cells, almost like a prison, except with no one as accountable as police standing guard.

This cell is occupied by one 'Major' Zod, still in a borrowed jumpsuit, and looking annoyed by that. He's kneeling in the center of the floor as if trying to meditate, although his burning gaze is fixed on a pair of dogtags hanging on a wall peg, far out of reach. His face is still bruised, the skin on his cheek split and scabbed, and there's at least one gap in between his teeth where a tooth or two has been knocked out.

When the summons came in this morning, Clark was tempted to simply ignore them and let Lionel rage about it later. But he knows that defying his father, especially in this manner, could be not only inconvenient but downright dangerous. So it's with great reluctance, and with as much cold poise as he can summon, that he reports to his father's lab promptly at nine A.M.

The moment he enters, he's once again tempted to leave. In front of him, there's an upright table, the kind that tips back once the subject is in place, adorned with a set of metal restraints that glisten faintly with a green kryptonite coating. Around the table, scientists swarm, and there's a lead crate on another, smaller table nearby.

Not a good sign.

"Father?"

Lionel turns from talking with his lead scientist. "Clark," he says, and when he smiles there's little genuine warmth in it. He puts a gloved hand on his son's shoulder, and it feels heavy and oppressive. "Glad you're here, son. I have something to show you."

Clark lets himself be lead over to the small table, avoiding the other, and he can feel the weakness, the burning pain already just from being ten feet away. "Is this about your meteor rock experiments?" he says, challenging.

"Oh, yes." Lionel opens the lead crate, and pulls out that looks like a black rock. Against his black gloved hands, it begins to glow faintly purple. "As it turns out, superheated green meteor rock yields a new form of the mineral. Preliminary tests show a new type of radiation that we have never seen before."

"Is it dangerous?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Lionel looks at him, the glowing rock in between them, an invisible wall behind which Clark is trapped. "That's why I asked you here. We need to find out what this rock will do to you. And there's only one way to know for sure."

Clark feels a coldness seizing in his chest, a betrayal. He can still vividly remember his appalling lack of control when he was dosed with red kryptonite, unleashing the monster within that he keeps caged and controls through the facade of civilization. He doesn't particularly want that to ever happen again. Doesn't want to lose control. "Why?"

"Because," Lionel says, curling fingers like claws around the black kryptonite, "you've let it slip that you have a weakness. And it's not quite certain what the other varieties will do to you. Therefore, it's prudent to learn their effects and how to counter them in a controlled, laboratory setting, to avoid another disaster like last time. To allow us to prepare."

Clark looks at the rock, suppressing a shudder. He does not like kryptonite, in any variety. But even he can see the wisdom in what Lionel is asking. And even though he hates kryptonite, he doesn't quite hate Lionel more. Not yet. Not where he'd be willing to kill him over it. "Fine. Let's get this over with."

He makes sure his cuffs are fully fastened around his wrists before allowing himself to be buckled into the restraints. It still burns, but it's not in direct contact with his skin, and he can fool himself into thinking it doesn't hurt as much, even a little. Once he's strapped in place, the lab techs tilt it back, laying him out horizontally. He feels helpless, pinned down like an insect waiting to be dissected, and it takes all of his civilized manners to grit his teeth and endure it in a dignified manner.

Lionel hands the black kryptonite to the lead scientist once more, who looms over Clark with it. "Mister Luthor. We're going to expose you in increments, to allow you to describe what you're feeling. Please cooperate fully and we can get this over with in a jiffy."

"Understood," Clark growls, his jaw clenched. Even this small amount of kryptonite is agony, but he doesn't want to show weakness. Has been conditioned not to. Not unless it's to Lionel alone.

The rock is lowered towards his chest. There's a rising buzz in his muscles, his bones, his very blood. Not pain, but something other, a wild energy that feels at once harmless and deadly, searing hot and bone-chilling cold.

And that's the last thing he remembers for a while.

Outside the lab, the air is filled with an earth-shattering kaboom, and the wall goes flying outward, a twisted mass of concrete and steel rebar. A dark blur speeds out of the hole, leaving behind it a ruined lab, torn down by the bare hands of one man.

It's this lab in which Clark awakens, and looks around him, wide-eyed, seeing the bodies of scientists. "Father?" he calls, hopping off the table and not even noticing that the restraints are twisted and broken on the floor. "Father, are you here?"

Silence answers him.

Unnerved by the lack of his father, and the total destruction of the lab, Clark speeds off in search of Victor. The one person he knows that he can still trust.