A Note From Lara: Okay, okay, I promised myself that I WOULDN'T start any new fics until I got all my old ones wrapped up but... Well, the idea for this fic has been bouncing around inside my brain ever since I really got into comics (especially since I started reading Superman archives, the ORIGINAL Superman stories from the 30's). I just see so many disparate elements of the Superman mythos running around, not being tied together in any way, even after Infinite Crisis (which, as you all know, was supposed to tie up all those loose ends), and I wanted to bring together the best of the best of Superman. Actually, a lot of it is trying to forget "Lois Lane: Superman's Girlfriend" ever happened. ;)
This is just going to be a long (and I mean LONG) background project I'll be working on behind my other fics. Updates will probably be few and far between, but this is a very long-term project that will take me months- maybe even years- to complete. So... I guess what I'm saying is, bear with me, and I'll do my best to make it worth it.
This fic will be based largely on the John Byrne revamp (THANK YOU JOHN, YOU REALLY SCORED ON YOUR DEFINITION OF CLARK KENT!! THE COMIC WORLD OWES YOU SO MUCH!!) and elements brought in from other sources, including some of the events of the recent Brainiac arc in Action Comics. And so, without further ado (and wow was there a lot of it before!)...
--
Kara Zor-El gazed through the telescope her father had built for her, staring out across the universe, a look of wonder in her deep blue eyes. She was fifteen years old, and cared little for the worldly cares of Krypton, the way her father did. Kara wanted to be an astronaut. No matter that the Council had forbade space travel long before she was born, she had sworn to herself when she was very young that one day she would break free from the restrictive bounds of her planet and explore what was out there. She wanted to take off and soar across the galaxies.
"Oh Kara," murmured her best friend Thara Ak-Var. "Have you even been listening to me?"
"Hm?" Kara asked absentmindedly, peering at the moons of Bgzlt.
"Kara!" Thara exclaimed. Thara was bright and pretty (though no match in either department for Kara), and like most Kryptonians, had no dreams beyond the atmosphere, and few within it. "Will you quit staring through that telescope? What boy will ever look at you if you keep dreaming like this?"
Kara smiled, turning at last from her stargazing. "Any boy who doesn't want me just the way I am doesn't deserve me," she stated firmly, still grinning. She fiddled with the ends of her white-blonde hair.
"Look, Kara, you know you're never going to get off Krypton. The chances were slim before, and now with this war, odds are next to nothing," Thara reasoned patiently. It was a common disagreement between them, the one dark spot in an otherwise perfect life-long friendship. "Why don't you just give up this dream of being an astronaut? Become something normal. Alura is an botanist. Or you could become a historian like your aunt Lara. That's very respectable."
Kara sighed. "Thara, we've done this a thousand times! Firstly, I never give up on anything. Secondly, while my aunt and my mother are both wonderful women, whom I admire very much, they're always outshone by my father and Jor-El. People hardly ever remember Lara and Alura, because nobody can see past their brilliant husbands. I want to be respected in my own right. And... don't you ever wonder what's out there? So many worlds, there could be so much out there, so many people we could learn so much from. The Council says Krypton is perfect just the way it is, but... somehow I don't think so. Sure, we've got everything we could possibly need, but Jor-El says it can't be good for a society to remain so much the same for as long as we have."
"Jor-El says a lot," Thara said. "Most of it's pointless bantering no one else can understand. And you sound just like him. All this talk of 'what's out there'. We know what's out there. We used to be out there, finding out. And look what came of that. The weapons that destroyed our lunar colonies." Thara shuddered. The loss of the colonies two years past, was still a raw wound in the Kryptonian psyche.
"Yes," Kara sighed. "There is that."
They were silent for awhile, and Kara longed to heal the tension hanging in the air. She didn't know how. After several minutes of awkward silence between them, Thara stood up and announced formally that she was going back to Kandor.
That was the last time the two friends would see each other.
--
Argo City, three weeks later...
Jor-El sighed, turning away from the window overlooking the garden where Kara sat, staring at her hands. He ran a hand through his snow-white hair. "Kara has not been the same since Kandor was taken," his brother Zor-El said quietly. "She saw it, you know. She was on her way to visit her friend, Thara. She had nearly reached the city when..." Zor-El trailed off.
The loss of Kandor had ended the violent civil war that had engulfed the planet for the last three years. Jax-Ur, the maniacal rebel leader, had disappeared when the city was destroyed. But the city's disappearance had destroyed Krypton's moral as nothing else had. Everyone across the planet had had relatives in the capital city, or friends, and for days afterward the whole world had been like the waking dead, stumbling about in a daze.
"When the Coluan attacked," Jor-El finished.
Zor-El nodded. "Rao," he muttered, crossing his arms behind his back and beginning to pace, a common habit of his. "We need to find out what happened to them."
"General Zod said--" Jor-El began, but his raven-haired brother interrupted him.
"To hell with what Dru-Zod says! I know he served well in preventing terrible loss of life in Jax-Ur's bloody war, but I don't trust him. Zod likes power rather too much for me to feel entirely easy in his testimony. He was the only one to speak with Brainiac when he attacked Kandor. I know he said that the city was utterly destroyed, but..." Zor-El glanced around once before continuing. He leaned in to his brother. "But Kara was there. She saw what happened, and she was closer than anyone aside from Zod. She says the city wasn't destroyed but... shrunk. A tiny city in a bottle, taken into the Coluan's ship."
Jor-El glanced sharply at his brother. "That is very grave indeed. If Zod has been lying to us..." But then he sighed, his handsome features distressed. "If Zod has been lying to us, it will not matter unless we solve the greater problems at hand."
"Brother, you talk in riddles," Zor-El said. "Explain yourself." Jor-El gestured silently for his younger brother to follow him. They walked in silence through the halls of Zor-El's housing complex.
As they reached the younger man's private laboratory, Jor-El finally spoke. "I took the liberty of bringing a sample with me. I've uncovered something that may prove... catastrophic."
"Sample? Sample of what?" Zor-El asked, his curiosity piqued and a knot of unnamed dread beginning in his stomach. His brother, simultaneously focused and absentminded though he was, tended more toward joviality. He had never seen Jor-El look so serious. Jor-El did not answer.
They entered the lab, and Jor-El strode immediately to a pair of spinning containment rings in the middle of the room. He pulled on a metallic glove, reached between their whirling bars, and extracted a small vial.
He turned around and Zor-El felt a thrill of inexplicable fear as he stared at the tiny glass tube. The contents made him feel ever so slightly ill, though he couldn't explain why. He stared at the viscous, emerald-green liquid, obviously white-hot, in some trepidation. "What is that?" he asked softly.
Jor-El shook his head. "When Brainiac attacked our world, he did something to our sun, Rao. I don't know exactly what, but the star is emitting a strange kind of radiation. This... and Zor-El, you understand this level of physical science as well as I do, and you know what I'm about to tell you shouldn't be possible, but... it's happening. The radiation is affecting Krypton's core and mantle in... disturbing ways. The chemical structure of the metals within our planet is changing. Becoming various isotopes of the same element. This liquid," he said.
Zor-El stared in fascinated horror at the tiny amount of matter that, he now realized, had to be lava. "More than that," Jor-El continued, "The chemical reactions this has caused are creating intense pressure within Krypton's core. Unless we can find a way to alleviate the pressure- and soon- Krypton will explode."
Suddenly, a soft feminine voice came from behind them; neither of them had noticed when Zor-El's wife, Alura, had entered the lab. "How long?" she asked quietly. The two sons of Yar-El looked at each other.
"Three days," Jor-El finally admitted. Zor-El gasped softly. Alura sighed.
"There's no hope, is there," she said. It was not phrased as a question.
"No," Jor-El sighed. "I know what I am capable of, and I know what Zor-El can do, and even working together, even with all the best scientific minds of Krypton working together, we'd never find a solution in time."
Zor-El's eyes hardened, and he smiled grimly. "No," he said. "No, but that does not mean there is no hope. I have an idea..."
--
Jor-El and Lara's mansion, two days later...
"Mother, Father, I don't want to go!" Kara protested. Zor-El smiled sadly at her, and Alura wept softly into her husband's shoulder. The earth beneath their feet shook ever so slightly at regular intervals. To most of Krypton, the sensations meant little. To the last members of the House of El clustered around two small starships, they signalled the end of days.
Lara Lor-Van stepped forward to place her hands on her neice's shoulders. Her amber curls framed a beautiful face and bright green eyes. "Kara, there is no other choice. We cannot let Krypton go unmourned and unremembered in the eyes of the rest of the universe. Before you were born, before the Council outlawed space flight, Jor-El started work on rockets for interstellar travel. Only started, you understand. The ships will function, but they're too rudimentary to support a Kryptonian adult. You, you and Kal-El, will be Krypton's last legacy.
"We're sending you to a planet called Earth. It is peopled with a race that looks much like Kryptonians, and their customs are similar to ours. But their planet orbits a yellow star. No one really knows what effect the radiation will have on you, but I have it on very good authority--" Lara threw a loving glance at her husband. "-- that it may give you and Kal-El... powers. Great powers, beyond those of mortal men.
"It will be a great responsibility, Kara, but your parents, Jor-El and I agree that you are ready for it. Please take care of Kal-El for us. I beg you. Krypton lives through you, Kara. We will all live on through your memories." Lara's emerald eyes glimmered with unshed tears as the teenager threw her arms around her.
"Oh Lara, how will I ever survive?" she whispered.
Lara smiled through her tears. "If I know you, Kara, you will survive. The blood of the House of El runs in your veins. You will be strong. You will make this journey, and you will survive. Jor-El and I have sent crystals to guide you in your new home."
Zor-El and Alura approached the pair, and embraced their daughter. "Deep space is probably cold," Alura said, wrapping a red and blue blanket, emblazoned with the ancient symbol of the House of El around her daughter's shoulders.
"Goodbye Father, Mother," Kara said softly. "Goodbye Aunt Lara. Goodbye Jor-El." Squaring her shoulders, she turned and settled herself into the larger, purple ship. "I won't fail," she said. The hatch of the ship sealed with a pneumatic hiss.
Jor-El and Lara bent over the second ship, checking everything one last time and placing the message crystals they had prepared inside. "Goodbye Kal-El," Lara whispered to her tiny son, swathed in a blanket similar to the one Kara had taken with her into the ship. Kal-El opened his eyes, and Jor-El marveled at how much they resembled Kara's... and his own. The baby's tuft of dark hair stirred as they sealed hatch of the second ship.
Zor-El crossed to the crystalline control panel across the launch pad and inserted a few crystals into the appropriate slots to confirm the launch of the two ships. With a quiet roar, the two rockets shot simultaneously off into the unknown, Kara's trailing just slightly behind Kal-El's smaller ship.
At the same moment, a terrible rumbling came from deep beneath the ground. "Oh Rao!" Alura whispered.
"So comes the end of all things," Zor-El said quietly. He took his wife's hand. Jor-El imitated the motion, then reached across the group to take his brother's other hand.
"If we must meet death, let us face her together," he said. On this cue, Lara took her sister-in-law's hand. Alura smiled sadly at her. And then the foursome closed their eyes. With a deafening roar, Krypton exploded in a shower of green fire.
Far away, two little ships shot away in a faster-than-light vortex. Within them were contained Kal-El and Kara of Krypton, the Last Son and Last Daughter of Krypton. The two ships bravely continued on their long journey through the eternal darkness of deep space to a faraway planet that circled a small yellow sun.
--
Well, that's all for now. As you can see, this is going to feature Supergirl prominently- at least, once she finally comes out of suspended animation, hopefully sometime within the next ten chapters...
Next: Kal-El arrives on Earth, and Kara experiences some difficulty.
