Action FanFic 1

The Last Son of Krypton

By Alexander Silverthorn

Superman Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

All right reserved to their respective owners

I can see for miles. It is so glorious up here as I leap over the fields to make it home. When I land, I run. Everything blurs around me, I can actually see my image trailing as I start to push my speed. The fresh air smells so wonderful, the sky blue, the fields as golden as the sun. It almost makes me forget that I'm different.

My name is Clark Kent. I live in Metropolis now after a lifetime of living in the town of Smallville. I left Kansas for the exciting life of a city reporter. I now work for the Daily Planet, an old-fashioned newspaper that still keeps its fingers on the pulse of the world. Most people told me to go into video journalism, the 5 o'clock news is where every 'good' journalist should go. What can I say? I'm old fashioned myself. I love the feel of the newsprint in my hand, the smell of the ink on the page. In addition, that should something truly inspiring or damning happen, you have that tidbit there for your collection. You were there and you can show it and tell your story to the next generation. It's exhilarating in every sense of the word. It's exciting because I just got my job there. The great tragedy though is that I might soon have to leave it…

I just passed the old windmill about a mile from Ma and Pa's. I suppose it would be easier to fly or leap. I've done enough of that. I need to feel my feet on the ground; I need to smell the wheat in the field. I need to feel…human.

When I was 15 I started noticing small things, all of my olfactory senses were improving. Pa and I would go out onto the land and I could spot a stray calf from a mile away. I was able to hear the panicked cries and heart beat of the poor thing, as it couldn't find its mother. I told Pa about it and he told me to get there as fast as I could and he would be there as soon as he could. I'd run and make it there within a few minutes. I'd notice that I wasn't tired or even huffing for breath, as I know I should've been. I've run through this field I don't know how many times, and each time I seemed to pick up more speed. My body was changing more than a normal person's would.

I grabbed the calf and ran back to Pa, who never batted an eye. I think I was more surprised by his reaction than he was to me being able to do these amazing things. I didn't know what to think. However, as we walked home I remember the conversation that we had. I turned to him with a smile on my face. "I'm a shoe-in for track when we start back to school, huh Pa?"

Pa stared at the ground and smiled a little bit, slightly amused by the comment I could tell. But he turned to me with a more serious look on his face. "Clark, I don't think you should try out this time."

My face twisted itself again, surprised that he'd say such a thing considering what I'd just done. I had the ability to clean up in varsity; I couldn't believe he'd just outright tell me no like that. "Why, Pa? I don't think there's anyone in the state that could outrun me!"

"I ain't denying that son. I swear the only one that could was the Flash, and he ain't been seen in years. I mean you've got a room full of trophies and ribbons, but you've really started to show you've got more of a gift than any other has. You're not going to be doin' it to compete anymore, you're doin' it to show off. "

"I'm not tryin' to Pa. But what am I to do with my gift if not put it to use?"

"Sports and such isn't puttin' it to good use Clark. Sure, you can keep it up, get into college and even go so far as to turn pro in football. Might even win the Olympics if you keep up in track or want to show off your strength. That's a lot of money and opportunity either way you go, no one can say different. But not only are you physically gifted you've got intelligence too, son. And if I had to pick a future for you it's something that allows you to use your intellect and not kickin'' field goals all day long. If you know, you can win, no matter who's in front of you then it's not a competition anymore. You're abusing your talents and could hurt someone unnecessarily. It's all about fair play, Clark. I know this isn't gonna make much sense now, but one day son you'll understand."

I understood then in a sense. Part of me knew that I WAS stronger than the adult men in town were and that I could outrun the fastest of runners in any high school. Though sports was always something that helped me to be accepted by my peers. But Pa always said that if I was moral and upstanding, the people that stood by me then are the ones that were worth being accepted by.

I can see the house. Pa's working in the fields, good. I need to talk to him and Ma together. I need to figure this out. It's so much to absorb all at once. Mostly what I need is time to think. I needed to get away from prying eyes, the cameras, and all the journalists. The journalists…

I go inside the house and Ma isn't home. She must have gone into town. I think I'll go into my room and wrap myself into something familiar. I see the fields, looking through the walls with my X-Ray vision and zoom in with my telescopic. There's Pa. He must have seen my dust trail. I don't know how many times I've done that where Pa would look at me and swear I was part dust devil. I'd smile. But I'd always go into my room just as I am now and I'd get frustrated because the changes were so foreign. Ma and Pa never had these abilities, none of my friends were anywhere near close to my strength. No one could hear the same things or even smell the fields in the same way. That ended when I was 18.

It was the weekend of the prom and I had asked Lana Lang out. She and I were, and still are, the best of friends. I always knew that she wanted to be closer, and to be honest so did I, but I was always afraid of losing that friendship should something go awry.

After the dance, we started to walk home and I looked at her deeply, "I have something to confess, Lana."

She smiled at me and looked down towards my hands, "What is it, Clark?"

"I've been keeping a secret from a lot of people for so long now, but you're so close to me and I have to share this with someone. I've got these abilities..."

"What kind of abilities?" She looked at me with a note of curiosity, but also taken back that it wasn't a confession of love. There was also a great deal of concern in her voice. I will never forget her dressed in her royal blue prom dress, white gloves slipped on to the elbow, her red hair braided with a string of white flowers and me taking her hand so very gently as I lifted off the ground. She gasped with some shock, but then there was a smile on her face. I picked her up and flew towards home.

I asked if she thought it would be all right if she came home with me for a while so we could talk. She called her Aunt and confirmed that it would be okay because I was such a 'nice boy'. We were at the farm in no time at all. There waiting on the front porch as my feet hit the ground was Pa rocking in his chair. He sighed a bit, shook his head with a grin.

"Clark, you know you shouldn't be doin' that where people could see you. But I see you finally thought it was time to tell Lana about this. What took you so long boy?"

I looked at Pa with some sense of wonder. I guess he knew that she was someone that I could trust and dearly did for so long. I guess I always took to heart that I shouldn't tell anyone my secret, but the truth of the matter is that I couldn't contain myself any longer, I had to tell someone that wasn't in the know already. That's when Pa dropped the next bombshell on me.

"Son, it's time we had one of our talks. Lana, would you stay? Clark might need you for this."

"Sure, Mr. Kent." She said very faintly and with some weariness. I think this night of revelations was getting to be a bit much for her. And the fact that Pa wanted to fill me in on something else made me just as tired.

He looked at me and sat on the nice woodpile I had created. "I should've told you this years ago, Clark. But you're man enough now to make your own decisions. You've proved that tonight. Now it's time to know how you came into our lives."

We walked to the barn and he told me to rip up the floorboards, which I completed within seconds. And there beneath a spot which I walked thousands of times before was a tiny craft. It looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. Lana and I looked at one another in some confusion and turned our wide-eyes to Pa.

"December 14th, 1979 you crash landed in our field, near about where you found the calf that one day. Your Ma and I were drivin' towards home, and the sky had a fireball just barrelin' down on us. It glided just past us and hit the ground with a fiery boom. What made us turn to go that way I'll never know. It could've been an inferno, but no flames were shootin' up anywhere. We drove as far as we could, bustin' down a fence to do it and ran part ways to get to the hole that was made it the ground. There inside we found this little rocket. We thought it was some Russian device meant to kill us all. Then a beam scanned us and an image appeared. It was a man in strange robes. He started speaking in a language that your Ma and I couldn't understand at first, but then it adjusted itself. It said 'Please take care of our son, Kal-El. He is the last surviving member of a doomed world.' The figure turned sullen for a moment and faded."

I stood there in an almost spellbound silence and Pa talked. I looked at this small ship. An egg shaped crystal sit at the front with an golden mechanism attached to the back. I reached out to touch it and the crystal realigned itself to show the inside and then as I drew back in reformed into the perfect egg-shape.

"Your Ma and I didn't know what to say. You obviously weren't a Russian experiment gone wrong. I fought her on it, Lord love her. I figured the government would be after you once they realized where the ship finally landed. But your Ma said it wouldn't be right. We needed to take you along. If anyone asked where you came from, we would just say that Martha didn't even know she was pregnant. With all the snow and ice, we were trapped out on the farm, and she just had you right then and there. No way for the doc to tell any different. It was easy enough to do, but I truly didn't think anyone would believe it. I was surprised just how many people never questioned or raised a suspicious eyebrow about it. After we came to the decision what to do and what to say we loaded up this tiny thing and I hid it. We wanted to make sure that no one would know. As you grew up, we wanted to say something but it was never the right time. You'd come in from the fields at noon at what would've taken any other full grown man a day to do, sit in your room so frustrated, but we still never said anything. I'm sorry son, I hope you don't hold it against me or your Ma."

I looked at him with shock and back at the ship. I didn't know what to say, but I finally met his gaze full on, "I could never be mad at you or Ma. I just gotta figure this out."

I reached back down for the ship and as I did, the egg started to realign itself again. Inside a light blinked a brilliant green, I picked up the ship and tried to identify where the glow was coming from. As I turned the ship the egg responded by moving the opening with me. As I finally stopped, I saw the button that was flashing. I looked at my Pa and he nodded as if I should press it. He held Lana closely and I pushed.. The device came to life and it hovered from my hands. The figure that my father saw stood before me, and I was astounded because it looked like I was staring into the future. It was me but in strange clothing. The egg moved once again and then scanned me. Once it made its determinations, it shot a beam that struck me in the head. Pa screamed my name and Lana grabbed a shovel. I strained my hand forward and yelled don't. As it stopped, I realized that it had downloaded quite a bit of knowledge into my brain at which point the image began to speak.

"My son... my little Kal-El. If you're watching this, now then you have finally discovered that you are not human like your adoptive parents. Scans indicate that you're nearing your 18th cycle, so all of this may be unsettling. But fear not my son, this is your destiny."

Pa just stood back with Lana, both intent on hearing what the man had to say. Their confusion took me back a minute. Then a revelation dawned on me, he wasn't speaking in English! He was telling me these things in another language altogether, but I knew I'd never heard it before that day either. The device actually input the language into my brain so I could understand him. It all seemed so impossible...

"Introductions first, I am your father Jor-El. I am, or more specifically was, a scientist on the doomed world of Krypton. Know that if you are seeing this message then my plan has come to fruition and you've Kal-El have survived the cataclysm that destroyed our world. I am sorry Kal-El, but you are Krypton's last son. "

I bowed my head slightly. One discovery after the other, it could've been too much to handle. As I stood there and wanted to breakdown and cry, Pa came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, son. I'm here for you."

In those moments, even though I knew he didn't understand what was being told to me he and Lana both acted instinctively. Lana ran to get Ma and Pa just stood there with me listening to the alien language. Almost beautiful to listen to, but still so strange when you understood that it wasn't of this world.

"Krypton was a world of science, my son. Our understandings of the universe were our greatest achievement, and our downfall. We had unlocked the secrets of cloning and the ability to store information in crystalline forms. Our world was grown from both mechanics and crystalline structures, which allowed us to live within the knowledge we collected. To that end, I have sent in this tiny craft a crystal to take to the place of your choosing. As you activate it, a standing monument to our dead world will be built. There you can learn a great deal of our society. The information stored in the crystal is all the knowledge that Krypton had. Hopefully the crystal did not become damaged on the journey to your home on Earth. My son, before this message ends I wish you to know that your mother Lara and I did not come by this decision lightly. We had to allow you to survive this horrid event, not for the intent of trying to create a new Krypton, but because we love you. "

The image shut off and the egg almost complete dissolved away leaving and out from the rocket mechanism came a single green crystal. It glowed slightly and I reached out to grab it. As I took it from it's slot the ship started to land and the egg reformed. I looked over and saw Ma with Lana. Pa walked me over to them as he stood arm in arm with Lana and Ma. I stared at them all. "I'm the Last Son of Krypton."

5 minutes go by and I hear the door to the house open. "Clark?" he calls to me.

"I'm in here Pa."

He opens my door and I look up at him. I know what he must be seeing. He gives me that fatherly look of concern. 'What's wrong son?'

'I think I might have made a mistake, Pa. I used my powers in front of the whole world today.'

The look of concern grew heavier. He stared into my eyes, 'Were you hurt?'

'No sir, not a scratch on me."

"What happened, son?" he asked very concerned. No sooner did the question leave his lips than Ma walked in.

"I knew you were here, I saw the dust trail in town!" Her excited expression turned to a look of worry in a second upon examining our faces. "What's wrong, Clark?"

I bow my head just enough to where the shadows cover my eyes. I can feel the overwhelming nature of what I've done consume me. I had been to college for the last 6 years, I had spent my formative hours working on my bachelors in journalism and writing then I cracked down to get my masters. I pressed hard to make sure that I did all my work as soon as I got it, studied hard so I could spend my hours doing things other than sticking my nose in a book. While it did take a lot of my time, I still found myself with more than enough breathing room to do those other things More or less these 6 years were not only spent figuring out what my career path would be, but it was also learning the history of Krypton.

I drift off thinking about these things when Pa snaps me back into place, "Was it that bad?"

"No sir. I just got out of my interview with Perry White, and he sent me to work the street beat. I was so proud because I got the job at the Daily Planet. Then all of a sudden, the newest of the Space Jet line that LexCorp is putting out came falling from the sky. It was out of control, heading right towards downtown Metropolis. It was going to be a slaughter, it was aimed right at LexCorp towers funny enough. Before I even knew what I was doing, I sped into action and flew to catch the jet. It was trying to buckle under my strength and I guided down to the park as gently as I could. When it landed, I'd already seen the news trucks and helicopters flying my way so I flew off as fast as I could without breaking windows and headed here Pa. I don't think they got a good look at me, I was moving so fast. But if they did then I'm going to have to go into seclusion, because Clark Kent will never stop being hounded. And what's worse is that it might put you in the limelight too."

Ma and Pa looked at each other in that married couple fashion. Pa took his hat off and sat it in his lap and looked back at me with this reassuring smile. "You did the right thing, no one could've asked anymore of you. But as to this seeing business, are you sure you moved pretty quickly?"

I thought back for a moment, "Yes, sir. I moved so fast that I kept myself blurred and I hid underneath the shadows of the plane rather well. But the camera technology these days, someone could've seen me easily."

Ma sat next to me on the other side of the bed and grabbed my hands, "Clark, look if they did see you then it was meant to be. But if not, you still did the right thing. After 9/11, people need someone like you Clark. All those powers and abilities, if you'd only have been there to help those people then."

Pa jumped up from the bed excited as he just had the most ingenious idea ever, "That's it Martha! That's what he can do! Son, I always said your gifts were there for a reason. This could really be the start of something. Take a page out of the old Justice Society of America's book and make him a full fledged mystery man!"

"Jonathan David Kent, what are you on about? Clark as a mystery man?"

"Sure, it's the perfect solution!. Clark, put these on!" Pa handed me his glasses and I slipped them on. "That's it! Put some glasses on him, maybe slick his hair back, and try to act more like a down-home boy! No one will know the difference between you and your mystery man identity!"

Ma and I looked at one another and I raised my eyebrows in a certain agreement/worry. But I smiled, "What could it hurt?"