Chapter One: No Longer Alone

A flash of light brought Clark Kent to his senses. The three stones merged together and created one really powerful crystal. And this really powerful crystal created one magnificent Fortress. He looked around and took the first tentative steps inside of the Fortress.

Clark took a look around. Several more miniature crystals jutted out from the wall. Golden symbols lined the walls. He could almost feel new knowledge pouring into his mind.

"Welcome, Kal-El!" the loud voice of Jor-El boomed throughout the Fortress. "You are here, you are ready to face your destiny."

Clark cocked his head to one side. There was this word again, destiny. Jor-El used it liberally and only gave Clark the vaguest hints of what it meant. Then again, Clark's relationship with his Kryptonian father had been a strained one. The artificial construct appeared to be rather unmoved to any and all plight Clark must have felt.

"You have passed the latest trial, and now, the only logical course of action is to allow your training to begin," Jor-El said a few seconds later. Clark frowned when looking in the general direction of the voice. "And given the problems caused by your lack of action in obtaining the stones of power, to create the Crystal of Knowledge, you have triggered the meteor shower."

"Wait a minute, I…"

"Clark!"

Clark's ears perked up at a familiar voice. It had been a half frustrated whisper, sounding hoarse, and weak. Yet, it was strong enough. Clark only had his attention on Jor-El for long enough to see the figure who appeared in the Fortress.

Chloe Sullivan took a couple of steps into the Fortress. She tried to manage a weak smile, but she was not dressed for the Artic. The blue tinge to her skin was not becoming of someone like her. Her eyes flashed over and her body continued to shiver.

"Chloe!" Clark yelled. He took a step towards her. "Chloe….what are you….how did you….?"

Those questions faded out of Clark's mind. Chloe tried to give Clark a reassuring smile. Her smile only reassured him so much when Chloe's next step caused her to collapse onto the cold Arctic. She started to shiver one more time.

"You knew she was here, didn't you?" Clark demanded of Jor-El. His voice grew a bit harsher.

"Yes, Kal-El, I sensed she followed you here, but given she was no immediate threat, I decided it was not prudent to alert you, at least for the moment," Jor-El said. "You allow yourself to be distracted easily. Something which is a failing of your human upbringing. You must understand…"

"She could have frozen to death!" Clark yelled. He balled his fists up to one side. He thought about smashing his hand through the Fortress of Solitude but decided it would not do him any good. He had never been more angered by anything ever in his life. "Can't you do something to warm her up?"

"Yes."

Jor-El's blasé tone caused Clark's temper to reach a fever pitch. His lack of action caused Clark's temper to increased even more.

"Then why don't you do something?" Clark asked. He took a second to hitch in his breath. "Why don't you do something to warm her up?"

A bright orange light started to flash into the Fortress of Solitude. It hit Chloe for a moment and caused her to rise up from her knees. The light remained in the Fortress.

'Guess I didn't feel anything because the cold didn't bother me.'

Clark turned his attention towards his best friend. She looked at him, shaking off the feeling of near hypothermia and now was back to her normally bubbly self.

"Chloe?" Clark asked.

"Mmm."

"There's…there's….."

"Clark, relax," Chloe said, cutting off his words. She raised her fingers and pressed them up against his lips to stop him. The two of them shared a smile with each other. "I know your secret….the only thing I'm pissed off about is the fact I didn't put two and two together sooner. Some budding reporter I turned out to be, huh?"

Clark responded with a smile at Chloe.

"And this is amazing!" Chloe exclaimed. She took a good work around "All this…it's….just wow!"

Clark almost could have broken out of laughter. Chloe looked like a sugar-starved kid in a candy store right about now.

"It has the knowledge of the twenty-eight galaxies, well the known ones anyway," Clark said. He looked in Chloe's eyes with a half teasing expression. "So, yes, I would have to say that's pretty amazing."

Chloe shook her head. She was pretty sure Clark was engaging in a little light-hearted teasing with her. She leaned closer towards him, the smile on her face gaining in greater prominence.

"I just can't believe this…this is…"

"You should not be here," the voice of Jor-El boomed.

Clark could have thrown his head back in one of the most prominent sighs ever. Leave it to his biological father to ruin any potential moment he might have had. He saw the look on Chloe's face who frowned deeper than ever before and knew there was going to be trouble.

"And you are?" Chloe asked.

"My name is Jor-El, I am the father of Kal-El," Jor-El said.

Chloe had been confused for only a few seconds before her sharp mind managed to put two and two together.

"Right, Clark's real name is Kal-El, and you're his father, of course, you are," Chloe said a few seconds later. "But, I don't think…."

"Jor-El, allow me to return Chloe to Smallville," Clark said.

A long pause followed and Chloe folded her arms. She wondered if Jor-El had these controlling freak tendencies when he was alive. Of course, it was hard to judge someone from their AI.

'For all I know, he could be the Windows ME of AI,' Chloe thought to herself.

"Very well, but remember, you are to return to the Fortress to begin your training before sundown," Jor-El said. "Or there will be dire consequences."

Chloe didn't wait for Clark to tell her to leave. She was perfectly capable of stepping outside. Chloe walked outside and she had been submerged into her own thoughts.

The moment the stones had been merged, she saw a flash of something. She touched one of them, trying to keep it away from Lex. Chloe experienced some weird flashes, a planet being destroyed, blown up, and a rocket flying off of it. There were some weird flashes like she was a spectator.

"Clark, there's something weird about those stones," Chloe said. Clark raised an eyebrow and offered her the chance to continue. So she did, taking a deep breath. "When I touched one of them...I saw a flash of a planet blowing up."

Clark hung his head somberly. While he never knew the planet in question, he experienced the sense of loss behind it.

"Krypton," Clark muttered underneath his breath. Chloe craned her neck. "The planet I was from before all of this happened before….and you know."

"I've known for a long time," Chloe said. "But don't worry, I'm not going to start spouting off to anyone in town about the great secret I know. Because, if I'm honest, how many people are going to even believe me?"

'Better not worry him too much how close to death I was,' Chloe thought to herself. 'Or the fact I can understand alien writings which I couldn't a day ago.'

Something else clicked in Chloe's mind and she needed to remind him of something.

"Oh, and before I forget, I left Lex Luthor unconscious in the Kawatchee Cave," Chloe said. Clark gave one Spock-like raised eyebrow towards her. "Don't look at me, he was after one of those stones….you know someday his curiosity about you is going to get the better of him."

Clark answered with a sigh. He knew all too well about that particular quality of Lex.

Clark returned back to Smallville. He had brought Chloe up to speed about as much as possible before they landed back in town. Chloe tried to take things in stride about as much as she could, although there were a couple of questions which entered her mind.

"So, the second Meteor Shower?" Chloe asked. "Do you think there's going to be a similar fallout like the first one?"

Clark looked back at Chloe and the grimace on his face made Chloe think she might have opened a couple of obvious wounds. She fully appreciated how many times Clark had been there for her, along with Lana, and several others when the meteor freaks attacked. Chloe thought Clark may have felt a sense of duty given the meteors came down when he was brought here.

'Psycho-analyzing your best friend, not exactly the healthiest thing in the world, is it' Chloe asked.

She could see Clark looking off in the distance. Chloe grabbed Clark on the shoulder gently and made him turn around towards her.

"Sorry, but you looked like you were a million miles away," Chloe said. "You know, back on Krypton….yeah that might have been more than a million miles away, but you know…"

Her voice trailed off suddenly and the most sheepish of sheepish grins popped on Chloe's face.

"It's just…my parents were here, and Lana and Lois and everyone else, I'm just worried what might have happened to them," Clark said.

Chloe looked up and could see they had been gone for a long time. And to think just this morning, Graduation was the only thing on their minds. And the rest of their lives, and now the rest of their lives changed.

"Um, you might not want to go down there," Chloe said grabbing Clark's arm. "Looks like Kryptonite Central from here, doesn't it?"

Clark nodded, but he could hear something off to the side. A pair of whooshes and then the screams of people panicking, very obvious and very painful panicking.

He noticed two figures who were flying and they were looking for something. One of them was a broad shouldered dark skinned gentleman with a rather determined look on his face. The other was an attractive brunette woman with a toned figure who looked even more determined than her male companion. Both of them looked ready to get down to business and put a hurting on someone.

"Clark?" Chloe asked. "Who are these…."

"They're Kryptonian," Clark said a few seconds later. He took only the merest moment to regain his bearings. "Go….get to Lois, Lana, and my parents…I'll deal with them."

Chloe didn't even protest. She only had one thing to say, especially given they were terrorizing people.

"Go kick their asses."

Clark fully intended to try, although these particular individuals looked to be pretty formidable. He made his way over towards them and landed in front of them.

Both of the individuals turned towards Clark. The man's face finally showed emotion, with a smile, although not the smile anyone wanted to see if they wanted to have happy times.

"Finally," he said. "You can only be one person. You can only be Kal-El, the son of Jor-El."

Clark matched his matter of fact tone with his response. "So, you know who I am. You are from Krypton, aren't you?"

"Yes," the man said. "We managed to flee before the planet could meet its final destruction. But while the planet has died, the spirit will live on. There will be a bold new Krypton."

Clark could tell already these two were going to be some trouble. He looked towards them and braced himself for a battle.

"My name is Nam-Ek, and she is Aethyr," the man said. "And we are here to bring back the true leader of Krypton, and we will do so through any means necessary."

Clark could tell straight away these two were not of the friendly sort.

"Join us," Aethyr said in a creepy monotone. "Or perish."

Nam-Ek offered his hand to Clark. Clark extended his hand to grab the hand of the invader for a brief second, it looked like he was going to join them.

Clark used a swift leverage move to hurl Nam-Ek over and cause him to land down onto the ground. The Kryptonian Survivor hit the ground with a grimace.

"You'll pay for that!"

The woman charged him and nailed him with a swift kick in mid-air before Clark had a chance to blink. He fell back into the ground, bleeding from the mouth.

"We offered you friendship," Nam-Ek said. "But, considering you prefer to be in the league with these humans, then decimation is the only option."

Clark tried to nail him with a punch. Nam-Ek moved out of the way and used Clark's superior speed against him. Nam-Ek grabbed Clark around the arms and hooked him in a full nelson. Clark managed to break free of the hold by jumping into the air. He landed down onto the ground.

Aethyr rushed over and Clark just narrowly avoided a kick to the face. He avoided a couple more and grabbed the woman by the hair. He flipped her to the ground. The woman landed on her feet.

Clark channeled his heat vision in an attempt to deter her from a further attack. She used her hand to block it and slammed it back into his face. His eyeballs began to sting from the backfire of the attack when she brought her feet down onto him.

"On the ground, just like a human loving worm such as yourself belongs."

Nam-Ek grabbed Clark by the scruff of the neck and hurled him down to the ground. He moved forward and Clark rolled back a second.

Clark made his way over and could feel the sting of the Kryptonite washing over him. The radiation caused him to hunch over.

The two Kryptonian soldiers stepped forward and suddenly, they experienced the same problem Clark did with the Kryptonite hunching them over. Clark responded with a smile, staggering a bit, but not as bad as they did. Constant exposure over the past few years caused Clark not to be affected as much by the Kryptonite as those two.

"Very clever, son of Jor-El, but….we have an advantage you lack," Nam-Ek said. He activated a shield on his outfit. "Do you really think an advanced race would not have radiation shielding?"

Aethyr did the very same thing. Clark swung his fist forward, but she blocked it and kept nailing him before throwing him halfway across. Clark flew into the pavement with a thud, cracking against the concrete.

Clark rolled to his feet and saw Nam-Ek coming. He recovered from the latest beating, realizing now he dealt with trained soldiers who were toying with him and could kill him at any time.

A bright light brought a figure in greater prominence. This particular woman's golden blonde hair flipped against her face. Her white regal robes clung to her supple and toned flesh. The top of it veered down to show a tiny bit of cleavage and the bottoms of it came open a bit to show her supple and well-toned thighs. Given the circumstances which she had been in, the traveler thought she could have been a lot worse off. On her robes, a blue "S" symbol flashed onto them.

A few scattered memories came to the girl's mind when she regained her bearings. She reached towards her ring finger to touch it, feeling it. The girl frowned and abandoned the pursuit of feeling around her ring finger.

A flash of green caused her to take a couple of staggering steps. The girl's breath continued in a very ragged manner. Annoyed, the blonde visitor pushed a button on the band and caused a flash of light to appear around her. The shield blocked the harmful radiation from making her sick.

'The perks of being part of part of an advanced race,' she thought with a smile creeping out from the corners of her lips. The girl surveyed the damage around her and it had not been pretty. 'I just hoped I'm not too late...Mother warned me of the Meteors. And if they're here, Kal-El made it to Earth.'

The visitor craned her neck from one side to the other, before her focus fell upon someone walking up the road. She put herself on high alert, not wanting to be seen by anyone, especially the military of this world. Another thing her mother warned her about on the way here.

Unless the military employed shell-shocked teenage females, no immediate danger existed now. The visitor's eyes fell upon the dark haired female. Attractive, even with her dishelmed appearance, the woman stumbled all the way up the road. Her pant leg ripped with some scrapes and cuts, and her face looked rather worn.

The visitor's eyes fell upon a very familiar looking black ship. She walked towards the shell-shocked woman and gripped her hand gently, but a bit firm as well.

"Did anyone come from that ship?" the visitor asked. The woman looked at her with a frown, and the visitor had to repeat her question in a more concise manner. "Did anyone come from the ship?"

The woman's head responded with a firm nod.

"A man….and a woman….they could both fly," the dark haired woman said. She slumped forward for a moment, forced to grab onto a tree to keep herself upright. "They were looking for something…..maybe someone….it all happened so fast…..they didn't…."

The visitor only had one word for this particular woman.

"Run."

The visitor departed after a few seconds. A very distressed and still very dazed Lana Lang staggered a bit, wondering if she could run at this moment. She still had to spend a lot of time trying to process the situation around her.

"Lana!"

Lana looked over and breathed a sigh of relief. She saw Chloe running up the road. Her friend walked over towards her and grabbed Lana so she could be propped up.

"Thank Rao, I found you," Chloe muttered.

Lana blinked and had been caught off guard by what Chloe said. Then again, she might have been hearing things because everything happened so fast.

"Thank Rao?" Lana asked.

"Thank…..God, I meant," Chloe said a couple of seconds later. "It's been a long day….and I need to get you out of here because…."

"Flying man and woman, they came out of the ship, I know, I saw them, don't know if they saw me, though," Lana said. She allowed herself a moment to catch her bearings and sigh. "I'm not sure if they even cared enough to see me."

Lana allowed Chloe to lead her up the road, hopefully as far away from the ship as humanly possible.

"Why does all the weird stuff always happen to us?" Lana asked before she could help herself.

"I don't know," Chloe said. "Just lucky I guess."

Lana broke out into a smile. "Yeah, lucky's really the word to use for this."

The two of them made their way up the road. Chloe tried not to look back to see where Clark had ended up.

Clark swung his fist in an arching punch towards his adversary. Nam-Ek blocked the fist and he brought him down onto the ground again. The large soldier grabbed his arms around Clark's neck and wrapped him into a head vice, threatening to crush his head or snap his neck. He could have done so easily, and he didn't even need Kryptonian powers to do so.

"You do have raw potential," Nam-Ek said. "But your abilities lack much….but we can fix that."

"The General will be pleased with the vessel we have selected for his grand return."

Clark's head started to swim.

"The General…what are you….."

"Jor-El has left his spawn quite ignorant," Nam-Ek said. "I have to say there will be no waste when your mind is locked away and General Zod uses your body to bring about a new Krypton. No one can stop it."

Clark broke Nam-Ek's grip, causing him to fly backward into his companion. Aethyr and Nam-Ek hurled down to the ground.

"Enough charades, the game ends….."

A blur came from the East and nailed Nam-Ek with an uppercut punch to the jaw mid-sentence. He flew back a few inches and knocked him down to the ground.

Clark surveyed his eyes skyward. His mouth opened up. It was not a bird, it was not a plane, it was a flying girl.

Aethyr's eyes bugged out the second she came across the new party to the game. She reached into her uniform and pulled out a knife. The girl dodged the thrown knife before it spiked through her.

"You'll wish you never survived Krypton, traitor!" the Kryptonian survivor said. "Given the role she played in the defeat our leader, the daughter of A….."

Aethyr's sentence had been cut short by Clark rising from the ground and nailing her from the side. The soldier dropped to the ground and did a duck and role. She tried to reclaim her knife. Clark knocked it from her hand.

Nam-Ek made his attempt to get back into the battle. The visitor rushed towards him and pulled a purple ring from his belt, ripping it from his being. The dark-skinned soldier's eyes almost burst out in surprise and he looked towards the blonde.

"Stop, you don't know what you're doing…"

"No, "she said. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

She configured the Phantom Zone singularity and caused a flash of light. She reached over and grabbed the young man who had been bravely, if foolishly, fighting the two Kryptonian rebels. The two of them flew off to one side, away from the pull of the portal.

They watched the two Kryptonian rebels being sucked through the portal all the way to parts unknown. The flash of light resulted in a messy ending for both of them.

Clark turned his attention towards the mysterious blonde who had caught the purple ring in her hand. She looked at it with a frown.

"Thank you….umm," Clark said. "Just thank you, whoever you are."

"It was necessary," she responded with a smile. "They could have put you and the other people here in grave danger. It was lucky I arrived when I did, or things might have ended up a lot worse."

To her statement, Clark had little doubt at all she was telling the truth. The woman reached into the edge of her robe and retracted a purple crystal.

Clark watched the frown deepen on her face. He reached over and grabbed her shoulder to try and steer her to face him.

"What's wrong?" Clark asked her.

"Something is wrong, this crystal isn't properly calibrated," she said. "Mother assured me it would lead me directly to Kal-El."

Clark only responded with a smile and the attractive blonde frowned.

'Could it be?'

"Yes, I was born Kal-El, it's a pleasure to meet you….so I take it you're another survivor from Krypton."

If it wasn't unbecoming of someone of her stature, she would have done a dance.

"Yes," she responded. "My name is Kara Zor-El, I'm your cousin from Krypton."

To Be Continued on August 15th, 2016.

And here we go, a new story. It's been a while since I've had a Clark story with multiple girls, but here it is. And things are going to only get interesting from here. Maybe slightly confusing until you get the full story. Maybe a little bit of both. Until next Monday.