7.13 Exit by MR and AoT (Part V)

As retold by Bill C

AoT: And now, the big plug--
[KK snickers]
AoT: --for Radio...what are you, twelve?
KK: I can't help it today. I'm in too good a mood.
ED: Why?
KK: My episode of Supernatural airs tonight.
TW: Oh, okay. The pink succubus thing?
KK: Yeah. But hey--at least I got to make out with Jensen again.
ED: Good for you!
AoT: Okay, okay. We open on a deserted street somewhere, with various little stores, and then we fade to an alley...pan over and zoom in on a doorknob. A hand reaches into the shot and turns the doorknob well past its limits--we hear a loud snapping sound--and opens the door.
MR: Cut from that to the inside of some sort of shop, with lots of little electrical components hanging on the walls and on shelves. A loud burglar alarm is going off during all of this. Pan down to see a somewhat familiar pair of boots walking across the carpeted floor, then stopping, and a very familiar backpack hits the floor next to the boots.
ED: Okay, so Zod fought [does math in her head] seven PAS soldiers and won?
MR: Erica. It's Zod.
ED: Riiiight.
AoT: We pan up to his face, though, and he looks a little worse for wear--a couple of bruises, some dried blood around the mouth, that sort of thing. But his attitude is completely intact.
MR: Zod looks around, apparently finally noticing the alarm going off, and traces it to a big box mounted in a corner near the ceiling...which he fries with heat vision. The alarm grinds to a halt, and Zod starts walking around pulling components off the walls and making a small pile in the middle of the room. There's a huge window at the front of the room, which has a logo on it that's reversed so we can't read it.
AoT: Once he has enough parts, Zod sits down next to the pile, pulls a crystal out of his backpack, and gets to work. Pan away from him, seemingly through the window--and now we can read the logo on it, which is the Radio Shack logo.
KK: You're kidding.
ED: What?
KK [starts snickering again]: The most powerful villain Smallville has ever had...
JG [frostily]: Excuse me?
KK: ...who once almost destroyed the Earth...
JG: Who are you calling most powerful?
KK: ...is now jacking parts from [laughing] Radio Shack.
JG: Q.E.D.
MR [after a few seconds]: Well, when you put it that way...
AoT: We needed the money, okay?
KK [falls sideways out of her chair, laughing hysterically]: Radio Shack!
AoT: .....okay, back to LuthorCorp. Zod's bitch enters the hallway Richards and Zod went through earlier, which now looks like something blew up in it--there's debris, holes in the walls, the few lights that aren't broken are flickering, sparks are flying here and there, and as we see via a long zoom-out there are blood splashes and dead bodies all over the place. PAS troops, along with some of Lex's security guys.
MR: Clark starts making his way through the hallway, sidestepping the occasional corpse, until he gets to the doorway Zod punched in earlier. Reverse shot as he looks inside the room, which is thoroughly trashed--nothing is intact, except a couple of corpses.
TW: Well, at least Zod got to spread the love around for once.
MR: Clark goes and looks in the other room, where Richards is still lying underneath the one dead PAS. Though he groans once, so we know he's okay. Then we hear another groan...which comes from a security guard on the floor that Clark actually stepped over a few seconds ago.
TW: All right, so Clark gets to do something heroic--
MR: Actually, no.
TW: Oh.
MR: Obligatory angst death...this guy's pretty much gone. But Clark goes over to check him out when he hears the second groan--sucking chest wound. We can get away with that, right?
AoT: Combined with the uniform, yeah.
TW: Okay. So...Clark at least tries to make the guy comfortable.
MR: Pretty much.
AoT: The guard busts out the necessary cliche, though, and gasps, "Stop...him..." and points off-camera as he dies.
ED: Damn, he's betting on the wrong horse there...
MR: Clark looks off that way, and we cut over to see the necessary man-sized hole in the wall.
KK [gasps for air]: Okay...okay...come on now. [gets back into her chair] This is way too cliched.
AoT: Yes, but it's cheap. After that, we then hear voices from far off-camera...cut back to Zod's bitch looking back down the hallway, and then cut to a phalanx of large men in assault gear with rather large weapons sweeping around the corner and moving down the hallway special-ops style.
MR: Behind the assault team is Lex, and behind him are another couple of suited guards with pistols. The assault team clears the hallway--now devoid of life--and the two rooms, one of them yells back "Clear!" and Lex makes a beeline for the room Richards is in as he's pulled out from under the corpse by a couple of guys.
AoT: Richards is a little groggy. "Lex...?"
MR: Lex isn't. "Where did Zod go?"
AoT: "No...no idea."
MR: And then the lights go out completely for a few seconds, then come back on. Lex goes "What the...?"
AoT: Richards shuffles over to the console he was monitoring earlier. "The drain on the subgrid...it seems to be increasing. The regional grid is still almost completely gone--"
MR: Lex again gets urgent. "What about Vault Black?"
AoT: "It appears to be stable for the moment."
MR: "Keep it that way." Pointing of finger, dramatic from-below shot. "If you have to divert power from anywhere else, do it. But Vault Black must be kept stable."
KK: Plot device, yay.
ED: I still think "Black Vault" sounds better.
AoT: And we jump-cut to Lois still sitting in her little hidey-hole in Hasaad's warehouse. Continuing the cliches, we see a hand reach in from off-camera and clamp over her mouth--but it's just Bittleman, doing the "shhh!" thing as he comes back.
ED: Okay, and Lois says "Dammit! Way to give me a heart attack!" [pauses] Cliche?
AoT [nods]: Cliche.
ED: Figures.
MR: As they sneak back to their original observation point, Bittleman explains that he was able to get to a phone booth and call the cops, and that they said they would try to get a car over there as soon as they can.
AoT: Meanwhile, the portal generator is still going strong. The patch of reddish sky we saw earlier is now larger than man-sized. Suddenly there's this flash of blue light from the middle of the patch, and a humanoid figure steps through it and lands in front of Hasaad. It's the size of a man, wearing battered gold and green armor and a helmet covering most of its face and head, and it's carrying some sort of staff weapon.
KK: Great. We're using Chinese knockoff Jaffa in this episode.
ED [to KK]: What are you talking about?
KK: Jaffa. You know, Stargate? Jack and Daniel? Egyptian... [sighs] oh, never mind.

AoT: Hasaad's grin increases in wattage. "Welcome to Earth, loyal soldier."
MR: The humanoid takes off its helmet and looks up, revealing a pretty damn inhuman face. Solid yellow eyes, gray skin, fangs, a small amount of drool, and just about everybody except Hasaad takes four steps back from it as it growls and pulls out a weird-looking pistol, which it presents to Hasaad.
AoT: Hasaad takes the weapon. "Thank you. Soon your brothers will be here..." Loud voice again. "And we can truly begin to rectify the Kryptonian mistake!"
MR: Pan over to some goons who look completely confused, then over to Thug #2 who's got the necessary "What the fuck is that?" look going. Then cut to Lois and Bittleman, who both say "What the hell?!?"
ED: "I...I don't think the police are going to cut it, Ted." God, Lois is just Little Miss Obvious in this episode!
KK: Someone has to do it, Lana and Chloe are dead, and Clark's not there. Guess who's left?
ED: Dammit!

Continued...