#23: Home Is Where The Hurt Is

Metropolis:

Lois lay there listening. No more sounds. The men had loaded all the equipment and left. The ribbon was still wrapped tight around her. She tried to breathe without moving her chest. Every time she exhaled the bands wrapped a little tighter. She began to inch her way out from under the large chunk of debris, the arm rest of the chair wouldn’t hold it up much longer. Winslow lay directly in front of her. He was alive, but barely.

“The gunmen must have messed up a point blank shot”, Lois thought out loud, “Doesn’t speak much for the caliber of hired guns these days.”

It was no use the more she moved the tighter the ribbons got. Her right arm was now completely numb.

There were a few things that Superman always kept himself attuned to. A few months back he worked with Batman to train himself to detect the smell of certain chemical compounds that could be used in explosives, in particular, semtex. It worked pretty well except for the whole time Batman kept referring to him as Lassie.

The air carried the scent of semtex, and something else. Superman paused in mid air, hanging in the sky, suspended like a dandelion on a lazy summer breeze. Lois’ perfume, there were several thousand women in Metropolis that wore the same perfume as Lois, but when combined with the scent of semtex, there was no doubt in the Man of Steels mind that it was Lois.

A combination of telescopic and X-ray vision, Super-vision, in the general direction of the scent, revealed the abandoned building with the gaping hole in its side. Heat still emanated from the wound, it hadn’t been long since it happened, a deeper infrared scan showed the heat of two bodies inside, one barely alive.

Lois’ breathing was shallow. She was trying her best to fight the panic. At first when the chunk of concrete started moving she thought it was coming down on her, but instead it was lifting up.

Superman lifted the chunk of concrete like papier-mâché and tossed it aside. He grabbed the strips of ribbon and tore them apart. On the way there he had examined Lois and the rapidly fading Schott.

“Lois, that man is nearly dead! I’m going to fly him to Metro General, are you OK for now?”

The restrictive ribbons gone, her body starved for oxygen, the air rushed into Lois’ lungs so quickly that she was unable to speak until she had fully inhaled and exhaled.

“I’ll be fine she rasped. Go, go.”

Superman picked up Winslow’s limp body.

“Stay put Lois; I’ll be back for you.” Superman flew out the whole in the wall with Winslow cradled in his arms.

Metropolis:

“PAPER NOW!” Luthor screamed. The assistant timidly handed the paper to Lex who was seated behind the large black desk. Luthor snatched it. “Get out.” The poor assistant ran, and kept running only pausing at the front desk of the Lexcorp building long enough to throw his ID card down and say “I quit”.

Luthor only read as far as the Daily Planet headline:



He stood and threw the paper into the wastebasket.

“Olsen” he spat.

He touched a spot on the desk and a chime sounded.” Grace, call a press conference and get Mercy in here NOW!”

Luthor picked up a cell phone and flipped it open. “Teng, you better have good news for me.”

“The DNA in the rocket was definitely kryptonian, using that and what we learned from the other kryptonian, I’m confident we can rebuild the DNA helix and produce a viable clone in a few weeks.”

“You have two days and Teng if this one turns out like that monstrosity Doomsday, kill it… and yourself.” Lex closed the phone and threw it in the waste can.

Metropolis:

“Lois!” Perry yelled from his office door.

Lois wondered why Perry even had an intercom or a phone, his preferred method of communication was to stick his head out of his office door and yell.

“Here chief.” She called back.

“Stop what you’re doing and get down to Lex Corp, its hit the fan.”

“But Chief . . .I…”

“No buts, Lane, go… NOW!”

Lois grabbed her purse and her tape recorder and sprinted for the elevator.

Smallville:

Martha handed Clark a small wooden box, on the lid was an intricate carving of a mallard. “What’s this?” Clark asked.

“If I ‘m going to sell this place, there are few things that we need to clear out of here, don’t you think, Clark.”

Clark opened the wooden box. Inside it a small green crystal glowed slightly.

“Oh, yeah right.”

“Your father pulled this out of your ship when we found you. You should probably put it somewhere safe.”

“I know just the place Mom. Thanks.” Clark grinned at her and kissed her on the forehead.

The Antarctic: The area between 90°W and 150°W, the only unclaimed solid land on the planet.

Superman stood on the shore of a frozen lake, water from surrounding glaciers melt and seep over the lake, freezing and capping the lake with a thick sheet of blue ice. In the distance, diamond dust, a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals, shimmered and danced across the frozen landscape. Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica 16, 050 feet above sea level, loomed in the distance.

Here on Earth were wonders and beauty, as brilliant as any far-away-planet he had ever been on.

Superman looked for miles in every direction, in this harsh dry environment with temperatures of 112 degrees below, only the toughest lichens and fungi managed to cling to life. He did spot the flightless midge Belgica antarctica, just 12 millimeters in size, the largest land animal in Antarctica.

“This should be a good place to get away from it all.” He thought.

Twin beams of heat shot from Supermans eyes and bored through the lakes ice cap; steam erupted, obscuring his dive into the frigid water captured beneath the frozen surface. The ice cap over the lake quickly froze back in the frigid air. Deep in the lake Superman bored a tunnel through the wall of lake for miles, until breaking through to an underground lake in an immense chamber under Mt. Vinson Massif.

“This should be safe from prying eyes and super-villains. Funny”, he thought.

“Crystalline structures in the Arctic, space folding tesseracts, and finally a hole in the ground.” Superman placed the green crystal on the ground stepped back and whispered, “Do your stuff.”

The crystal shimmered and began to glow brighter. The green light filled the enormous cavern and the earth trembled as the crystal sank below the earth. Crystal spires erupted from the ground punching up through the cavern ceiling. Superman floated over the cavern lake and watched as Krypton erupted on Earth. At last, a crystalline control panel rose over-looking the lake. The tremors subsided and the cavern was filled with a white glow that seemed to emante from all around. Superman floated over to the control panel. The green crystal sat inside one of the tube like slots. He reached for it and was thrown backward by a jolt of energy. He sat there on the ground stunned as a dozen small robots swarmed up to him. They had triangular shaped heads with long necks descending from the back point and small slit like visors on the front. Their bodies were shaped like flattened bells and two cable like arms swung from their sides. One hovered forward.

“I am Keelex, this is the house of El you will leave immediately or face termination.” The robots all raised their arms in unison, energy crackled and spit from their ends.

The New Fortress:

“Keelex, I am Kal-el, son of Jor-el, stand down.”

“Negative, energy scans negative I.D. you are not of the house of EL, termination will begin.” Superman dodged the energy blasts from the robots and flew up into the upper structure of the fortress.

“Intruder alert, upper levels; identify and eradicate.”

“Lightray’s energy blast to juice me up on solar energy must have screwed up my energy signature!*” Superman thought as he dodged another blast from the robots. “I need to reset my Kryptonian chi but I don’t think I’m going to have time to do it with hot stones and relaxation right now.”

The robots hurled another blast and this time connected. Superman went flying through the wall into the grand hall, landing at the crystalline carving of his parents holding a globe of Krypton.

“Hold on a minute,” he thought, “I should have the entire Kryptonian chi I need right here.”

The robots swarmed into the room; with a blast of super-breath he knocked several against the wall. They sputtered and fell to the ground.

Keelex fired an energy blast and Superman deflected it on his outstretched palm.

“Keelex, I am here to destroy the house of El and I will as soon as I find the Fortress’ energy source.” “Hope that sounded convincing”. Superman thought. He watched as two robots broke off the attack and swerved off into the fortress.

Superman followed them with Keelex and the rest close behind firing energy beams, as he dodged and weaved between the crystal spires, keeping sight of the two robots that would lead him to the fortress’ energy source. Three robots couldn’t keep up with the twists and turns and smashed into crystal support beams. A quick blast of heat vision took out another two.

Superman could feel it now, a small rapid vibration coursing through his body. Deep down in the womb of the fortress he saw it. The Fortress’ power source, three large crystals 10 feet high, hummed with life. Tendrils of crystal radiated off each one like a spider’s web, carrying energy to all the fortress’ systems.

The two lead robots, turned and immediately opened fire, Superman dodged the blast, two more robots behind him did not.

A blast of super-breath pushed the other two robots into the crystal chamber. They began to shake violently till they literally fell to pieces. Superman hoped the same thing wouldn’t happen to him as he dove between the massive crystals. He felt as though his eyes were being shaken out of his head. The power from the crystals vibrated into the man of steels very cells. Superman cried out. He was dizzy, about to black out, he had to get out of there, he couldn’t take anymore. He stepped from between the crystals. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Keelex coming toward him.

Superman awoke; he was floating on his back. Sensors hovered over his body tiny crystal cables snaked out to a control panel monitoring his bodily functions. Keelex floated into the room. Superman touched to the ground instinctively ready to dodge.

“Kal-el of Krypton”, Keelex said. “All of your functions are operating within normal parameters.”

“What happened?”

“An intruder triggered the Fortress’ defense systems, myself and a defense squad tracked the inruder to the power core where you suddenly appeared.”

“Keelex, that wasn’t an intruder, it was me. My energy signature was messed up and you didn’t recognize me as kryptonian till I reset myself with the power source.”

“I will review the fortress logs to make sure that mistake doesn’t happen again.”Keelex floated off deeper into the fortress.

Superman floated into the great hall, Keelex and the drones had already repaired the damage. Superman stood at the base of his parents statue. His adopted mom’s words ringing in his ears. “Your father was proud of you.”

“I wonder if Jor-el would be proud of me.” He thought.

* Check out Action Comics #19 -- Cheerful Charlie

The End[/i]