The universe was infinite. Even for someone such as Clark Kent, a Kryptonian with abilities of unfathomable power, there was no way the entirety of it could be understood or explored. Hell, the Earth was a small, inconsequential planet in a wayward sector, and he'd yet to uncover all its mysteries even with his speed and heightened cognition. He was pondering this as he lay on the roof of the Kent farm's old barn, gazing at the stars that lay unfurled above him, a cosmic tapestry. A beer cooler gave him silent company and Beethoven's 7th played on his Samsung.
He sat up abruptly and paused the music. He tilted his head and closed his eyes. There, it was very faint. He could barely hear it, but there was a high frequency pulse, in a specific bandwidth that he'd come to associate with Kryptonian communications and he recognised this particular call as a distress signal. He discarded his clothing and shot off in the nude, activating his nano suit which generated from a medallion around his neck and covered his body. The sigil of the House of El was outlined on his wide chest and his cape billowed behind him as he took off at hypersonic speeds to investigate the source of the signal. He first flew in a direction perpendicular to the direction he could hear the signal from and after he got a few good locks, he quickly used that data to triangulate the signal precisely to a few millimetres. His eidetic memory informed him that it was emanating from a tributary of a major river in the Peruvian Andes; Clark had memorised the Earth's surface from a two thousand page atlas one day when he'd been nine years old.
He dived into an overflowing, frothing river, coloured brown as it dragged the mud from its banks along with it. Clark's vision helped pinpoint the craft that seemed to be emitting the signal and had no trouble digging it out from where it was embedded in the riverbed. He broke the troubled waters and flew the ship to an open, grassy meadow a few miles away. He placed it gently on the ground and observed the craft which seemed to be of Kryptonian origin. It was as large as an SUV, but much more aerodynamic and shaped like a cone with its nose cut off. The craft he'd come in as a baby had been of a different design and much smaller.
He ran his hand over the smooth Kryptonian metal. The ship seemed pristine on the outside. Even its delicate guidance wings were in perfect condition, which made sense since there were few elements on Earth that could possibly affect Kryptonian metal and the few that could weren't naturally occurring. Trailing his fingers on the cool surface, he walked around to where a control panel was gently embossed into the framework and placed his hand over it. A blue scanning light flashed over his palm and a smooth voice came from the craft, speaking in flawless Kryptonian.
"Fellow Kryptonian, this is Zor-El of the El family of Krypton. This ship was sent from our planet just before it was extinguished by the will of Rao. It harbours my daughter and my hope, Kara Zor-El. I sense that your DNA is Kryptonian and of my family, but I don't understand how a Kryptonian still survives, much less one who shares my blood. This artificial intelligence construct does not contain the information necessary to adapt and respond to this scenario. However, I am very glad that my daughter will not be the only Kryptonian in this universe and that she will have a family member with her, I leave her in your kind care."
Clark blinked as the voice cut off. He had a cousin? And she was here? He heard a muted hiss, and a door slowly appeared from the smooth metal surface and dissolved into the surrounding frame, leaving open a wide entrance. Clark floated up and looked down through the opening into the interior of the ship. His eyes widened and he exhaled deeply. Lying peacefully inside, on a rich, dark blue cushion was one of the most beautiful women he'd seen in his short but eventful life.
His eyes took her in for just a microsecond and her otherworldly beauty was burned into his perfect memory. Her waist length blonde hair was laid over her shoulders in gentle waves, covering the curves of her ample chest. She was fully clothed from the neck down in what looked like a version of his nano suit, except that it was coloured pure white. It certainly left nothing to the imagination, he thought, as it faithfully hugged every curve of her young body. He saw her vitals on a monitor at her side and checked that her body functions were normal. He re-engaged the door and watched it close over the young woman. He gently lifted up the craft, keenly aware of its precious cargo, the only other Kryptonian in existence, his only remaining family.
Clark sat back with a steaming mug of coffee as he watched Kal-Ex, the android companion of the El family, perform the complicated procedures needed to safely bring out a Kryptonian from hibernation. The procedures were built into the ship she'd come in, but Kal chose to use the superior equipment in his Medical Bay. His communicator beeped, and he swiftly apprised the alert that the Mainframe computer of the Fortress had sent his way.
He stood up, sighing. As much as he'd like to be here when his young cousin awoke, his duties called to him. Besides, he reasoned, she'd recognise Kal-Ex instantly since he'd been a servant to all members of the El House. He left the Fortress of Solitude with express instructions to Kal-Ex to have him informed as soon as she stirred. He flew directly to the Japanese islands, where his Mainframe had picked up signals of a potentially devastating earthquake from his array of early warning seismic detectors.
He surveyed the area from a height of 50 kilometres, using his vision to observe the faults beneath the region and hearing the murmurs of tectonic plates shifting, which allowed him to estimate the pressure build up in each locality. The mainland would largely be fine, there would be little that the disaster relief teams couldn't handle. His Mainframe had already sent out detailed communiqués to the Japanese government and the UN, and he observed people in the region prepare for the imminent earthquake. The Okinawa prefecture, he noted, was going to be badly hit, most of its infrastructure would go down and its disaster relief teams would themselves be stranded. He tapped the communicator on his wrist and requested the Fortress to send out two Flat Deck ships and his Ground Station. It responded instantly, "ETA two minutes and thirty-five seconds".
He'd come up with the idea for the Flat Decks a year ago when during a natural disaster, he'd found himself spending too much time flying people to medical centers, not giving him enough time to rescue every trapped person. He'd designed and built ten Flat Decks in the following months, the goal being that of a mobile platform that could hover over an affected area, safely holding people while rescues were made below. He'd designed it to operate in the harshest conditions possible on Earth and they could even be deployed deep underwater. The ships' features had certainly been overkill, but he always opted to perfect his engineering, one never knew how the next disaster would present itself. And once Orin, known as Aquaman to the larger population, had learned of the underwater capabilities of the ship, he'd financed 5 of the ships himself, intelligently looking out for the future of his underwater kingdom of Atlantis.
Kal directed his Ground Station ship to set up on the main Okinawa island while choosing to spread the two Flat Decks out at equal distances over the other islands. By now, the people of Earth had understood how Superman did things, and so the instant the people saw the building-sized Ground Station fly into Okinawa, they stirred into action, hope flowing into their hearts, Superman was here!
The Ground Station was a particularly stunning piece of Kryptonian engineering, a product of Jor-El's imagination and skill coupled with Clark's additions to allow it operate in Earth's conditions. It took up the area of three city blocks when it came to rest over a wide open area. Although it could stay endlessly afloat, powered as it was by the core of a Dwarf Star, it chose to extend ten metre high supports and landed gently on the ground. The elevators placed at different points on the ship descended to ground level, and humanoid robots wearing the symbol of Superman deployed from the ship, flying out over the roughly 150 islands, scanning for people in need of help or rescue.
Superman observed and directed all of this from his perch above the islands. He lifted his wrist to see the hologram that now popped up from his communicator. An emergency call from the Green Lantern John Stewart.
"Yes, John?" he asked.
"Clark, Busan has been hit pretty bad and I need a Flat Deck," John requested.
"Deploying one right away. Take care, John," he said, and dispatched a ship from the Fortress to Busan, South Korea. He looked to his left across the sea at Busan and his keen eyes saw John weaving in and out of fallen buildings, his green projections rescuing people and prying open fractured concrete. Clark stayed around for a few more hours watching and helping his robots and John in their rescues but his presence was no longer necessary here. The death rate was in the low tens, and most of the rescues were already done.
"John, I'm headed back. I'll see you this weekend at the League meeting," he signed off. "Send Shayera my regards."
"Will do Superman, I appreciate the assist."
The medical treatment of the injured would be handled by the medical teams that were scheduled to fly in from around the world to his Ground Station in under an hour. He'd originally debated having his robots do the medical treatments themselves, a capability that he'd already programmed into them. But he'd finally decided that doing everything himself would hinder the development of the human race and so he'd set up a system with the help of the UN that would allow all countries to volunteer their best doctors and send them to whatever area was worst hit.
There used to be a time when Clark would stick around for days together without a minute's respite and try to help each individual. But as rewarding as that felt and as helpful as it was to people, he was just one person, and he couldn't let himself let down people because he wanted to be personally involved with each and every rescue. And so, Clark found better ways to help. He put his powerful intellect to work and devised ways to ensure that the least number of humans suffered. People usually asked him what his life's motto was, wondering what complex ideal drove his efforts. But that was really it, the simply defined goal of seeing next to no one suffer on Earth was at the bottom of everything he did.
He flew back to the Fortress, taking a leisurely dip in the Arctic seas as he went, washing off the dirt from his suit in the pleasantly freezing waters. He spotted Krypto in the distance, stalking a Polar Bear. The Kryptonian dog he'd grown up with liked teasing the gentle giants despite Kal's numerous warnings. Kal grinned widely and using his heat vision, cut out a circular hole in the ice beneath Krypto. With a surprised yelp, Krypto went into the frigid Arctic waters. He floated out a second later, soaked, and with a none too pleased expression on his doggy face. He turned to look at Kal with a raised eyebrow as if asking him, "Really, Kal-El?"
Clark grinned at Krypto and dove into the waters himself. He swam with powerful strokes to where he knew his Fortress was in the distance, extending upwards from the murky depths of the sea. It reached up to precisely a hundred meters below the surface of the water. The body of water above the Fortress and immediately surrounding it wasn't actually water. It was a stealth liquid that he'd engineered with the help of John Henry Irons, Atlantean engineers, and Victor Stone. Made of Apokoliptian elements and Nth metal, the heavy liquid had some amazing properties. It blocked any and all electromagnetic signals that passed through it, including those in the optical spectrum. This meant that no civilisation, human or otherwise, could detect the massive Fortress. The Nth metal atom in the molecules also neutralised detection by magic.
He dove in to the liquid and swam blindly through, trusting his muscle memory to remember the entrance at the top of the Fortress and he shot through the force field that guarded it and kept out the liquid and the water above it. The field phased around him, drying him instantly. The entrance was at the ceiling of an immense hangar and he floated down gently through the air and landed on the tarmac, a full half a kilometre beneath the roof. Next to where he'd landed, he saw his robots performing maintenance work on seven of his battle cruisers. He'd sent them out to help the Almeracians repel a Khund invasion and they'd taken some light damage in the battle. He smiled thinking of the previous day's events. The Almeracian Queen, Maxima, had accompanied the returning cruisers and had insisted she thank him personally for his help. And well, who was he to resist a Queen really? She had left many pleasurable hours later, with a wide smile on her face and an unsure gait. Those Almeracians got upto some nasty business, he mused, but Clark wasn't complaining at all.
He entered Elevator Platform 29 and directed the interface to take him down to Level 8. Levels 2-7 were designated for aviation, that's where his ships were designed and built, before finally being delivered on Level 1, where they could take off and be sent out through the force field. Levels 9 through 24 were his personal Fortress, and till date, few had set foot on those floors, their persuasion always female and their business here strictly pleasure. Level 8 was where he'd left the young Kryptonian woman, his Med Bay. The last visitor there had been Bruce Wayne, a few months ago, when the Batman had lost a lot of blood and a couple of fingers to a particularly deadly attack from Bernadeth, one of Darkseid's Furies. He hadn't told Bruce where they were of course, choosing simply to tell him that this was a secret League facility.
Bruce had been unconscious when he'd been brought in and Clark had him teleported out directly from the Med Bay rather than risk the keen eyed detective seeing his Aviation Bay. Bruce wasn't too happy about that part, but he'd been secretly impressed with Clark's secretiveness, glad that he was becoming less naïve to the ways of the world. But having his fingers regenerated definitely helped in improving Bruce's mood, and he'd even given Clark an awkward one-armed hug. Clark made sure to bring that up at every League meeting, just to tease the Dark Knight, and well... to hear Diana laugh too.
As he descended into the facility, he spotted the woman quietly conversing with Kal-Ex. She was awake! Hearing the quiet hiss of the platform docking, she turned and looked directly at him, her eyes swiftly taking in his armour's crest of the house they both shared. He met her eyes, a lighter shade of cerulean than his and he sensed the shock and grief that swirled just beneath the surface. His heart went out to her.
She'd just learned of the fate of their species.