Clark Kent interviews Superman
Clark Kent was typing up a story about a series of robberies when he started to feel a little too warm. He took off his coat and put it on the back of his chair but that didn't seem to cover it. He unbuttoned his shirt and started to roll up his sleeves when he noticed that everyone else in the newsroom wasn't reacting to the heat. He looked up to see if there was a vent pointed at him but he didn't see one. He held up his hand and moved in a slow circle to see where it was coming from. It was definitely coming from the windows. He moved over to them to see if maybe one of the window panes was focusing light onto his desk and he saw him. Kal-El was floating outside the window, slightly behind the corner of the building waving to him. He was wearing some sort of black body suit and he had filled out since Clark had last saw him. Kal-El pointed up and then flew up out of sight. Clark assumed that he was talking about the roof.
Clark went by his desk and grabbed his coat and hurried to the elevators. He was one of the only people going up since this was one of the top floors. He made it to the top floor that the elevator would take him and then found the stairway to the roof. There were two doors to the roof, actually. One went to the back of the roof to a helipad. The other was only used by the maintenance staff to changes the light bulbs on the lights pointing at the huge metal globe on the roof of the Daily Planet. It was locked.
Years of investigative reporting had caused Clark to pick up some skills. He looked around and pulled out a small lock picking set. He squatted down and picked the little pad lock. It was an older one and the picking was easy. It clicked open and he pulled it off and set it aside. Then he opened the door to the roof. There was another set of stairs and he was there.
The wind was sharp and cold up there so he put his coat back on. He looked around and saw Kal-El floating at the edge of the roof watching him.
"You learned how to pick locks? What would Mom say?" Kal-EL grinned.
"She would ground me for a week. Come here!" said Clark and they hugged. "Calvin! where have you been?"
"All over the galaxy. You wouldn't believe me if I told you half the things that I've seen and done." said Kal-El. "And nobodies called me Calvin in a while. It's just Kal now, or Kal-El if you want to be formal about it."
"Alright so tell me everything. You've been gone for years. The last time I saw you...Let me see." said Clark. He got more somber. "It was the day after Dad told you how we found you in that ship in a field."
"Yeah."
"I thought that you were upset and just left. What happened to you?" said Clark.
"Well it's a long story but I suppose I need to tell you anyway. See, I need your help." said Kal
"Sure, anything. What do you need?" said Clark without hesitation.
"Well I guess I need to tell you in order for my request to make sense." Kal walked over to a section of wall and sat down. "This will take a while." Clark sat down too.
"So after your Dad told me that you had found me in a ship he showed it to me. It was a burnt mass of crystals. See, Kryptonians, my people, use a kind of crystal technology for a lot of things. It can be used to build buildings or even entire ships, but I'll get to that." said Kal. "Actually this suit is made out of crystal technology. It's pretty amazing. I don't understand all off it myself. Plus the ship didn't really cover that."
"Wait, I'm lost. I thought the ship was burnt." said Clark.
"Oh not that ship. Sorry I'm rambling. In the wreckage of the ship was a single intact crystal. This was inside with me and was a seed crystal. It called to me. I could hear it that night and it was telling me I needed to go north and discover my history." said Kal. "I said goodbye to Mom and Dad and even to you but I think that you were too sleepy to know what was going on."
"They told me that you had left to find your own path. I didn't know what that meant at the time." said Clark. "So what did you find up north?"
"Well you know I can run pretty fast and I can fly." said Kal. Clark nodded. "Well I flew up to the north pole. The crystal was guiding me, not to an exact place but to a kind of place. Someplace away from everyone else. I found a place and it told me to throw it into the ice. It was amazing! Huge crystals started forming from the ice. It turned into this strange crystal ship, I'm guessing similar to the one that I came it but maybe larger.:
"I got in it and it closed around me like a cocoon. Then it started talking to me. I could feel it lifting off and taking me somewhere that it was pre-programmed to go. It started to teach me the Kryptonian language and a few other common alien languages. It was weird. It was like it was flashing these images and downloading the information directly into my brain. I think that I was asleep during much of that. It was teaching me about various subjects like economics, politics of different types, math, and physics, etc. It just sort of flashed it into my brain."
"So do you know all the secrets of the universe now?" said Clark.
"No, it was more like a Kryptonian version of a high school education which worked out since I left before going to high school with you." said Kal.
"Yeah, that would have been interesting." said Clark.
"I was looking forward to it, even if I would have had to have hidden my powers all the time."
"Well I missed you." said Clark. "So what happened next."
"Well the ship took me back to Krypton – well the second Krypton. I don't know where the original Krypton was. It might have been destroyed as well, but for a different reason."
"I don't follow." said Clark.
"It's okay I'm getting ahead of myself." said Kal. "I found the planet where my people died. It was just a shattered planet around a Red Giant star. The asteroid belt was filled with those green Kryptonite crystals that we found around Smallville. Do you remember those? They made me sick so you would gather them up and bury them away from the farm."
"Yeah, I discovered that they had some interesting effects on some people but go ahead with your story." said Clark.
"Well I had to leave so I directed the ship to find another inhabited planet. It took me to a planet called Grigg. The people there were nice but they were afraid of me. Unfortunately they didn't speak a language that the ship could translate or teach me so after a while I left there and tried another world. I can't remember the name of that one. After a few more I found one that the ship could translate. They were afraid of me too but at least they could tell me why."
They knew what I was. They where afraid because they knew about Kryptonians. The Kryptonian Empire had enslaved a large part of the galaxy. My people were monsters." Kal was holding his face in his hands.
Clark sat by him and put his hand on his back. "You are not your people."
Kal took a deep breath and continued. "Everywhere I went I found the same thing. I tried to do good, to help others, and show them that we were not all the same. Eventually I found out that some of us were good and that was the reason most of my people were gone. I started asking the right questions of the crystal and it taught me our history."
"See, way back in our past we were mostly similar to humans. However we started changing our genetics to help us on different worlds. We changed ourselves to tolerate heavy worlds and to deal with different environments. We started developing different powers and giving ourselves more and more power. We developed a form of tactile telekinesis. That is what allows me to fly and lift huge things. It also acts as a shield around me though it is really hard to hurt me at all."
"Some of us decided to make the races around us serve us. Others wanted to help young races. Kryptonians even came to this planet to help you several thousand years ago. Eventually there was a war between the good and the evil. The good Kryptonians gathered up all the evil ones on this planet that they discovered neutralized all their powers. It was a prison. This took a long while. Eventually they got as many as they could. Some of us were just too powerful – there is one called Darkseid that has changed himself to be immune to Kryptonite radiation somehow. He has set himself up as a god on some hellish world. All of the others, however, went to this new Krypton, then all of the good ones went there as well."
"They believed that our people had shown too little respect for other species and that we needed to be punished. They knew that the star was going to expand into a Red Giant and destroy the planet. They thought that they deserved it."
"My biological father, a man named Jor-El, wasn't entirely convinced of the need and he didn't think that our children should be punished for our crimes." said Kal.
"Wow. So wait, your father's name was Jor-El?" asked Clark. Kal nodded. "Is El a last name?"
"Yes, we were of the house of El. It was one of the major families that were against the rogue kryptonians."
"It's just that name sounds familiar. I mean that it reminds me of something from my religion class at Kansas state. I seem to remember something about the word 'El' meaning Lord in Hebrew and a few other languages." said Clark. "Never mind, keep going."
"Well my father tried to get them to send the children off the planet. The Elders thought that we should all die off an let other species take over. They said that we should die out completely and be forgotten. He didn't agree so he built a ship to send me here, one of the few planets that didn't see us as a threat, a place that we did some good, a place that I could start over. " said Kal-El.
"So I need your help. I want to help others but I don't know how to present myself."
Clark looked him over. "Well maybe you should start with this costume of yours. Why is it black? And what is that symbol on your chest?"
Kal-El stood up, "It's not a costume. It's actually a kryptonian flight suit. It can provide life support." He touched his belt and the suit became thicker and a helmet formed over his head. Then he touched it again and it turned back into a black suit. "The symbol is for the House of EL."
"Hmm. What else can you change it to look like?" said Clark.
Kal-El pressed his belt and said something in a strange language. The suit turned into a strange reflective white. It was almost painful to look at. "This is a traditional Kryptonian official robe."
"So this is a Kryptonian version of a Tuxedo? "
"No more like for government and business meetings."
Clark nodded, "More like Roman togas then."
"Yeah basically." said Kal-El.
"Wait! Glowing white robes on people who can fly! I remember now! All the names of Angels ended in EL! Holy Mackerel! Could the good Kryptonians have been what we call Angels?" said Clark excitedly.
"You mean like that little statue on the mantle with the baby with wings?" Kal-El asked confused.
"Well yes, but I think that they added the wings in art to represent flight." said Clark.
"I don't know. Maybe?" said Kal-El, who looked uncomfortable.
Clark calmed down, "Well we probably don't want to present you as an angel. That would cause all kinds of problems with people and their religions." Clark thought about it for a minute. "Can you cause that thing to add any colors?"
"Like what?"
"Something more colorful, like a super hero!" said Clark.
Kal-El touched his belt again and said a few other words. His suit went back to the black suit but then turned red and blue.
Clark said, "Yes! Something like that!" He walked around Kal-El, "Can you add a cape?"
Kal-El did so.
"That looks great, but maybe you should loose the red under pants on the outside." said Clark.
Kal-El adjusted it so that just the belt was red at that point.
"Great! It looks great! I think that anyone who sees you is going to be subconsciously thinking about those comic books we read as kids." said Clark.
Kal-El floated up and turned in the air looking at himself. "I love it! Thanks Clark!" He came back down and hugged him. "So what should I tell people about who I am?"
"Well we can tell them that you are from a different planet and that you want to help the people of Earth. We can leave out most of the rest of it." said Clark. "Actually I can tell them! I will be an interview with an Alien. Once they see you in action they will want the story and I can tell it to them! That way we can control your story and keep someone else from making up stuff too much."
"But I still don't know if I should tell people I am Kal-El. What if they make the connection you did?"
"We will have to come up with a super hero name for you." said Clark.
"This will be swell!"
Clark winced, "And we need to catch you up on some things as well or you will have a lot of odd gaps in your knowledge. I can fill you on that." Clark stopped and pulled out his cell phone, which was ringing.
"Hello Jimmy" Clark paused for a moment. "No I didn't hear. I was doing an interview." He paused again. "Where?" Clark looked up at Kal-El. "Okay thanks!" He closed the phone.
"Okay there is a plane that is lifting a new kind of space shuttle for a test run. There is a problem and the whole thing is coming down. Can you save them?" said Clark.
"Sure, where are they?"
"They should be passing south of here going over the US." Clark looked at the symbol on his chest and had an idea in a flash, "Go Superman!"