Action Comics #12:"Return to Smallville, Part 4"

“MA!” He jerked up from the metallic pathway he had been lying on, and looked around, his eyes darting around like those of a fox. He remembered everything from before the massive explosion of cosmic energy struck him, the instant of pain, the moment of thinking… This is it. Defeated by that… Braniac creature. But no. He was alive and well.

“Kal-El?” The Last Son of Krypton staggered to his feet and turned his head, ready for anything, but is met with the visage of a grey haired man, who’s body does not fill the red and green attire he wears. He’s thin, malnourished, but there’s a spark in his eyes, and he views Superman with a burning familiarity. “Son of… You wear the shield of your family, it is true…” Clark Kent didn’t realize it, but the man was speaking a familiar tongue. Not English… But something else. He didn’t question it, just replied in the like.

“What’s going on?” He clenched his fist, the air tasted unnatural, the gravity on his body somehow off, a weird feeling of vertigo all over him. “Who are you?”

“I am Zor-El, and the likeness is uncanny… You are my brother’s son!”

Superman blinked once. And then blinked again. The man in front of him was familiar to him, true, but could it be the truth he was speaking? Was he Jor-El’s brother? “Who are you?”

“I am Zor-El, chief scientist of this city…” He motioned his arms around himself, the magnificent structures, the colours, but the silence around them… A sense of sterile loneliness.

Clark shook his head, sloughing off the effects of whatever hit him still, his stomach still reeling as he got used to his surroundings. “How did I get here?”

“Same way as everyone else, Kal-El, because of Braniac!”

The superhero shook his head, taking everything in. “I don’t understand…”

Zor nodded, and then placed his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Let me explain…”

“In the days following his offer, we awoke to discover we were not in our home city but in another, some where from our legends. Welcome to Kandor, Kal-El, lost city of Argo, lost for hundreds of years but discovered by Braniac the saviour.”

“The saviour?” Superman shook his head, and shook the man off his shoulder. “He tried to kill me, tried to murder me, and you call him a saviour?”

The old man shakes his finger at the hero, shaking his head as he does so. “If it were not for him, I would not be here!”

“He… he violated my friends, he brainwashed them… Who is he? Who is Vril Dox?”

“Braniac was the computer mind of Krypton… A program devised by my brother, your father, to help orchestrate the every day-to-day running of the planet… Vril Dox was the aberrant intelligence that was banished to the Planet Colu. The ghost in the machine, if you will.” Zor cringes, and holds his head. “It grew, evolved during the time that the Coluans were dissecting it. Unfortunately, when I initiated the base Brainiac program; it sought, freed and merged back into the exiled intelligence.”

“Damn this…! I need to get back to Smallville!” The supposedly Last Son of Krypton leapt into the sky, an attempt to fly up above the city; with a gasp he fell to the ground, the loud fall taking the wind from his lungs and causing him to be overcome with shock. “What’s going on? Where… My powers…” His eyes wander to the sky above, and the realization that the sun that beamed down light from above was red causes his jaw to drop. A red sun. He was trapped.

Weak, Lois, weak… The reported rubbed the back of her head, the ache and pain of being hit hard with something… Hard gnawing on her. What would dad say? She pulled herself up, using the counter to support herself, and then she looked around, getting her bearings. Peter Ross, Managing Director of the First Bank of Smallville, sure did hit hard… She groaned and looked at the ground, a glass jug full of milk shattered into pieces on the ground. That’s probably why you’re hurting so bad, Lane. She felt the back of her tender skull lightly, and checked for blood, and finding that there was none, she then grabbed her handbag and ran out the door. The look in his eyes before he hit me… That wasn’t him. He went from old fashioned farm boy to zombie in seconds. Something happened to that guy. And it’s my job to find out what. But first I need help… Clark!

“Clark?” Without much of an effort, Lois opened the door to the Kent house, and looked around , searching for her friend. “Mrs Kent?”

“What… Are you doing here?” She turned with a start, surprised by the voice behind her. She watched as Lana Lang staggered up the steps to the porch, and then as she collapses onto the seat outside. “Does… Martha know you’re breaking and entering?”

“La… Ms Lang!” The reporter nodded slowly, and then shook her head. “They’re not here, the door was open…”

“The door is always open, this is Smallville…” Lana grimaced as she stood back up.

“Are you okay?”

“NO I AM NOT, MS LANE. My life has just been revealed to be a LIE because of someone with a grudge against SUPERMAN. I’m not in the best of MOODS and I need to talk to Clark!”

Lois’ eyes widen as she took in the words. “Your son…”

“Wasn’t my son, but a robot who I was made to care for…” as she finished she groaned, the full weight of the truth hitting her like a sledgehammer. “I lost my son…”

“Why… Why do you need to see Clark?”

“Because…” Lana hesitated, realizing that Clark had not revealed his identity to this woman, “…Because he can get in touch with Superman…”

Lois nodded slowly. “Right.” She was about to press the subject, the thought of her story overcoming her senses for a moment, when she gasps in surprise. “Martha!” Her gasp is extended as she sees someone else behind her, his hand on her shoulder. “SUPERMAN?!”

“Analyzing.” Without a thought, a small tentacle had formed from his arm, and had inserted itself into a computer on his ship. Instantly he was connected to the internet, his computer systems absorbing every byte of information, every detail of life on Earth. He sifted through the blogs, the dictionaries, the histories, until every single piece of information was stored in his systems. “Integration complete.” The tentacle withdrew with a snap, and his eyes began to glow with an eerie light. “This is a backwater planet, not worthy of assimilation into the new Coluan empire.” He looked over to Pete Ross, unconscious on the floor, blood dripping from his mouth, and nodded slowly. “This speck in the universe shall not be missed.”

Braniac sat, sifting through terabytes of data. Science, technology, theology; the human achievements in these field are meaningless to him. However, the sociological being known as man, has a few traits that are unfamiliar to Braniac. One particularly challenging topic called 'American culture', proves to be strangely addictive. Data from the Internet points to one being who encompasses the extremes of these traits.

“I must find this being... this 'K-fed' and extract the data I seek from him.”

As Braniac begins setting a course to California, the ship is rocked. The air began gushing out of the room as several alarms rang. “Decompression? The hull has been breached. Who dares!”

“I think the answer should be obvious,” Superman said as he tore open the metal doors. “But I can give you a hint, if you need it.”

“Inconceivable! My calculations were perfect. There was no possibility of escape.”

“You must have missed an unexpected variable in your formula, Brainiac. Perhaps you aren't as infallible as you give yourself credit. ” Superman stood tall, almost inviting Brainiac to try and harm him.

“You are a fool Kryptonian. I defeated you before, I shall defeat you again!” By mental command, the shrink ray spins around and shoots at Superman. This time however, the ray hits him directly on his emblem and does nothing. Brainiac watches on incredulously, unable to hide the shock on his face. “Inconceivable! It... you...”

“Are you not getting tired of always being wrong?” Superman taunted.

“Enough!” Brainiac quivers with rage, unleashing a psychic attack of his highest ability. The hero in blue falls to his knees, his limbs shaking. Superman grasps his head, and slowly begins to stand up. Brainiac's eyes widen in surprise.

“Your psychic... attacks... cannot stop... ME!” Through great pain, Superman is able to break the psionic link. The backlash sends Braniac sprawling.
“I grow weary of this Kryptonian,” Brainiac said as he rose, but suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of his own weaponry.
“As the humans say: 'payback is a bitch'.”

The bolt hit Brainiac square, and he was gone in a flash bright flash of light.

Now it is up to you, my friend.

At the conference table, Ray Palmer and J'onn J'onzz anxiously await the results. Ray had never attempted using white dwarf energy to reverse another shrink ray. He worries that the white dwarf energy might damage the Kryptonian photo absorption biology. What if he gets, I dunno, super cancer?

Superman strides out of the lab, physically feeling fine,but emotionally wracked.

“Everything looks good Superman.” Doctor Palmer says with great relief. “You're at your correct dimensions and density.”

“Thank you, Ray. Your expertise is invaluable.” Superman replies, “A big thanks to you, J'onn. If you weren't there, my trap would have never worked.”

“It was my pleasure Superman. It was a wise idea to give your mother our direct access line.” Replies the Martian Manhunter. “I did feel awkward having to deceive your friends. I am still unaccustomed to this concept of a 'secret identity'.”

“You did great, J'onn” Says the Man of Steel. “It was key to confuse Brainiac, otherwise we would have never gotten close enough to incapacitate him.”

“What do you want to do with the Bottle City, Superman?” The Atom spoke as he picked up the large container, and looked at the superhero.

“Can you… Can’t you reverse the shrink ray effect?”

“I’m afraid not Superman, the superdense Kryptonian metals would implode as the…” Ray motioned around with his hands, trying to figure out how to explain it. “City go boom-boom.”

“I understand. Shame…” Superman holds the bottle in his hand, just taking it from Ray. “The last true reminder of Krypton… Trapped in a bottle.”

“Kal-El…” J’onn placed his hand on the hero’s shoulder, and smiles whilst nodding slowly. “You are a reminder of all the good that is Krypton. Do not forget that.”

“Thank you, old friend.” Clark smiles and then lifts off out of the Hall of Justice, leaving the majestic building behind, the bottle wrapped tightly in his arms.

It had taken a year of rebuilding, of hard work and skill, but there it stood. With a gentle grace he lands on the snow, every step he takes a soft crunch echoing in the eerie silence of the cold, the Antarctic tundra surrounded by nothing but white snow and ice. He had learned the tesseract was unstable ever since General Zod returned, and every day it became a threat to all existence, but he needed a Fortress, somewhere for himself… The tesseract was disposed off. It took all the Justice League, and that story is for another time. He took the tiny key from his belt buckle and unlocked the massive golden door built into the massive ice mountain, and as the door opened wide, he smiled. He was home. The Fortress of Solitude. Robots buzzed around, maintaining the new location, clearing up the snow that had tumbled in as the door opened, and as Superman slowly walked into a dark room, where he conducted his super scientific experiments, he saw that the robots had done as he ordered. There was a podium ready, and as he placed the Bottle City there, he smiled glumly. Safe. He then turned to his right, where a body was wrapped in his red cape. Zor-El. He began whispering to himself, something he had learned when Jor-El’s holographic shape had found him all those years ago and revealed his true nature, the Kryptonian Death Chant. The whisper became louder, a song, and as he flew his uncle into orbit and pushed his cold dead corpse into the Sun, he kept singing, even though no one could hear, not even him. He watched as the body drifted through the emptiness, and as a tear drifted down his cheek only to freeze and break off, he smiled. His uncle was a hero. And so was he. He flew down to the Earth, speeding through the atmosphere so no satellites could pick him up, and as he landed in his family’s barn and changed his clothes, he heard a knocking on the door.

“Smallville?”

He didn’t need to hear her voice. Her heartbeat was familiar to him already, he had memorized it, the beat that echoed through his ears right now. He pushed back, dulling his powers by sheer force of will, and then clambered down the steps, nearly falling halfway down.

“I wondered where you had gotten off to.”Lois said, with a spattering of smugness in her voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty low actually, Lois.” Clark Kent answered frankly. “I'm a bit ashamed. I let myself get duped, and my family and friends got hurt. I wasn't even there when they needed me the most.” He sat on a bail of hay, the words he said were true. The part he didn't explain, was how he felt responsible. After all, Brainiac came to eliminate Superman, and did so by abusing those who are close to him.

Lois swallowed a bit of her pride, realizing the man before her was truly hurt by the experience. “In the end, Brainiac was defeated, and no one suffered any major injury.” Her words were genuine, she was trying to make Clark feel better.

Clark looked at her, there was pain in his eyes. She hadn't heard of Zor-El's death; she didn't know the sacrifice he made to ensure Superman's trap would work. Lana, poor Lana, would probably need therapy for a very long time.

There was a period of quietness in the barn. Lois' attempt to ease Clark's remorse had failed. She had originally come to find Clark to expose him as Superman, but now felt very awkward about doing so. Clark himself was sorting the emotions that stirred within, fueled by his confession. He wasn't as good hiding his emotions as he thought he was.

“Listen Clark, we've been through a lot together. I'm sorry I blindsided you back at your mother's house. As an investigative reporters, this is what we do, but sometimes we forget how hurtful it can be.” She said these words, and slowly approached the Smallville native. “I just want you to stop giving me this pretense of being a regular person, and admit that you're...”
“Clark? Lois?” An all too familiar voice cut into Lois's speech.

Lois slowly pivoted he head, to see who had spoken those words. She recognized the voice but couldn't believe who it was standing at the barn door. Superman, as big as life.

“I'm sorry to interrupt, but it was suggested that we, uh, I run tests on all people who had direct contact with Brainiac.” Superman stated, as he approached the two reporters. “A colleague gave me a device that would test for any remaining influence that Brainiac might have on you.” The device had a flurry of lights on the read-out and made strange whirling noises. “Both of you are clear of any mind altering devices.”

Lois's gaze never left Superman, her eyes were bigger than anytime Clark had ever seen them. Suddenly, her face became flushed. “Well that is good to know thank you Superman but I really have to catch a plane back to Metropolis because news wont write itself!”She flustered, as she hurriedly ran out of the barn in abject embarrassment.

Clark and Superman looked at each other with curious eyes. Clark was smiling as his head bobbed, trying desperately to restrain the bubbling laughter in his throat.

See J'onn? You're much better at this 'secret identity' than you give yourself credit.