Here you all go. Again, apologies for it being a day late. I hope you enjoy!
Please remember to review!
--------------------------------------------
Chapter 38: The Guardian
--------------------------------------------
Clark had stood there outside Lois's door for a long moment, caught up in a wind that had caught him in a spinning confusion of emotion.
He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to feel. He didn’t know what to do.
How was it possible that a single woman could be so cold, yet so gentle? So inconsiderate, and yet so caring? So downright rude, and yet so understanding?
She just didn’t make any sense.
He loved her, but at times she seemed to downright loathe half of him—the half of him that was him.
He didn’t want to be Superman, the Alien. He just didn’t think of himself that way, even if Lois claimed that she could see the person—the human underneath.
Lois. She loved Superman so much, but after hearing her rant Clark had to admit that Lois did indeed have a point. In her eyes, he really was a cowardly, bumbling, stuttering, and irresponsible hick from Smallville. And as of late, had he given her any reason to think otherwise?
And wasn’t that the worst thing of all? If once Lois found out, she realized that the real him—the whole him—was just too annoying to put up with?
But the pocketknife . . .
His eyes went down to it and he traced the worn pattern on the carved handle.
She had found it for him. She had contacted the Primaries, and had probably taken McPheron by the throat and shaken him until he had begged mercy and gone out to find it himself.
But what was it supposed to mean? Was this just the beautiful, lovely, kindly angel peeking through a crack in the fortifications around Lois Lane’s being? Would she have done this for anyone? Or did she actually care enough to get the knife back for Clark Kent?
He didn’t know. Considering her fiery wrath, the thought that she would do anything for Clark Kent after he had disappeared on her yet again was astounding. So confusing. So unreasonable . . .
So Lois.
He had turned away at last, pocketing the knife. He took the stairs slowly and climbed up to the rooftop where he had left Lois some hours before as he had rushed off to his first rescue as Superman for almost a month. He closed the door behind him and looked up to the sky, not moving as the cool but still air brushed gently against him.
The sky was yet clear, though the eastern air from over the bay carried the blue scent of coming rain. Clark breathed in deeply, simply enjoying feeling.
He had flown.
He had flown to Lois. He had flown with Lois.
He had landed and taken off a number of times since then, even with only the three rescues he’d helped with that night . . . but every time he looked up to the sky and the distantly twinkling stars he was afraid that when he tried to reach them . . . he wouldn’t be able to. That his feet would stay grounded.
The thought scared him so much that he was loathe to land time after time, for fear that he wouldn’t be able to break away into that true freedom once again.
Clark spun into the suit. He looked up into the sky again, and with a moment’s hesitation more, he took a deep breath and stepped out of gravity’s grasp and into the gentle air. It greeted, him, the almost-unnoticeable wind currents brush against his skin like hands welcoming him home—welcoming him back to the freedom which was meant to be his. He turned his face to the stars, letting himself drift upwards rather than drive himself forward through the perfect black air which sat silent like a flawless, serene, eternal river. He rose up, the world shrinking beneath him as he slowly picked up speed—faster, faster, until the wind slicked his hair back and the deep thunder of a sonic boom broke out behind him. He smiled.
He’d been scared to death the first time that had happened, and had gone to such a complete stop even he had almost gotten whiplash.
Metropolis faded into the eastern shore, which faded into America, which faded into the world.
It was such a beautiful world, he marveled. So large, so open and diverse—so expansive. He slowed slightly, letting the babble of the flowing brook of humanity glide through his ears, and through him.
The sound of life. The sound of love, of hope, of joy. Of being.
But then there was the noise of pain. The noise of fear. The fire of guns and war and desperation. Of mothers crying over their children, of children crying for lost parents. Of hate, of confusion, of despair.
Why?
Trying to shake the sounds from his being, Clark drifted higher, floating out of earth’s atmosphere into the perfect silence of the vacuum of space. It was black there. Empty. The world sat beneath him, appearing almost lifeless as it floated there in the endless void of nothingness. He hovered there for a moment, directionless, then shivered at the cold he could almost feel.
The silence was a thousand times more thunderous and chilling than even those countless pitiful cries for help. For in those cries there was life. There was hope, if only the vestiges of it clinging to despair.
With those cries he was never alone.
He dove back down, the sound barrier cracking behind him again as he shot as blue lightning into the heavens down back to Earth. Thunder shook the air behind him as he shot between the buildings of Metropolis.
There was no hiding anymore, and there was always something for Superman to do.
Two car chases, a bank robbery, three break-ins, two shoot-outs, one attempted suicide, and a house fire later—from everywhere to San Diego to Gotham—Superman flew into Metropolis, alert as he followed the sounds that called for his help.
There was so much, he thought as he shot towards the next cry for help. He couldn’t remember it ever being this bad. Had it gotten worse, or had he just forgotten after the long silence of “normal” hearing—during the long space of inactivity? There were too many—far too many for him to deal with, and he found himself having to listen first to see which ones may need his help the most. Others, he just had to leave and hope that the authorities could handle the situation so no one got hurt.
Gunshots nearby signaled his next course of action. He shot down to a jewelry store, taking quick assessment of the bullets flying between police and the black-garbed man hunkered in the darkness of the building.
Superman angled down, x-raying quickly to get a picture of the whole situation. With a last burst of speed, he dove downwards, catching the four bullets that were hovering in the air as he swept past. The window to the store was already broken, so foregoing the door Superman flashed inside, slowing only enough so the glass fragments wouldn’t get caught in his current of air and become deadly projectiles. He stopped abruptly, landing on his feet as his cape caught on the wind he had created and billowed out behind him.
The robber blinked and glanced back at the sudden and strange wind, and his eyes widened behind his ski mask as he brought his gun around.
Clark flinched, but caught himself fast enough that he didn’t move, not even a change in his expression.
The gun went off, and then again. The bullets flew slowly towards him, and he watched them as they almost seemed to drift, spinning lazily in the molasses air as the sleek metal lulled towards him. They weren’t dangerous to him, he reminded himself as the world slowed to stillness around him. Not now. He could let them hit him, and he wouldn’t feel a thing, even if they both hit him right over the heart.
They wouldn’t hurt him. He was invulnerable. He was Superman.
At the last millisecond, Clark reached up and snatched the two bullets out of the air before they could hit the s-shield of his suit. He pressed all of the bullets he had caught together into a misshapen ball and let it fall to the ground with a heavy clunk.
His stare was dark and completely cold as he looked at the crook, and it was enough to make the man tremble and actually drop his gun from a shaking hand.
“P-please . . . ” the robber stuttered, clearly terrified for his life.
Superman stepped forward and took him by the arm, and without a word lifted him and flew over to drop him none-to-gently next to the cop cars and the four officers there.
“Here you go, officers,” Superman said simply. The cops stared at him for a second before two of them stepped forward and took the crook in hand. Superman turned around, took a deep breath as he looked towards the stars, and then carefully stepped into the air.
“Superman!”
Superman stopped, both feet hovering only inches above the ground. He had flown off the from the other rescues so far without a word more than necessary, but this was a familiar voice. His feet touched ground again and he turned slowly.
“Henderson.”
The hardened police chief jogged towards him. He stopped a respectful distance away, but in the light of the cars and the streetlights he could see the superhero’s face well enough.
“Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
The officer frowned at him. “Where have you been?”
Clark hesitated. His eyes went to the would-be robber, who was now being thoroughly searched for any extra weapons. “I’d rather not say right now,” he said.
Henderson grunted and puffed out a breath of air. “Well, you’re going to have to come up with something. That may be enough for me and my men, but some people have gone mad, and—”
Suddenly, one of the officers searching the crook straightened, cautiously drawing from the man’s pocket a short, thin, sickly-green colored crystal.
Rational thought fled. Clark staggered back, bumping into one of the police cars and sending it a good two feet backwards. The side window shattered as the door bent in from the force.
“Get rid of that!” Henderson thundered at the pale young officer who was now frozen, the green stone stiff in his hand. Henderson lunged forward to grab it from the stunned officer and hurled it away—it spun through the black air, catching the dim flickerings of lampposts and some distant stars, and then shattered into a million glittering pieces on the cement.
Turning away from it, the officers’ attentions all turned to Superman, who was now standing and brushing shattered glass from his hair and suit, and wasn’t looking at any of them.
Henderson swore, coming forward. “Are you all right?” he demanded.
Clark swallowed, hiding the shaking of his hands by continuing to brush the fragments of glass from his cape. “Yes,” he said, his voice as steady as he could make it, despite the scare.
Henderson swore again. “We had heard that this stuff—this kryptonite—could hurt you, but we never actually believed.” He turned and barked, “You men! Get that contained and put away for analysis. I don’t want a single speck of dust left behind, understand?” He looked back to the superhero.
It was dark, so the hardened police chief may have imagined the slight flush of embarrassment and shame that crept over Superman’s pale-colored face.
“I really am all right,” he said, looking up at last. “That . . . that wasn’t—isn’t—kryptonite.”
Henderson frowned at him, recognizing the honesty of his tone. “But then why . . . ?” His sentence trailed off and he stopped, looking at the superhero with a new light of realization in his eye. “You thought it was kryptonite.”
Clark didn’t like that look. It went beyond the curiosity, and came close to concern—to a realization that Superman wasn’t the untouchable alien that he pretended to be. It came too close to the formation of thoughts of where the superhero had been all this time, and why he had reacted so suddenly and fearfully about the sight of a simple green piece of glass that had been nothing more than just that—glass.
He was just about ready to make an excuse to leave when Henderson spoke again. “Then you should know, Superman,” he said slowly. “The whole city’s been caught up in this kryptonite rage. It’s gone out of control. Practically every crook brought in has some sort of green stone or glass—or maybe they’re just wearing green to try and keep you away. One way or another, even we don’t know what we’re looking for.”
Superman gave a slightly wry smile. “A little green is not going to hurt me, Henderson.”
Except when it was there, before him, filling his eyes with memories.
Except when it was backed with that terrible blinding white of pain and fear, where the color of hope and life was twisted into sickness and agony.
“Superman?”
Clark was shaken out of his thoughts by Henderson, who was again looking at him closely.
Too closely. It was past time for him to go. He should never have stayed.
“Your arm all right?”
He realized he had been holding it in a shaking grip and let go abruptly.
“It’s fine,” he said, taking a step away and looking up to the sky.
“One minute,” Henderson said. He glanced back at his men, who where busy setting up tape around the crime scene and dealing with the small crowd of late-nighters gathering at the perimeter—more than one to see Superman rather than the scene itself. The police chief leaned in. “Superman, have you talked to Lane yet?”
Clark frowned at the unexpected question, and his eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“She’s been in contact with an organization called the Primaries.” Clark looked at him sharply, feeling a chill. “They came to me some weeks back, asking me to join up with them, seeing as I had talked to you more than most.” He paused, glancing up to make sure no one had come close enough to hear. “I turned them down.”
Clark didn’t answer, but just waited.
“I don’t want to be strung down to any such group—good cause or no,” Henderson continued, “and I wasn’t about to spy on you for them, either. I don’t know enough to say whether you can trust them or not, but one way or another they want me to tell you that they have something of yours.”
Superman nodded. “Thank you,” he said. He glanced back at the now rapidly growing crowd, many of whom were trying to press forward as they called for him. “I should go.”
Henderson nodded. “Good to have you back, Superman,” he said. There was a pause. “Be careful.”
It was the first time anyone had ever told him to be careful while he was in the suit, besides his mom and dad. Not knowing what exactly to say to that, Clark just nodded before shooting off into the air.
He arced upwards and flew between the skyscrapers and reaching buildings, but took the flight slow enough that he had time to slow his heart rate and fill his tightened lungs with air again. Excited voices called out as they caught sight of him from the street below, shouting out his name as he passed. Clark gave a small wave in return.
It really was good to be back.
A few minutes later he was hovering over the silent warehouse where Lois and he had found the Primaries.
His ship still sat there, tarp-covered and apparently untouched since he had last seen it. A quick scan showed nothing, but he heard two distinct heartbeats inside, and found no less than fourteen cameras fixed on the spaceship’s location from various crooks and crannies.
Clark hesitated. Should risk trying to take it now? But what risk was he taking if he decided to leave it there a while longer? The thought of losing it again—of never getting the answers he needed—was a horrible thought.
More horrible than the white room? More horrible than risking being caught again?
Clark shuddered. No. Perhaps not. But he couldn’t let that stop him, again and again. He had to keep going, as if Bureau 39 had never happened.
He would be more careful, but he couldn’t let it stop him.
With that thought, in a matter of seconds he had narrowed in on the cameras and shot through the connecting wires—nothing too hard to fix, just in case these men were, after all, on his side. A quick but thorough scan showed no suspicious lead-lined containers or other places where kryptonite could be hid, and without pausing another second, he darted down as fast as he could.
The air rushed past him, and for the first time in a long while he felt a thrill of danger from flying as he blurred towards the rooftop. What would happen to him if there was kryptonite? Before, he had crashed into a wall and effectively incapacitated himself. Flying like this, though—if he were to lose his abilities so suddenly, he would be crashing more than through roof or even floor. He’d be lucky if he survived the landing alive.
Or unlucky.
Clark’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed as he thrust those dark thoughts away.
The ship filled his vision. His forward-thrust hands pressed upon its warm exterior. He slowed enough to lift it onto his shoulders without touching his feet to the rooftop, and then shot off again—darting upwards, upwards, upwards, like a child who had finally found the bravery to draw close to the line of terror, only to dart of suddenly as the dare is completed. His heart pounded in his ears, and his clammy hands slipped slightly on the smooth hull of the craft he held, forcing himself to slow and adjust his grip. He looked down and was surprised to find that he was already nearing the end of the Earth’s atmosphere in his haste to distance himself from the possible danger.
He stopped, hovering high above the clouds and shifting the weight of the ship a bit awkwardly due to its ungraceful bulk in his arms.
Now what?
Okay, so he had his ship. It wasn’t like he could take it to his apartment, or hide it in a closet like he did the globe.
The thought crossed his mind that he could take it to Smallville, but he dismissed it as soon as it came. They had found it there once, and he didn’t want any more attention drawn towards his home.
He didn’t want anyone to find it, that was for sure, and if anyone did find it he didn’t want the least connection to Clark Kent or Smallville.
With that last thought, his eyes turned north, and in a moment his flight direction followed.
North. A cold, inhuman place. A place where even the hardiest of creatures struggled to survive. A place where it was unlikely that anyone would be searching for Superman’s spaceship, let alone actually be able to find it.
The earth passed away to water, and that to empty whiteness. The sound of humanity faded into the distance, and the cold air was still.
Air so cold that, had he been human, he would have quickly frozen to death, dressed as he was. It was almost as cold as space, or perhaps even more so with the icy fingers of air that turned the endless snow to ever-shifting mounds of perfect white sand dunes, which were now bathed in the pale light from the clouds which covered the face of the unsetting sun.
Superman slowed his flight, looking around the desert landscape as he descended. A moment later he landed on an icy glacier where he set the ship down carefully before straightening to look at it.
His ship. His spaceship. The last of advanced alien technology, even as he was the last of aliens. They had escaped together, and here they were at last—brought together again.
He ran his hands over the smooth hull, then carefully opened the ship to peer down at the small capsule that had carried him over the billions of miles from his home world.
His hands traced the pattern around the edge of the small seat that had held him. Was it just a decoration, or some sort of language? He didn’t know.
“I would like to know, Jor-El,” he said, softly yet firmly, and his voice sounded lonely and cold in the white air. “Why did you send me here? You showed me the danger to Krypton, but what else did you hope to do? To hide me away to die alone? You must have something else for me. You must!”
There must be answers. Clark couldn’t bear not knowing.
The ship was cold, silent. He sat there, still staring at the patterns around the metal shell, running his finger along the rim as he knelt down in the snow—the only alien on earth kneeling by a tiny little spaceship that had taken him there, years and years before.
Then, a faint wink of a light. He thought he had imagined it at first, or maybe that it had been a snowflake vanishing into the warmth of his skin—but no. It was a light. A faint, dim light that flashed beneath his hand; a single symbol of the designs was glowing. It looked like a figure eight, but enclosed in a shield much like his “S.” He ran his finger lightly over it.
“Is there more for me here?” he whispered.
The capsule responded to his touch. It didn’t light up any more. It didn’t hum to life as he had hoped. Instead, there was a hissing sound and the little seat in which he had sat so many years before lifted slightly, like a pressurized lock being undone.
He hesitated, his heart pounding in his chest, and then took hold of the new edge with his fingers and pulled upwards to reveal the hidden compartment underneath.
A green glow bathed his face, and instinctively he flinched back from the green glow of the crystal—taking flight in pure horror of the light.
He was half a mile above his ship when he was able to drag himself to a stop, quivering in his boots as he turned to look down with vision far better than any eagle’s. He could see it from here—a green crystal in the shadow of his ship. It was probably a little longer than his hand—but perfectly shaped rather than the malformed lumps that he had had the misfortune to come in contact with.
Why, why, why would Jor-El—his father—send kryptonite in his ship with him?
But wait. As the panic began to release his heart from his freezing grip he frowned, hovering. He had felt no pain, in the bare second that he had been in the presence of this crystal. He had felt no mind-numbing agony or that cursed weakness, which dragged at his very soul as if trying to tear it apart. No. He had felt nothing.
But this wasn’t just colored glass, like the fake kryptonite from earlier. No. This was from Krypton—and it glowed, even like kryptonite.
But it didn’t seem to hurt him.
He hesitantly began making his way down, landing a fair distance away from the ship and settling knee-deep into the snow. Frowning at the not-cold but not-so-comfortable feeling of snow sliding between his tights and boots, he hovered slightly, just above the snow as if he were walking on top of it.
He edged forward slowly. The green glow of the crystal seemed to sense his presence and pulsed brighter. He edged forward like a wolf around a trap he knew was just waiting to be set off by the slightest misstep, slowly, ever so hesitantly. Before he knew it he was hovering above his ship again, his face alight with the green—painless—glow of his home.
Was this kryptonite? He reached down, still hesitant despite the lack of pain thus far, and brushed his fingers against it. The crystal was surprisingly warm, like a living thing, pulsing gently. He lifted it carefully, as if afraid of being burned
He held it up, turning it over in his fingers. It was beautiful—made of crystalline angles and a deep, beautiful green that was still eerily close to the kryptonite that plagued his dreams at night. But what was it?
“What do I do now?” he asked the ship. Then laughed softly. Superman, talking to a spaceship. People would probably be either awed or afraid that he had gone mad.
But to his surprise something did happen. The crystal in his hand glowed to a blinding brightness and flashed hot suddenly—still not the searing, terrible burning of kryptonite, but hot enough that he dropped it in surprise and leaped back.
The crystal sank, melting into the snow about it and out of sight. He watched it with his x-ray vision, watching it sink deeper and deeper into the snow, through the ice, and smaller and smaller as it grew farther away, but then, somehow, bigger and bigger in his eyes…
The ground started to shake. A great chasm broke through the ice beneath him, and Superman sped to catch his ship and lift it before it fell into the great divide, from which was emerging…
Crystals?
Sharp, clear crystals white as the snow about jutted out of the snow, forcing Superman to lift his ship higher so as not to be struck by the growing massive juts of white. They grew out at angles, sprouting up like living plants out of the barren land, and Superman stood back, watching in amazement as something began to take form out of the nothingness—out of that green seed from his ship. An ice castle. A fortress—beautiful, majestic, powerful, and delicate at the same time.
A name from his childhood tree house came to him as he stared. The Fortress of Solitude. The name might as well have been created for it.
The fortress took full form and the earth stilled, but still Superman hovered in the now silent air, which seemed even more still after the cracking and ripping of ice and crystal.
What in the world? Or, rather, what out of the world?
He descended, landing outside rather than inside, and set his ship down carefully before staring between the angled crystals. The centers of the crystals seemed to glow—as if catching the sunlight from without and diffusing in a hundred times magnified through the crystalline structure. But it was enough that he wondered if the crystals themselves were not giving out at least part of that brilliant glow.
Steps, rises, and walkways rose upwards out of the icy cavern, all carved as if by nature’s hand. He climbed upwards towards a dais, looking around at the large room, awed, excited, and more than a little uncertain.
He was Clark Kent. What in the world was he doing here? He didn’t belong here. This was beyond him, his life, his person . . .
But he was Superman. No. He was Kal-El. This was his heritage. This was meant for him.
“Hello?” he called, then immediately felt quite foolish as his voice echoed a dozen times throughout the large space. There was no answer. It seemed, for all its beauty, the fortress was dead, too—just a cold, frozen memorial of a people long dead. His people.
He really was the last.
He looked around, feeling like a stranger intruding in a sacred place. It felt so…alien. There was no other word for it, and he wasn’t comfortable with that at all.
He took one more step forward on the dais, and suddenly a light seemed to increase before him, and in the crystals across the room a face appeared. His father. Jor-El.
“Kal-El, my son. It is I—Jor-El.”
Clark fell still, his whole being attentive to the image before him.
“If your arrival on Earth proceeded according to plan, you have known of your Krypton heritage since the year of your ninth-Earthly birthday, approximately six years after you arrival to that planet. Now you should be nearly grown—a young man approaching manhood, and this fortress is designed to guide you on that journey—to your destiny.”
Crystals seemed to sprout out on the dais before him, and Clark stepped back quickly as what looked like some sort of control panel rose up before him. “We have recorded the knowledge of the 38 known galaxies in the crystals before you,” his father continued, heedless of his son’s thoughts—of course. He was dead. This was like a film, a movie—a last recording, like the globe was. “For the next eight years of your life you will learn from them. And then you will be ready.”
Ready? Ready for what? And destiny? What end had his father meant him for?
To rule over them, but never as a tyrant. That was what the globe had said, anyway. But how literal had his father meant it?
Clark shook his head. The idea wasn’t even chilling to him—it was just laughable, in a grim sort of way. He had no desire or right to rule over Earth—as a tyrant or otherwise. Technically, he couldn’t even run for president.
Besides, he was Clark Kent. He didn’t want to rule over anybody.
He crossed his arms as if against the cold, though the air was strangely warm in the fortress and it wouldn’t have touched him even if it hadn’t been.
He was twenty-seven years old. Not a young man at all. Not an old man, certainly, but beyond the age that could be described as “young man approaching manhood.”
What would have happened to him, if he had found this earlier? Could he have stayed away from the world—from humanity for so long? What would have become of him?
He would have been all the more an alien. Would Superman have come to be? What had his father—this lost people of his—wanted him to become?
Would he have become this ruler that Jor-El spoke of?
What would have happened to Clark Kent? Would he have ceased to be, replaced instead by Kal-El of Krypton, the last of his kind?
“Kal-El. My son. Speak.”
Clark shook himself and frowned at his father. He waited. The image waited. He shifted. The image still waited. Clark cleared his throat. Surely it didn’t actually want an answer.
“Can you…hear me?” he asked at last. The globe may not have responded to any attempt at two-way communicating, but this was bigger.
Much bigger.
“The crystals before you hold more than just information. They hold the memory of Krypton. The memory of my life, and your mother’s. Our spirits are here with you, Kal-El, my son. You will never be alone.”
Had Jor-El, his father—an alien, like him—understood what it meant to be truly alone? Somehow, Clark doubted it.
But it . . . he . . . had answered him. It must be some sort of advanced alien artificial intelligence, then.
And it was there. The crystals held information—the knowledge of galaxy after galaxy . . .
Such information was valuable beyond measure, beyond price.
The crystals held the answers.
For him.
Stepping forward slowly, Clark looked up at the face of Jor-El, questions that had once had no answer gathering in a host in his mind.
He took a deep breath, and then began.
TBC . . .
