FIC: "Reunion", Part 22 of ?? (Smallville, PG-13)
Previous Parts
PART TWENTY-TWO
Jor-El watched Martha Kent leave. He hoped - for her sake, for Kal-El’s sake, for the man’s own sake - that Jonathan Kent would be well when she found him.
Beside him, Lara sighed and he tore his gaze away from the door. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. Reminders of their childless state - in every meaning of that word - always hit her hard, and to have the question from their own long-lost son… But it had been a question a long time coming, he was sure, and it had not been easy for the boy to ask it. Jor-El had not put the question to Martha Kent, and he had already decided he likely would not, but his observations told him that the House of Kent was as childless as they were - more so, even, because Kal-El - Clark - was their only child, and he was not of their blood. It was no wonder, then, that Martha Kent had seemed so perplexed when he’d thanked her: the House of El had effectively gifted them with a child those years ago, and it seemed to him that the gift had been graciously received.
More than gracious. Martha Kent always looked at their shared son as though he were a miracle.
That element of the situation could not have turned out any better.
“Yes,” Lara replied. “I think so.”
“You should eat more,” he told her, thinking now on his initial days on Earth the first time. He took her plate and scooped up some of the scrambled eggs - like the bread, a familiar if somewhat different foodstuff to those who had never been to Earth before - that Kal-El had masterfully prepared and put them on the plate. He added another slice of toast, heavily buttered, and some of the fruit - he’d forgotten how much he’d enjoyed apples - and then set the plate down in front of her.
“Jor, surely this is too much-”
“Back home, yes,” he replied, “this would be too much. But trust me - and you, too, brother,” he added, glancing at Zor-El. “Sol-3 is different, and while I’m no doctor, I do know that we will need to change our eating habits to suit this different environment and the changes in our bodies that result from it. When I first arrived, I was quite unwell until I did so - these special abilities may be activated by the light of the yellow sun, but we will require additional energy to use them and to prevent…well…mood swings.” He gestured at Kal-El. “Didn’t you notice how much he is eating?”
“I attributed that to adolescence,” Zor-El replied, to which Lara nodded and added, “As did I, especially after what I saw him eating during the middle of the night. Ugh!” She wrinkled her nose a little. He’d always found that adorable.
“What was that?” he asked. He didn’t remember her leaving him during the night, but given how tired they’d all been, it was not out of the question that he could have slept through her absence.
“A simple thing, bread with a nutty spread - I can’t recall the word he taught me for it right now - and a sweet, amber-colored goo. It was only barely edible - the nut-spread saved it entirely.”
Ah. He knew what she was talking about and he smiled in amusement. “Give it a day or two and you may find yourself craving it, Lara-love,” he told her.
She looked a little scandalized at the thought, but she dug into the food on her plate with gusto, as if she had been hiding hunger out of politeness, and Zor-El followed suit, dishing up more food onto his own plate.
Jor-El sipped at his milk - Lois Lane had smirked at him earlier when she noticed what he had chosen to pour into his glass, though he was not entirely certain what that had been about - and observed the two girls and his son. The boy looked comfortable with them and Jor-El was glad he had such good friends to stand by him in this difficult and uncertain time.
The girls were teasing him again, as they had done when Martha Kent had arrived at the table, but though he listened to them and concentrated on their words and their unfamiliar speech patterns - for humans, it had been a very long time since he’d been on Earth, and of course the language had changed somewhat - he could not quite grasp what they were talking about.
“So all the meteor mutants who were mysteriously stopped-” Chloe said with an inquisitive look in her eyes.
His son nodded. “Most of them, yeah. Why do you think I always disappeared?”
“So you really meant it,” Lois said, “when you talked about saving people last night. You’ve really been doing it.”
A sort of shy tilt of the head and his son answered her question: “Yeah, I have.”
What is a ‘meteor mutant’? he wondered - but before he took advantage of the pause in their conversation to ask, his son’s head straightened and an intense look of concentration came over his face, as though listening to something -
And Jor-El realized that he could hear it, too. At least I think I’m hearing the same thing. Mechanical. A modern car? Driven by a girl, sighing - ‘I hope Mr. Kent is okay…’
“What is it?” Chloe asked, and her voice broke his concentration. He answered before his son did: “A girl in a car?” he said.
The three of them looked at him in surprise. “Yeah,” his son confirmed and then, to the girls: “Lana.”
Those two simple syllables - a name? - meant something to Chloe and Lois. “Does she know about you?” Lois asked. “I mean, the alien part or the powers or any of that?”
“No,” Kal-El replied. “And…I don’t think I’m ready to tell her.”
“Then…you should probably head her off at the pass,” Chloe said, a twinkle in her eye. Jor-El recognized the phrase from the westerns he had watched those many years ago and realized that her use of it was a kind of joke - another in the long practice of teasing his son this morning.
Kal-El looked nervous and uncertain, but quickly Chloe gave him a little shove - reminiscent of Lois’s behavior the evening before - and said, “Go talk to her. Get her to leave. Before she comes in the house and you have to explain your birth parents to her.”
Kal-El finally nodded and taking a deep breath, he left them and went outside.
“We should move into the common room,” Jor-El said to Lara and Zor-El softly. “The girl who has just arrived does not know the truth about Kal-El and there is some concern about her finding out.”
“Doesn’t sound very promising,” Zor-El said as he settled onto the couch, shaking his head. “And does the boy only have these few girl-friends? Has he no male acquaintances?”
“I’m sure it’s simply a coincidence,” he told his brother, but he wasn’t certain of it himself. Secrets were not conducive to a great number of friendships.
“I know the perfect thing to keep us occupied,” Chloe said with a devious grin, standing beside a bookcase, and held up a…Jor-El wasn’t sure what it was, though it seemed to be a kind of book, with a shiny cover. Chloe opened it and displayed it, opened a small ways in, for all to see:
It was an album of pictures.
Of a very young Kal-El.
And in a few images he wore no garments of any kind, as small children often did, splashing in a large wash-basin.
Jor-El decided then and there that he liked Chloe Sullivan very much. But he didn’t dwell on the thought and instead drew Lois aside as Chloe sat down beside Lara and Zor-El on the couch. “This Lana,” he said softly to Lois. “Who is she? And why should she not be told about us?”
Lois looked a little startled by the questions. “Well, actually Chloe would be the better one to ask about this, Mr., um, El. Jor-El.” She paused a moment, as if puzzling over how to address him, but he didn’t say anything about it: human - North American human - and Kryptonian traditions did not always match, and he would prefer that she, and everyone else, simply be comfortable speaking to him - one of the most important goals of his with the House of Kent and adherents - rather than to impose Kryptonian norms. He, and his wife and his brother, was the guest and therefore duty-bound to prevent as many inconveniences to his hosts as personally possible.
Lois continued: “Anyway, I haven’t known Clark and the Kents as long as Chloe has, but I can tell you what I know?”
He nodded. “Yes, please.”
She spoke softly and quickly: her engaging manner kept his attention even when he had difficulty following her. The girl Lana, it seemed, had once resided quite close to the House of Kent and so Kal-El - Clark - had known her most of his life on Earth and grown attached to her. She had been at times his companion - “girlfriend” was the word Lois had used of course; that bit of the language had not greatly changed since his first visit to Sol-3 - but Lois was not sure of their current status. Lana had recently been attached to another young man, but when that connection had actually been severed Lois was not certain, or if it had been at all. She knew simply this: that in the most recent weeks, Lana had seemed to be unattached, but more and more solicitous of his son. And his son, it had seemed, had been eager to attempt to reconnect with her.
It did not seem like a very healthy relationship to him, but even after a Kryptonian year on Sol-3, he had not understood everything about human relationships. The situation with Louise McCallum had taught him that.
And this Lana of the House of Lang, mentioned Lois before she could stop herself, was related to and greatly resembled Louise McCallum. So Chloe had told her.
He thanked Lois for the information. Curiosity drove him to peek through the kitchen window - coincidentally as this Lana girl looked directly at the house - and his heart stopped, if only momentarily. He understood now all too well what his relationship with Louise McCallum had really been, and that Lara Lor-Van was the woman in all the universe he loved, but that did not negate the old emotions of his youth. Lana was the girl from the photograph in his son’s room, and the photograph did not do her justice: by Rao - by God - by whatever powers controlled the universe, this girl Lana looked like her House sister Louise. Looking through the window, Lois quickly behind him, and seeing this Lana and seeing his son was as though a glance into his own youth.
The girl noticed him, to his dismay, and so employing the preternatural speed that he now knew he possessed, he stepped away until he was out of sight.
He could only hope that their relationship was more productive and happier than his with Louise had been - but the argument they were having now, and what Lois had told him, told him that this was unlikely.
Oh, my son, I would not wish this pain on you for all the known galaxies.
“Hey, look at this!”
It was Chloe speaking from the common room and so he, and Lois (at his heels again), returned to her, and his own family, to see what this was about. She was waving a photograph in the air and Lois snatched it from her. “I didn’t take the Kents for Polaroid types,” Lois said in surprise - and then, apparently seeing what the photograph had captured, she exclaimed, “Oh my god! What is this, ‘baby’s first tractor lift’?”
“Looks like,” Chloe told her. “It was hidden behind ‘baby’s first family portrait’. Can’t blame the Kents for taking a picture of something like this with a kind of film that doesn’t require outside processing.”
Jor-El had no idea what she was talking about, but he looked over Lois’s shoulder and was surprised by what he saw: Kal-El, not much older than he must have been upon his arrival on Earth, lifting some kind of heavy mechanical apparatus, an agricultural tool of some kind. He had not realized that his son’s latent abilities would make themselves known so quickly. He had thought, knowing what little he did about biology and his own experiences, that perhaps the abilities would appear with adolescence. It seemed that the strength, at the very least, had developed early on.
The House of Kent was doubly blessed for continuing to embrace his son after such a surprise.
“Do you see all these images, Jor-El?” Lara said from her seat on the couch. “So many images of our son, practically from the moment they took him into their House. Such an indulgence to document so many moments of his childhood. How treasured he must have truly been even in the beginning, for the House of Kent to do this.”
“That is what this signifies, isn’t it, Jor-El?” Zor-El asked a little cautiously. “We haven’t misinterpreted this book, have we?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The photography when I was here before wasn’t quite like this, but…it seems like there are more than expected, so, yes, I think it is a very good sign.”
“Will you come and look with us?” Lara asked. “There are some truly beautiful pictures. The love in their faces…I have nearly cried several times these last moments.”
Jor-El hesitated to answer, hearing fragments of the argument between his son and this girl of the House of Lang, but as he heard it end, he made up his mind. “No. You’ve heard him argue with this girl?”
“Not that we could understand it,” Zor-El answered, “but yes. The hearing came upon us as we browsed this book.”
“As Zor-El said,” Lara confirmed, a little sadly. “I can only assume that it has ended badly…. If only he remembered his first language - more that these few words, subconsciously as he did this morning in his sleep - I would try to comfort him.”
“And I’m sure he’d appreciate it, my love,” Jor-El told her. “If he is anything like me, I don’t think it wise to leave him alone. I will try to speak to him.”
He went to the back of the couch and dropped Lara a kiss from there before walking back into the kitchen, back towards the door, where Lois stood again, watching Lana’s vehicle leave. He rested a paternal hand on her shoulder. “I thank you for your assistance, Lois,” he said softly.
“No problem,” she replied, a little startled.
He nodded and then looked outside. Through the glass and the screen he could see Kal-El, sighing and looking to the sky as if it had the answers he sought before marching his way to the place where they had hidden Lara’s ship the evening before. With no little concern, he went outside to follow his son.
Jor-El stepped inside the outbuilding - barn, if he was remembering the word correctly - cautiously. He could hear Kal-El breathing - a pleasant contrast to the sound of the girl’s car traveling down the nearby road - but it took a little work to actually find him, past Lara’s ship, up the stairway and on a couch in the lofted room. “May I join you?” he asked, still standing a few steps down from the loft. He took care to remember to address him in English: it was clear that he had not yet undergone his training - though given the interference from Dru-Zod, he shouldn’t be surprised, he told himself.
Kal-El - His name is Clark here, you must remember it despite his assurances of yesterday evening, Jor - was not surprised by his intrusion. Likely he had heard him coming. “Yeah,” the boy said. “Okay.”
Jor-El stepped up and took in the space in silence: the couch (red, with a blue and black throw over the back - for all Clark’s claims to remember nothing from before his arrival on Earth, save Lara’s name, there were hints at his remembering more than he realized), the desk strewn with papers and books, the old furniture, more books scattered throughout, maps of Sol-3, a long, antique mirror, and - and this surprised him the most, because he was not certain what it meant in the larger scope of his son’s life and interests - a small telescope. He could hear the sound of livestock through the open window - cattle, mostly, though he had also noted horses on the lower level - and now that he was on the upper level he could discern the breathing of a large dog at his son’s feet, a gold-colored one. He vaguely recalled that the breed’s name had something to do with the nation of Canada, to the north, but he could not remember what it was. No matter. A minor thing, he told himself.
He took a seat beside his son on the couch. The dog did not stir. “Are you well, Clark?” he asked hesitantly, tripping over the name a little.
“I meant it, yesterday. You can call me Kal.” The boy fidgeted a little as he said this, but he seemed sincere.
“You’re certain?” Jor-El asked. “It does not distress you, to be called ‘Kal-El’?”
His son hesitated, almost imperceptibly, but Jor-El caught it. “No,” the boy said. “It doesn’t bother me, now that I know it wasn’t really you before. I just - it’ll take some getting used to.”
It took him a moment to find his way through the words, but when he finally understood what had been said, he decided to drop the matter. It was twice now that that his son had said that his birth name would be acceptable, and while Jor-El recognized that there was something hidden behind the words, he thought it best to take the words at face value, at least for the moment. “Then I ask again, Kal-El: are you well?” He tried to infuse the words with as much parental concern as he could muster.
Kal-El sighed. “Yeah,” he finally answered. “It’s just that…things are always a little weird with Lana, and I always have to lie to her, but…it’s been a long time since I was really mad at her like I was just now.”
Jor-El nodded, though he suspected that things were a smidgen more complicated (or at least seemed that way) than his son was letting on. It was always so with youths. “This Lana,” he said slowly, “she is your…girlfriend?”
Kal-El bit his lip. “Not at the moment. Maybe never, now.”
Ah. Of course. Isn’t that how it always is at his age?
“She resembles the girl I knew, Louise.”
Kal-El nodded. “Yeah. They’re, um, they’re related. And I…I saw the recordings, from that necklace you wore when you were here…”
Necklace…ah. The medallion. “Then you know that I thought I loved her,” Jor-El told him.
“Thought?”
“Mm-hm. It was a long time, but I learned something very important. I did not love Louise, and she did not love me.” His son looked confused by this, but he spared the boy the need to ask. “I met Louise, thought her very beautiful, but she was married, and at first I kept a distance. I - what is the word? - I pined. I longed. But Louise, you see, she made the approach. She did not love her husband - and though I had been here a long time, I did not understand that many people on Earth, in this nation, did not marry for love. She did not love her husband and her dreams were very different from his. She wanted…excitement, and I was convenient, and different, and…exotic, especially after I revealed my powers, and I was younger than her, and I was very, very stupid.”
“Don’t tell Lois that - she’d say it’s genetic.”
Jor-El laughed. “Then I will not,” he said, smiling. “But I was very stupid, Kal-El. My father sent me to Earth as a lesson, and I will tell you about that later if you wish, but I did learn many things, many lessons. The most important was that I learned what love is. I thought I knew, before, but after…I realized that I had not loved Louise, and she had not loved me, and there was a girl, on Krypton…I had not loved her either. I had pined after that girl - your uncle can tell you about how bad I was-” He paused, his smile falling from his face. Zor-El could tell Kal-El nothing; Kal-El still had not completed his training.
He shook his head and continued. “I had seen the girl on Krypton once. I did not know her name, or where she lived, or anything about her. But I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the universe, and for a very long time I was very sad because of her. On Earth, I found Louise and she was the opposite: short, dark hair, dark eyes. The girl on Krypton was tall, fair.”
“You were trying to forget her,” Kal-El said. Jor-El looked at him and realized that his son was, indeed, listening. He smiled. “Yes, exactly.”
“What happened then? When you went back to Krypton?”
“Come, Jor-El, join me in a game?” Dru-Zod encouraged. “Lu-Zak and Anra Hon-Len are gathering teams for a round of zha-te-kat. There’ll be plenty of time to mope when we’re back on Krypton.”
Jor-El shook his head. “No, go without me, Dru-Zod,” he said, returning his gaze to the document in his hands and turning the reader back on. “I’m tired. Maybe another afternoon.”
“Suit yourself,” Dru-Zod replied. “You were more fun before Sol-3.”
Jor-El shrugged off the insinuation and began reading as Dru-Zod left the quiet room. In-Zer had published another series of stories during his year-study and he was eager to catch up. But he was soon interrupted again.
“I’m sorry, but are you reading In-Zer’s new stories? That reader was already checked out of the library, and I’ve so looked forward to reading them…”
He looked up and saw a girl with short blonde hair, wearing an unfamiliar uniform. The effect was entirely alien, but she was clearly Kryptonian - obviously another year-student. Had she been required to camouflage herself as he had on Sol-3? He shrugged. “I am, but you’re welcome to them when I’m finished with this first story.” He was tired, and a nap would do him good.
“All right,” the girl replied, sitting down across from him. “I’ve waited this long already - I can wait a little longer.”
He nodded, as was polite, and tried to read, but her presence was distracting. She kept touching her hair. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, “but your hair…may I ask what necessitated such a drastic style?” Such short hair - for women, at least - had not been common on Krypton for many generations.
The girl laughed. “A minor chemical accident, just two days ago. There was no way to undo the damage, so my choice was either to surprise my family with bright pink and purple hair or to cut it short. Short hair was less likely to make my mother faint on arrival.”
“A chemical accident?” he said in surprise. “May I ask how that happened?”
She smiled. “I was transporting some containers - I was training as a pilot - and another member of my cohort thought a prank in honor of my departure was needed. When the containers were opened for inspection, the chemicals sprayed into the air and thankfully I thought to duck and cover my face! As I was the only Kryptonian, my friend didn’t realize that the chemicals in the dye would bind to my hair differently that it did with the others in the cohort. The solution she’d brought to negate the effects of the dye only made it that much worse.”
It was a refreshing story - her mood was light-hearted as she told it, reminiscent of conversations he’d had on Earth rather than the staid dialogues he anticipated on his arrival home. “May I be so bold as to ask your name?” he asked. Perhaps she would converse with him later during the journey back to Krypton…
“Lara,” she said. “Lara Lor-Van.”
He recognized the name - she was the year-student the Don-Er had picked up only an hour before. “You must really enjoy In-Zer’s work,” he said. She hadn’t even bothered to change into Kryptonian clothing before coming in search of the stories.
She blushed a little. “I do. May I ask who shares this interest?”
“Joe-” he started and then corrected himself: “Jor-El. Of the House of El.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Jor-El of the most noble House of El.”
It had been a very long time since someone had teased him. He had missed it.
Jor-El shook his head at the memory and finally answered his son’s question: “When I returned to Krypton, I met your mother. We were friends, first, and then we loved.”
It would probably send the boy the wrong message, he decided, if he confided that it had turned out that Lara had been the girl he’d pined after all those years earlier. He just hadn’t realized it until after her hair had grown out again - long after they were betrothed. And the last thing he wanted to do, now that he had a small opportunity in this moment to be his son’s father, was to make things worse.
Kal-El bit his lip. “Lara…my…my mother,” he said hesitantly, and Jor-El wasn’t sure if he was continuing in the same vein or trying to change the subject, as an adolescent might.
“Yes?” Jor-El encouraged.
“She’s a pilot, right?” Kal-El finally met his eyes again after a long portion of the conversation. Jor-El nodded, curious to know where he was going with this. “So, when you guys…um, when your powers develop,” Kal-El continued, “she’ll probably want to fly, won’t she?”
What that had to do with the price of sodium on Talalak-12, Jor-El didn’t have the slightest idea, but he answered honestly. “Yes,” he replied. “I think she will enjoy it.”
“And you,” Kal-El said, “You flew when you were here before. With Louise.”
He had actually flown quite a bit long before he ever came to Smallville, but given that his son’s only real knowledge of that trip came from the medallion-recordings, his linking it with Louise was natural. “Yes, I did,” Jor-El told him, “and other times also. I enjoyed it.” He considered the look on his son’s face - part curiosity and part fear - and wondered what it actually meant. “May I ask what the real question is?” he finally asked. “Is something wrong about flying?”
“I, um, I don’t know how.”
Ah. Yes, that could indeed seem problematic. Jor-El thought back on his own experiences. The first time he had done it, he hadn’t been sure how he did it, but it had started as something else. “Do you - what is the word? - do you float? When you sleep?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
Well, that’s something at least. But the look on his face - oh. How stupid of me. “You fear it,” he realized. “To fly, to float, it frightens you.”
Kal-El sighed, almost as if relieved that Jor-El had figured it out without his having to say it. “Yeah. Everything else…once I figured it out, once I could control it, it was okay. I mean, yeah, suddenly setting things on fire or seeing through walls was scary, but…I got over it. But the floating and the flying…it just doesn’t work.”
Jor-El stood up and then turned around and pulled his son off the couch until he was standing. A distraction from his pining after Lana of the House of Lang was exactly what Kal-El needed. “Then let me help you learn.”
Jor-El heard Lois enter the barn long before he saw her, his eyes watching his son hover in midair.
He heard her breathing, muttering about “fetching the plaid-clad farm boy from Pluto”, and he smiled to himself, because that was one of the teasing phrases from her he actually understood. And then he heard her gasp -
Saw Kal-El’s concentration break -
Saw him plummet to the dirt floor of the lower level -
Saw Lois rush to his side even as he ran down the stairs, careful of his new speed, to meet them.
“Clark! Clark! Are you okay? Oh, god!”
“Kal-El? Are you well?”
His son moaned as he opened his eyes. “…so embarrassing…” he whispered, running his hand through his hair.
“God, Smallville, are you okay?”
His son began to laugh, and Lois, it seemed, took exception to it. “Hey! Don’t laugh at me! You fell almost two whole stories, Clark - from midair! What is this, another secret alien power?”
Before Jor-El could say anything, his son was sitting up - clearly unharmed, at least physically - and then standing, brushing the dirt off his denim trousers. Lois took the initiative and began brushing off the back of his shirt. “I come in here, out of the kindness of my heart, to let you know your folks are back - the Kents, I mean - and you’re doing a bad impression of a Harrier…” She paused, apparently done dusting him off. “Okay, okay,” she said with a sigh, tilting her head and rolling her eyes. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Happy now?”
She walked off before either of them could give her an answer.
“You were doing very well,” Jor-El finally said - and it was the truth. A little more practice was all that was needed and soon his son would enjoy flight as he had. And if the boy was anything at all like his mother, he would enjoy flight.
Kal-El sighed. “Are Kryptonian girls as confusing as human ones?” he asked, his eyes still on the barn door where Lois had exited.
Jor-El wasn’t sure what to say to that, though in his limited experience the answer was ‘yes’. He simply clasped his son’s shoulder and began to propel him forward. “Let us return inside, Kal-El,” he said. “We will practice again later.”
Dru-Zod, former First General of the Kryptonian Army, awoke feeling rather pleased with himself. And among the many reasons, it was clear that his essence had succeeded in coming to the fore of the vessel.
He knew that he was not the truest essence of the man Dru-Zod had been - that essence was now in the Phantom Zone, a prisoner biding his time until an escape was possible - but he held all the memories and feelings that Dru-Zod had possessed at the time he had interfaced with the computer in the cave, many years ago. He knew what had become of the true Dru-Zod - that had been Jor-El’s own fault, in fact, for providing a meticulously detailed report of the end days of Krypton in the data memory of Kal-El’s escape pod. The moment the pod had touched down on Sol-3, it had sent a signal to the cave computer, informing it of all that had transpired and setting into motion long-forgotten protocols.
And some protocols of Dru-Zod’s own design, which had infected the cave computer approximately six Kryptonian years prior to the destruction of Krypton. Even then Dru-Zod had suspected and prepared for the worse. And knowing his old friend, he had known that Jor-El would try something. That that something had been sending his only child to this barbaric, green planet, as the supposed only survivor had been quite the delight. Turning Kal-El against his birth father had been surprisingly easy: who knew these primitive bipeds would share Jor-El’s own philosophies and find the prospect of their strange little foundling conquering their planet distasteful?
And the pathetic creature that called itself Kal-El’s father - he had been a pleasure as well. He had been willing to do anything to tame the infant and bring him back to his lowly, pastoral existence, and what had remained of Dru-Zod in that painted cave had enjoyed twisting his heart with spectral hands. With his death nearing, Kal-El would have become even more malleable. Dru-Zod had relished the prospect.
But something was different now. Someone from the House of El - likely Jor-El himself, and knowing the eldest son of the House of El, his damnable wife as well - had survived. Their ship had interfaced with the cave computer upon landing only hours ago, before he had claimed his vessel.
At the very least, Dru-Zod told himself, ignoring the annoying gnat of the vessel’s essence, this shall prove to be interesting. At last my boredom shall be alleviated -
“Lex! What on earth are you doing, still in bed?”
A man of Sol-3 - human, the vessel’s memories supplied - entered the sleeping chamber. He was a man of average size, with unruly, disgusting hair and a scruffy beard. If that is the fashion here on Sol-3, he thought to himself, then I prefer the hairlessness of this vessel.
“I will not be embarrassed, son,” the man said, shaking his hand, “even if I have to drag you to Metropolis myself-”
Son. Ah, yes, he realized, this is the vessel’s father. The head of the House of Luthor. The man’s name is most unfortunate. Lyon-El almost sounds Kryptonian - though if the vessel’s memory serves, the House of El would hardly ally themselves with a man such as this.
Dru-Zod slipped out of the bed and quickly came to stand beside the human man. The transformation of the vessel had progressed as planned. He flexed his arm, squeezing his hand into a fist. Yes. Speed and strength both. Excellent.
Within a heart beat he had grabbed the man’s wrist and held it tight - just tight enough to catch his attention. “Good morning,” he told the man. “Though I doubt it will be a good day for you, Lionel of the House of Luthor.”
The man frowned, looking at his captured wrist and then at the face of the vessel - a body he had surely assumed was his son until now. “You’re not Lex,” the man said slowly, as if his puny brain could barely handle the thought.
Dru-Zod explored the vessel’s memories of this man: he was crafty, ruthless, a leader of those who did not hesitate to take what they deemed theirs, despite recent protestations of a moral change. But at the same time he was potentially dangerous: he already knew something - many things, really, but not everything - about Kal-El’s true heritage and abilities, and as a result, something of Dru-Zod’s own weaknesses. Such a man would seek power of his own. Such a man could not be permitted to continue.
The man’s eyes flickered with the beginnings of recognition.
He could not have that.
The caged voice of the vessel assailed him in retaliation, and he shouted it down. Retreat, Lex of the House of Luthor: I will prevail. You have no power any longer. He searched the vessel’s memories and came across a particular tidbit. Dru-Zod smiled. Yes, I should have known. And is it not the old saying back home on Krypton? The one Jor-El hated so much? The son becomes the father and all of that? Be glad, Lex-Luthor: your destiny is nearly fulfilled.
The vessel cowered.
Dru-Zod reached up, placed his hands on either side of the head of Lionel of the House of Luthor, and twisted.
The corpse fell with a final death twitch.
Dru-Zod straightened his back and turned towards the large windows, his skin warming in the strange yellow sunlight. Here and there bits of colored glass turned it ruddy and familiar, but it all felt the same - warm, invigorating, powerful.
Yes, he was going to enjoy conquering this planet.
Dru-Zod smiled and stepped away from the window. He dressed slowly, shaking his head at the clothing deemed fashionable by the vessel - at least they were both fond of shades of purple - but he wore it anyway. His presence could not be betrayed this early in the game over something as insignificant as cloth and stitchery; fashion would be his camouflage in these early moments. Finally he stood upright and took in his image in the mirror. Yes, he decided. This will do. As he walked back into the center of the room, he noticed a smudge on one shoe and he rubbed it against Lionel’s side. It wiped away readily. Excellent.
He searched the vessel’s memories. The vessel fought against him - a pointless attempt, but it amused him somewhat - and he slapped it down in its own mind. I require a second vessel, elder son of Luthor. And you will help me find it. I am certain that there is someone in your acquaintance who will serve well, at least for the time being.
The vessel tried to struggle again, but in doing so only lowered its mental barriers, allowing Dru-Zod full access to its most recent memories. There. Yes. I see the perfect candidate. The son of Jor-El will feel my vengeance yet.
Dru-Zod left the cooling carcass of the former head of the House of Luthor on the floor and went in search of the second vessel.
TBC
PART TWENTY-TWO
Jor-El watched Martha Kent leave. He hoped - for her sake, for Kal-El’s sake, for the man’s own sake - that Jonathan Kent would be well when she found him.
Beside him, Lara sighed and he tore his gaze away from the door. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. Reminders of their childless state - in every meaning of that word - always hit her hard, and to have the question from their own long-lost son… But it had been a question a long time coming, he was sure, and it had not been easy for the boy to ask it. Jor-El had not put the question to Martha Kent, and he had already decided he likely would not, but his observations told him that the House of Kent was as childless as they were - more so, even, because Kal-El - Clark - was their only child, and he was not of their blood. It was no wonder, then, that Martha Kent had seemed so perplexed when he’d thanked her: the House of El had effectively gifted them with a child those years ago, and it seemed to him that the gift had been graciously received.
More than gracious. Martha Kent always looked at their shared son as though he were a miracle.
That element of the situation could not have turned out any better.
“Yes,” Lara replied. “I think so.”
“You should eat more,” he told her, thinking now on his initial days on Earth the first time. He took her plate and scooped up some of the scrambled eggs - like the bread, a familiar if somewhat different foodstuff to those who had never been to Earth before - that Kal-El had masterfully prepared and put them on the plate. He added another slice of toast, heavily buttered, and some of the fruit - he’d forgotten how much he’d enjoyed apples - and then set the plate down in front of her.
“Jor, surely this is too much-”
“Back home, yes,” he replied, “this would be too much. But trust me - and you, too, brother,” he added, glancing at Zor-El. “Sol-3 is different, and while I’m no doctor, I do know that we will need to change our eating habits to suit this different environment and the changes in our bodies that result from it. When I first arrived, I was quite unwell until I did so - these special abilities may be activated by the light of the yellow sun, but we will require additional energy to use them and to prevent…well…mood swings.” He gestured at Kal-El. “Didn’t you notice how much he is eating?”
“I attributed that to adolescence,” Zor-El replied, to which Lara nodded and added, “As did I, especially after what I saw him eating during the middle of the night. Ugh!” She wrinkled her nose a little. He’d always found that adorable.
“What was that?” he asked. He didn’t remember her leaving him during the night, but given how tired they’d all been, it was not out of the question that he could have slept through her absence.
“A simple thing, bread with a nutty spread - I can’t recall the word he taught me for it right now - and a sweet, amber-colored goo. It was only barely edible - the nut-spread saved it entirely.”
Ah. He knew what she was talking about and he smiled in amusement. “Give it a day or two and you may find yourself craving it, Lara-love,” he told her.
She looked a little scandalized at the thought, but she dug into the food on her plate with gusto, as if she had been hiding hunger out of politeness, and Zor-El followed suit, dishing up more food onto his own plate.
Jor-El sipped at his milk - Lois Lane had smirked at him earlier when she noticed what he had chosen to pour into his glass, though he was not entirely certain what that had been about - and observed the two girls and his son. The boy looked comfortable with them and Jor-El was glad he had such good friends to stand by him in this difficult and uncertain time.
The girls were teasing him again, as they had done when Martha Kent had arrived at the table, but though he listened to them and concentrated on their words and their unfamiliar speech patterns - for humans, it had been a very long time since he’d been on Earth, and of course the language had changed somewhat - he could not quite grasp what they were talking about.
“So all the meteor mutants who were mysteriously stopped-” Chloe said with an inquisitive look in her eyes.
His son nodded. “Most of them, yeah. Why do you think I always disappeared?”
“So you really meant it,” Lois said, “when you talked about saving people last night. You’ve really been doing it.”
A sort of shy tilt of the head and his son answered her question: “Yeah, I have.”
What is a ‘meteor mutant’? he wondered - but before he took advantage of the pause in their conversation to ask, his son’s head straightened and an intense look of concentration came over his face, as though listening to something -
And Jor-El realized that he could hear it, too. At least I think I’m hearing the same thing. Mechanical. A modern car? Driven by a girl, sighing - ‘I hope Mr. Kent is okay…’
“What is it?” Chloe asked, and her voice broke his concentration. He answered before his son did: “A girl in a car?” he said.
The three of them looked at him in surprise. “Yeah,” his son confirmed and then, to the girls: “Lana.”
Those two simple syllables - a name? - meant something to Chloe and Lois. “Does she know about you?” Lois asked. “I mean, the alien part or the powers or any of that?”
“No,” Kal-El replied. “And…I don’t think I’m ready to tell her.”
“Then…you should probably head her off at the pass,” Chloe said, a twinkle in her eye. Jor-El recognized the phrase from the westerns he had watched those many years ago and realized that her use of it was a kind of joke - another in the long practice of teasing his son this morning.
Kal-El looked nervous and uncertain, but quickly Chloe gave him a little shove - reminiscent of Lois’s behavior the evening before - and said, “Go talk to her. Get her to leave. Before she comes in the house and you have to explain your birth parents to her.”
Kal-El finally nodded and taking a deep breath, he left them and went outside.
“We should move into the common room,” Jor-El said to Lara and Zor-El softly. “The girl who has just arrived does not know the truth about Kal-El and there is some concern about her finding out.”
“Doesn’t sound very promising,” Zor-El said as he settled onto the couch, shaking his head. “And does the boy only have these few girl-friends? Has he no male acquaintances?”
“I’m sure it’s simply a coincidence,” he told his brother, but he wasn’t certain of it himself. Secrets were not conducive to a great number of friendships.
“I know the perfect thing to keep us occupied,” Chloe said with a devious grin, standing beside a bookcase, and held up a…Jor-El wasn’t sure what it was, though it seemed to be a kind of book, with a shiny cover. Chloe opened it and displayed it, opened a small ways in, for all to see:
It was an album of pictures.
Of a very young Kal-El.
And in a few images he wore no garments of any kind, as small children often did, splashing in a large wash-basin.
Jor-El decided then and there that he liked Chloe Sullivan very much. But he didn’t dwell on the thought and instead drew Lois aside as Chloe sat down beside Lara and Zor-El on the couch. “This Lana,” he said softly to Lois. “Who is she? And why should she not be told about us?”
Lois looked a little startled by the questions. “Well, actually Chloe would be the better one to ask about this, Mr., um, El. Jor-El.” She paused a moment, as if puzzling over how to address him, but he didn’t say anything about it: human - North American human - and Kryptonian traditions did not always match, and he would prefer that she, and everyone else, simply be comfortable speaking to him - one of the most important goals of his with the House of Kent and adherents - rather than to impose Kryptonian norms. He, and his wife and his brother, was the guest and therefore duty-bound to prevent as many inconveniences to his hosts as personally possible.
Lois continued: “Anyway, I haven’t known Clark and the Kents as long as Chloe has, but I can tell you what I know?”
He nodded. “Yes, please.”
She spoke softly and quickly: her engaging manner kept his attention even when he had difficulty following her. The girl Lana, it seemed, had once resided quite close to the House of Kent and so Kal-El - Clark - had known her most of his life on Earth and grown attached to her. She had been at times his companion - “girlfriend” was the word Lois had used of course; that bit of the language had not greatly changed since his first visit to Sol-3 - but Lois was not sure of their current status. Lana had recently been attached to another young man, but when that connection had actually been severed Lois was not certain, or if it had been at all. She knew simply this: that in the most recent weeks, Lana had seemed to be unattached, but more and more solicitous of his son. And his son, it had seemed, had been eager to attempt to reconnect with her.
It did not seem like a very healthy relationship to him, but even after a Kryptonian year on Sol-3, he had not understood everything about human relationships. The situation with Louise McCallum had taught him that.
And this Lana of the House of Lang, mentioned Lois before she could stop herself, was related to and greatly resembled Louise McCallum. So Chloe had told her.
He thanked Lois for the information. Curiosity drove him to peek through the kitchen window - coincidentally as this Lana girl looked directly at the house - and his heart stopped, if only momentarily. He understood now all too well what his relationship with Louise McCallum had really been, and that Lara Lor-Van was the woman in all the universe he loved, but that did not negate the old emotions of his youth. Lana was the girl from the photograph in his son’s room, and the photograph did not do her justice: by Rao - by God - by whatever powers controlled the universe, this girl Lana looked like her House sister Louise. Looking through the window, Lois quickly behind him, and seeing this Lana and seeing his son was as though a glance into his own youth.
The girl noticed him, to his dismay, and so employing the preternatural speed that he now knew he possessed, he stepped away until he was out of sight.
He could only hope that their relationship was more productive and happier than his with Louise had been - but the argument they were having now, and what Lois had told him, told him that this was unlikely.
Oh, my son, I would not wish this pain on you for all the known galaxies.
“Hey, look at this!”
It was Chloe speaking from the common room and so he, and Lois (at his heels again), returned to her, and his own family, to see what this was about. She was waving a photograph in the air and Lois snatched it from her. “I didn’t take the Kents for Polaroid types,” Lois said in surprise - and then, apparently seeing what the photograph had captured, she exclaimed, “Oh my god! What is this, ‘baby’s first tractor lift’?”
“Looks like,” Chloe told her. “It was hidden behind ‘baby’s first family portrait’. Can’t blame the Kents for taking a picture of something like this with a kind of film that doesn’t require outside processing.”
Jor-El had no idea what she was talking about, but he looked over Lois’s shoulder and was surprised by what he saw: Kal-El, not much older than he must have been upon his arrival on Earth, lifting some kind of heavy mechanical apparatus, an agricultural tool of some kind. He had not realized that his son’s latent abilities would make themselves known so quickly. He had thought, knowing what little he did about biology and his own experiences, that perhaps the abilities would appear with adolescence. It seemed that the strength, at the very least, had developed early on.
The House of Kent was doubly blessed for continuing to embrace his son after such a surprise.
“Do you see all these images, Jor-El?” Lara said from her seat on the couch. “So many images of our son, practically from the moment they took him into their House. Such an indulgence to document so many moments of his childhood. How treasured he must have truly been even in the beginning, for the House of Kent to do this.”
“That is what this signifies, isn’t it, Jor-El?” Zor-El asked a little cautiously. “We haven’t misinterpreted this book, have we?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The photography when I was here before wasn’t quite like this, but…it seems like there are more than expected, so, yes, I think it is a very good sign.”
“Will you come and look with us?” Lara asked. “There are some truly beautiful pictures. The love in their faces…I have nearly cried several times these last moments.”
Jor-El hesitated to answer, hearing fragments of the argument between his son and this girl of the House of Lang, but as he heard it end, he made up his mind. “No. You’ve heard him argue with this girl?”
“Not that we could understand it,” Zor-El answered, “but yes. The hearing came upon us as we browsed this book.”
“As Zor-El said,” Lara confirmed, a little sadly. “I can only assume that it has ended badly…. If only he remembered his first language - more that these few words, subconsciously as he did this morning in his sleep - I would try to comfort him.”
“And I’m sure he’d appreciate it, my love,” Jor-El told her. “If he is anything like me, I don’t think it wise to leave him alone. I will try to speak to him.”
He went to the back of the couch and dropped Lara a kiss from there before walking back into the kitchen, back towards the door, where Lois stood again, watching Lana’s vehicle leave. He rested a paternal hand on her shoulder. “I thank you for your assistance, Lois,” he said softly.
“No problem,” she replied, a little startled.
He nodded and then looked outside. Through the glass and the screen he could see Kal-El, sighing and looking to the sky as if it had the answers he sought before marching his way to the place where they had hidden Lara’s ship the evening before. With no little concern, he went outside to follow his son.
Jor-El stepped inside the outbuilding - barn, if he was remembering the word correctly - cautiously. He could hear Kal-El breathing - a pleasant contrast to the sound of the girl’s car traveling down the nearby road - but it took a little work to actually find him, past Lara’s ship, up the stairway and on a couch in the lofted room. “May I join you?” he asked, still standing a few steps down from the loft. He took care to remember to address him in English: it was clear that he had not yet undergone his training - though given the interference from Dru-Zod, he shouldn’t be surprised, he told himself.
Kal-El - His name is Clark here, you must remember it despite his assurances of yesterday evening, Jor - was not surprised by his intrusion. Likely he had heard him coming. “Yeah,” the boy said. “Okay.”
Jor-El stepped up and took in the space in silence: the couch (red, with a blue and black throw over the back - for all Clark’s claims to remember nothing from before his arrival on Earth, save Lara’s name, there were hints at his remembering more than he realized), the desk strewn with papers and books, the old furniture, more books scattered throughout, maps of Sol-3, a long, antique mirror, and - and this surprised him the most, because he was not certain what it meant in the larger scope of his son’s life and interests - a small telescope. He could hear the sound of livestock through the open window - cattle, mostly, though he had also noted horses on the lower level - and now that he was on the upper level he could discern the breathing of a large dog at his son’s feet, a gold-colored one. He vaguely recalled that the breed’s name had something to do with the nation of Canada, to the north, but he could not remember what it was. No matter. A minor thing, he told himself.
He took a seat beside his son on the couch. The dog did not stir. “Are you well, Clark?” he asked hesitantly, tripping over the name a little.
“I meant it, yesterday. You can call me Kal.” The boy fidgeted a little as he said this, but he seemed sincere.
“You’re certain?” Jor-El asked. “It does not distress you, to be called ‘Kal-El’?”
His son hesitated, almost imperceptibly, but Jor-El caught it. “No,” the boy said. “It doesn’t bother me, now that I know it wasn’t really you before. I just - it’ll take some getting used to.”
It took him a moment to find his way through the words, but when he finally understood what had been said, he decided to drop the matter. It was twice now that that his son had said that his birth name would be acceptable, and while Jor-El recognized that there was something hidden behind the words, he thought it best to take the words at face value, at least for the moment. “Then I ask again, Kal-El: are you well?” He tried to infuse the words with as much parental concern as he could muster.
Kal-El sighed. “Yeah,” he finally answered. “It’s just that…things are always a little weird with Lana, and I always have to lie to her, but…it’s been a long time since I was really mad at her like I was just now.”
Jor-El nodded, though he suspected that things were a smidgen more complicated (or at least seemed that way) than his son was letting on. It was always so with youths. “This Lana,” he said slowly, “she is your…girlfriend?”
Kal-El bit his lip. “Not at the moment. Maybe never, now.”
Ah. Of course. Isn’t that how it always is at his age?
“She resembles the girl I knew, Louise.”
Kal-El nodded. “Yeah. They’re, um, they’re related. And I…I saw the recordings, from that necklace you wore when you were here…”
Necklace…ah. The medallion. “Then you know that I thought I loved her,” Jor-El told him.
“Thought?”
“Mm-hm. It was a long time, but I learned something very important. I did not love Louise, and she did not love me.” His son looked confused by this, but he spared the boy the need to ask. “I met Louise, thought her very beautiful, but she was married, and at first I kept a distance. I - what is the word? - I pined. I longed. But Louise, you see, she made the approach. She did not love her husband - and though I had been here a long time, I did not understand that many people on Earth, in this nation, did not marry for love. She did not love her husband and her dreams were very different from his. She wanted…excitement, and I was convenient, and different, and…exotic, especially after I revealed my powers, and I was younger than her, and I was very, very stupid.”
“Don’t tell Lois that - she’d say it’s genetic.”
Jor-El laughed. “Then I will not,” he said, smiling. “But I was very stupid, Kal-El. My father sent me to Earth as a lesson, and I will tell you about that later if you wish, but I did learn many things, many lessons. The most important was that I learned what love is. I thought I knew, before, but after…I realized that I had not loved Louise, and she had not loved me, and there was a girl, on Krypton…I had not loved her either. I had pined after that girl - your uncle can tell you about how bad I was-” He paused, his smile falling from his face. Zor-El could tell Kal-El nothing; Kal-El still had not completed his training.
He shook his head and continued. “I had seen the girl on Krypton once. I did not know her name, or where she lived, or anything about her. But I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the universe, and for a very long time I was very sad because of her. On Earth, I found Louise and she was the opposite: short, dark hair, dark eyes. The girl on Krypton was tall, fair.”
“You were trying to forget her,” Kal-El said. Jor-El looked at him and realized that his son was, indeed, listening. He smiled. “Yes, exactly.”
“What happened then? When you went back to Krypton?”
“Come, Jor-El, join me in a game?” Dru-Zod encouraged. “Lu-Zak and Anra Hon-Len are gathering teams for a round of zha-te-kat. There’ll be plenty of time to mope when we’re back on Krypton.”
Jor-El shook his head. “No, go without me, Dru-Zod,” he said, returning his gaze to the document in his hands and turning the reader back on. “I’m tired. Maybe another afternoon.”
“Suit yourself,” Dru-Zod replied. “You were more fun before Sol-3.”
Jor-El shrugged off the insinuation and began reading as Dru-Zod left the quiet room. In-Zer had published another series of stories during his year-study and he was eager to catch up. But he was soon interrupted again.
“I’m sorry, but are you reading In-Zer’s new stories? That reader was already checked out of the library, and I’ve so looked forward to reading them…”
He looked up and saw a girl with short blonde hair, wearing an unfamiliar uniform. The effect was entirely alien, but she was clearly Kryptonian - obviously another year-student. Had she been required to camouflage herself as he had on Sol-3? He shrugged. “I am, but you’re welcome to them when I’m finished with this first story.” He was tired, and a nap would do him good.
“All right,” the girl replied, sitting down across from him. “I’ve waited this long already - I can wait a little longer.”
He nodded, as was polite, and tried to read, but her presence was distracting. She kept touching her hair. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, “but your hair…may I ask what necessitated such a drastic style?” Such short hair - for women, at least - had not been common on Krypton for many generations.
The girl laughed. “A minor chemical accident, just two days ago. There was no way to undo the damage, so my choice was either to surprise my family with bright pink and purple hair or to cut it short. Short hair was less likely to make my mother faint on arrival.”
“A chemical accident?” he said in surprise. “May I ask how that happened?”
She smiled. “I was transporting some containers - I was training as a pilot - and another member of my cohort thought a prank in honor of my departure was needed. When the containers were opened for inspection, the chemicals sprayed into the air and thankfully I thought to duck and cover my face! As I was the only Kryptonian, my friend didn’t realize that the chemicals in the dye would bind to my hair differently that it did with the others in the cohort. The solution she’d brought to negate the effects of the dye only made it that much worse.”
It was a refreshing story - her mood was light-hearted as she told it, reminiscent of conversations he’d had on Earth rather than the staid dialogues he anticipated on his arrival home. “May I be so bold as to ask your name?” he asked. Perhaps she would converse with him later during the journey back to Krypton…
“Lara,” she said. “Lara Lor-Van.”
He recognized the name - she was the year-student the Don-Er had picked up only an hour before. “You must really enjoy In-Zer’s work,” he said. She hadn’t even bothered to change into Kryptonian clothing before coming in search of the stories.
She blushed a little. “I do. May I ask who shares this interest?”
“Joe-” he started and then corrected himself: “Jor-El. Of the House of El.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Jor-El of the most noble House of El.”
It had been a very long time since someone had teased him. He had missed it.
Jor-El shook his head at the memory and finally answered his son’s question: “When I returned to Krypton, I met your mother. We were friends, first, and then we loved.”
It would probably send the boy the wrong message, he decided, if he confided that it had turned out that Lara had been the girl he’d pined after all those years earlier. He just hadn’t realized it until after her hair had grown out again - long after they were betrothed. And the last thing he wanted to do, now that he had a small opportunity in this moment to be his son’s father, was to make things worse.
Kal-El bit his lip. “Lara…my…my mother,” he said hesitantly, and Jor-El wasn’t sure if he was continuing in the same vein or trying to change the subject, as an adolescent might.
“Yes?” Jor-El encouraged.
“She’s a pilot, right?” Kal-El finally met his eyes again after a long portion of the conversation. Jor-El nodded, curious to know where he was going with this. “So, when you guys…um, when your powers develop,” Kal-El continued, “she’ll probably want to fly, won’t she?”
What that had to do with the price of sodium on Talalak-12, Jor-El didn’t have the slightest idea, but he answered honestly. “Yes,” he replied. “I think she will enjoy it.”
“And you,” Kal-El said, “You flew when you were here before. With Louise.”
He had actually flown quite a bit long before he ever came to Smallville, but given that his son’s only real knowledge of that trip came from the medallion-recordings, his linking it with Louise was natural. “Yes, I did,” Jor-El told him, “and other times also. I enjoyed it.” He considered the look on his son’s face - part curiosity and part fear - and wondered what it actually meant. “May I ask what the real question is?” he finally asked. “Is something wrong about flying?”
“I, um, I don’t know how.”
Ah. Yes, that could indeed seem problematic. Jor-El thought back on his own experiences. The first time he had done it, he hadn’t been sure how he did it, but it had started as something else. “Do you - what is the word? - do you float? When you sleep?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
Well, that’s something at least. But the look on his face - oh. How stupid of me. “You fear it,” he realized. “To fly, to float, it frightens you.”
Kal-El sighed, almost as if relieved that Jor-El had figured it out without his having to say it. “Yeah. Everything else…once I figured it out, once I could control it, it was okay. I mean, yeah, suddenly setting things on fire or seeing through walls was scary, but…I got over it. But the floating and the flying…it just doesn’t work.”
Jor-El stood up and then turned around and pulled his son off the couch until he was standing. A distraction from his pining after Lana of the House of Lang was exactly what Kal-El needed. “Then let me help you learn.”
Jor-El heard Lois enter the barn long before he saw her, his eyes watching his son hover in midair.
He heard her breathing, muttering about “fetching the plaid-clad farm boy from Pluto”, and he smiled to himself, because that was one of the teasing phrases from her he actually understood. And then he heard her gasp -
Saw Kal-El’s concentration break -
Saw him plummet to the dirt floor of the lower level -
Saw Lois rush to his side even as he ran down the stairs, careful of his new speed, to meet them.
“Clark! Clark! Are you okay? Oh, god!”
“Kal-El? Are you well?”
His son moaned as he opened his eyes. “…so embarrassing…” he whispered, running his hand through his hair.
“God, Smallville, are you okay?”
His son began to laugh, and Lois, it seemed, took exception to it. “Hey! Don’t laugh at me! You fell almost two whole stories, Clark - from midair! What is this, another secret alien power?”
Before Jor-El could say anything, his son was sitting up - clearly unharmed, at least physically - and then standing, brushing the dirt off his denim trousers. Lois took the initiative and began brushing off the back of his shirt. “I come in here, out of the kindness of my heart, to let you know your folks are back - the Kents, I mean - and you’re doing a bad impression of a Harrier…” She paused, apparently done dusting him off. “Okay, okay,” she said with a sigh, tilting her head and rolling her eyes. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Happy now?”
She walked off before either of them could give her an answer.
“You were doing very well,” Jor-El finally said - and it was the truth. A little more practice was all that was needed and soon his son would enjoy flight as he had. And if the boy was anything at all like his mother, he would enjoy flight.
Kal-El sighed. “Are Kryptonian girls as confusing as human ones?” he asked, his eyes still on the barn door where Lois had exited.
Jor-El wasn’t sure what to say to that, though in his limited experience the answer was ‘yes’. He simply clasped his son’s shoulder and began to propel him forward. “Let us return inside, Kal-El,” he said. “We will practice again later.”
Dru-Zod, former First General of the Kryptonian Army, awoke feeling rather pleased with himself. And among the many reasons, it was clear that his essence had succeeded in coming to the fore of the vessel.
He knew that he was not the truest essence of the man Dru-Zod had been - that essence was now in the Phantom Zone, a prisoner biding his time until an escape was possible - but he held all the memories and feelings that Dru-Zod had possessed at the time he had interfaced with the computer in the cave, many years ago. He knew what had become of the true Dru-Zod - that had been Jor-El’s own fault, in fact, for providing a meticulously detailed report of the end days of Krypton in the data memory of Kal-El’s escape pod. The moment the pod had touched down on Sol-3, it had sent a signal to the cave computer, informing it of all that had transpired and setting into motion long-forgotten protocols.
And some protocols of Dru-Zod’s own design, which had infected the cave computer approximately six Kryptonian years prior to the destruction of Krypton. Even then Dru-Zod had suspected and prepared for the worse. And knowing his old friend, he had known that Jor-El would try something. That that something had been sending his only child to this barbaric, green planet, as the supposed only survivor had been quite the delight. Turning Kal-El against his birth father had been surprisingly easy: who knew these primitive bipeds would share Jor-El’s own philosophies and find the prospect of their strange little foundling conquering their planet distasteful?
And the pathetic creature that called itself Kal-El’s father - he had been a pleasure as well. He had been willing to do anything to tame the infant and bring him back to his lowly, pastoral existence, and what had remained of Dru-Zod in that painted cave had enjoyed twisting his heart with spectral hands. With his death nearing, Kal-El would have become even more malleable. Dru-Zod had relished the prospect.
But something was different now. Someone from the House of El - likely Jor-El himself, and knowing the eldest son of the House of El, his damnable wife as well - had survived. Their ship had interfaced with the cave computer upon landing only hours ago, before he had claimed his vessel.
At the very least, Dru-Zod told himself, ignoring the annoying gnat of the vessel’s essence, this shall prove to be interesting. At last my boredom shall be alleviated -
“Lex! What on earth are you doing, still in bed?”
A man of Sol-3 - human, the vessel’s memories supplied - entered the sleeping chamber. He was a man of average size, with unruly, disgusting hair and a scruffy beard. If that is the fashion here on Sol-3, he thought to himself, then I prefer the hairlessness of this vessel.
“I will not be embarrassed, son,” the man said, shaking his hand, “even if I have to drag you to Metropolis myself-”
Son. Ah, yes, he realized, this is the vessel’s father. The head of the House of Luthor. The man’s name is most unfortunate. Lyon-El almost sounds Kryptonian - though if the vessel’s memory serves, the House of El would hardly ally themselves with a man such as this.
Dru-Zod slipped out of the bed and quickly came to stand beside the human man. The transformation of the vessel had progressed as planned. He flexed his arm, squeezing his hand into a fist. Yes. Speed and strength both. Excellent.
Within a heart beat he had grabbed the man’s wrist and held it tight - just tight enough to catch his attention. “Good morning,” he told the man. “Though I doubt it will be a good day for you, Lionel of the House of Luthor.”
The man frowned, looking at his captured wrist and then at the face of the vessel - a body he had surely assumed was his son until now. “You’re not Lex,” the man said slowly, as if his puny brain could barely handle the thought.
Dru-Zod explored the vessel’s memories of this man: he was crafty, ruthless, a leader of those who did not hesitate to take what they deemed theirs, despite recent protestations of a moral change. But at the same time he was potentially dangerous: he already knew something - many things, really, but not everything - about Kal-El’s true heritage and abilities, and as a result, something of Dru-Zod’s own weaknesses. Such a man would seek power of his own. Such a man could not be permitted to continue.
The man’s eyes flickered with the beginnings of recognition.
He could not have that.
The caged voice of the vessel assailed him in retaliation, and he shouted it down. Retreat, Lex of the House of Luthor: I will prevail. You have no power any longer. He searched the vessel’s memories and came across a particular tidbit. Dru-Zod smiled. Yes, I should have known. And is it not the old saying back home on Krypton? The one Jor-El hated so much? The son becomes the father and all of that? Be glad, Lex-Luthor: your destiny is nearly fulfilled.
The vessel cowered.
Dru-Zod reached up, placed his hands on either side of the head of Lionel of the House of Luthor, and twisted.
The corpse fell with a final death twitch.
Dru-Zod straightened his back and turned towards the large windows, his skin warming in the strange yellow sunlight. Here and there bits of colored glass turned it ruddy and familiar, but it all felt the same - warm, invigorating, powerful.
Yes, he was going to enjoy conquering this planet.
Dru-Zod smiled and stepped away from the window. He dressed slowly, shaking his head at the clothing deemed fashionable by the vessel - at least they were both fond of shades of purple - but he wore it anyway. His presence could not be betrayed this early in the game over something as insignificant as cloth and stitchery; fashion would be his camouflage in these early moments. Finally he stood upright and took in his image in the mirror. Yes, he decided. This will do. As he walked back into the center of the room, he noticed a smudge on one shoe and he rubbed it against Lionel’s side. It wiped away readily. Excellent.
He searched the vessel’s memories. The vessel fought against him - a pointless attempt, but it amused him somewhat - and he slapped it down in its own mind. I require a second vessel, elder son of Luthor. And you will help me find it. I am certain that there is someone in your acquaintance who will serve well, at least for the time being.
The vessel tried to struggle again, but in doing so only lowered its mental barriers, allowing Dru-Zod full access to its most recent memories. There. Yes. I see the perfect candidate. The son of Jor-El will feel my vengeance yet.
Dru-Zod left the cooling carcass of the former head of the House of Luthor on the floor and went in search of the second vessel.
TBC