Old Friends

Part I

Pain fills his body. It is his whole universe for what seems like forever but he realizes was probably only a few minutes. As the pain subsides, his vision clears and he sees a Kryptonian standing before him. It is not a surprise because where ever he has found pain there have been Kryptonians.

"My son needs your help." the Kryptonian says.

At the Kryptonian's words, his memories flood back to him. Grabbing onto and image and a name, he stammers "Your son is Clark."

"Yes that is the name you know him by." Jor-El replies.

"Where am I? Wait. I died fighting Brainiac. How did you bring me back?" inquires Draggon. As hard as he tries, he cannot recall where he went. His memories end at the battle with Brainiac.

"Yes. By your definition of the term you did die but for me it was a simple matter to restore you." Jor-El explains while pointing to a Kryptonian device next to him.

Draggon laughs to himself "Even as a computer ghost, Jor-El is still an arrogant bastard." Draggon takes a closer look at the device and sees several crystal pods attached. In four of the pods are the shriveled remains of humans. In the final pod, a bald human lies in status. "How could you trade their lives for mine! You are not a god!" roars Draggon.

"Calm yourself beast! These men came here to steal my son's legacy. There is no doubt to their evil. Their sacrifice was necessary to save my son. I will do anything to protect him" replies Jor-El.

Draggon fires back with "And you wonder why the rest of the universe calls you monsters."

"What is done is done. All that is important is that you help my son. Another of your kind arrived in Smallville. Two days ago he confronted Kal-El and captured him. Also, he took most of Kal-El's friends. Only Bart there (points to another crystal chamber/pod) managed to escape. Odds are good if my son is not already dead, he will be soon. You must save him." Jor-El demands.

"I will help Clark because he is a good person. Not because a Kryptonian ordered me too. How do I get to Smallville from here?"

"I have created a portal that will take you to some caves just outside Smallville. I have a created a portable tracker to help you locate your brother (points to a device on the table)." Jor-El informs him.

"I won't need the device to find my brother in arms." Draggon replies.

Jor-El escorts him to the portal and in a flash of light Draggon is in a cave. Once outside, he roars and fires a pulse into the air. There is no way any of his people's ships will miss that signal he knows.

Earlier

Bart comes to with a sharp pain in his arm. Sitting up slowly he looks at his arm. He takes a deep breath to fight the rising panic at what he sees. The arm is twisted almost completely backward at the elbow. No doubt it is broken. Screaming as he grabs and twists the arm back the right way. A wave of dizziness accompanies the pain but he manages to fight it off. 'Oh my god. That really hurt. Pull it together Bart. The league is depending on you. Get up. Get moving.' echoes in his mind. Wrapping his broken arm as carefully and tightly against his chest as he can, Bart the starts off for the Fortress once more.

Several hours later (an eternity for someone who is used to circling the global in a few seconds.) Bart arrives at the Fortress. He calls to Jor-El. When Jor-El's image appears, he shows Jor-El the key Clark gave him and says "Clark is in trouble bad. Heck, the whole league is in trouble."

Jor-El looks Bart over but opens a door for him. Inside Jor-El asks "What happened? Why did my son send you?"

"Some alien guy showed up in Smallville. At first, Chloe thought it was a friend of hers. Boy that girl does have a lot of strange friends. Anyway, she ran up to him calling his name. When she got up to him, she realized it was not her friend so she apologized for mistaking him for someone else. Then this alien guy grabs her. Right out of the blue. No warning whatever. Clark tells him to let her go. The alien guy just shoots Clark with some blue ray and then starts asking Chloe about her friend while still holding off the ground by one hand. Chloe tried to explain but before she got a chance Clark tried tackling him. Clark bounced off! This made the alien laugh and say something about being prepared for him. He then threw Clark into a car! It was like nothing to him. When that happen Boss Man order the rest of us into action. That ended badly. This guy took us apart. Boss man fired a few arrows at the alien to get him to drop Chloe which didn't work the way he planned. Alien guy used Chloe as a shield! Boss man really freaked then. He charges the guy. Not really smart since we all just saw him take out Clark like that (snaps fingers). Boss man hits him with his bow and the bow snapped in two. The alien then drops Chloe and punches Boss Man. Boss Man is out cold. Canary steps in next with her sonic attack which actually hurt the alien. She managed to knock him off his feet. So what does he do, he rips out a fire hydrant and throws it at her. She managed to avoid it but the distraction gave the alien guy enough time to get back up. He charges her but AC tackles him. AC starts wailing on the guy and even out of water AC is strong. The guy just takes it! Doesn't seem to faze him one bit. Next thing I know the alien guy brings his tail around and clobbers AC. AC is knocked off the guy but was still conscious. At least until Alien guy pile drove AC's head into the ground. Lights out. Canary starts yelling at me to get my head in the game because I was totally frozen. In like 30 seconds, most of the league was down. She attacks the alien guy with her scream again. This must have hurt him because he got mad and roared. He pounds the pavement with both his fists sending a shockwave thru the ground to Canary. She goes flying when the ground jumps beneath her feet. Before she has even hit the ground, alien guy hits her with his tail. He used a cool leap/swing attack like the Gorenarotor used in Fatal Combat 5. Anyway, she bounces several feet before slamming into a building. Boom she is out. Now it is just me and this alien guy. Before the alien guy turns his attention to me, Clark calls me over. He tells me to give you this and ask you for help. So I start off for the Fortress, when a gasoline tanker truck goes sailing past me. I managed to avoid the worst of the blast but as you can see from my arm not all." Bart says in a super speed rush.

"We will need help to rescue Kal-El." remarks Jor-El.

"Duh! That is why I am here. By the way do you at least have any aspirin. I am in so much pain right now." Bart replies.

"Come here and get in." (shows Bart a crystal coffin thing attached to one wall). This device will heal you." Jor-El calmly tells Bart.

"I am not crazy about small spaces you know." Bart says trying to decide if the pain he is feeling is worth risking the box.

Tired of wasting valuable time on Bart, Jor-El mentally summons a drone. He orders the drone to shove Bart into the healing chamber.

Staring at the crystal coffin, Bart doesn't notice the drone come up behind him. It none too gently grabs him and shoves him into the device. The chamber door closes before Bart can recover from the sharp burst of pain caused by the drone's rough handling.

With Bart inside, Jor-El activates the healing chamber. Bart quickly falls unconscious. The human isn't necessary for his current plan so Jor-El decides to leave Bart in status even after his injuries have been healed. He doubts the human would understand what he is about to do and probably would not approve. Jor-El doesn't care about what humanity thinks. Saving his son is all that matters. He orders drones to fetch the remains of Zod's shock trooper which Clark entombed just outside the fortress. Thanks to the intruders earlier this month, Jor-El has all he needs to restore the creature. It is risky but Clark was convinced he could trust it.

When the drones have placed the body in the main chamber, he brings the device on line. Jor-El absentmindedly notes one of the intruders is conscious. 'Time to get started.' he thinks. Jor-El doesn't notice the frantic pounding on the chamber holding the conscious intruder. When Jor-El turns on the device, it immediately starts draining the life force from the first pod. The human inside quickly shrivels and dies so the device starts on the next pod. The awake human has noticed what is happening and his pounding has increased. Jor-El ideally wonders if the device will require 4 or 5 humans to repair the creature. "Only four" Jor-El notes.

By this point the bald awake human has given up trying to break out of its confinement. He just glares at Jor-El. He does appear relieved when the Jor-El turns off the device.

Unimpressed by the human, Jor-El floods the holding chamber with a different status chemical. Jor-El is pleased to see the human fall back into status. He makes a note to study this human more closely. "None of the others were able to wake themselves. What makes this one different?" he wonders.

In the Alien's ship

As Chloe hangs in her restrains she decides it is not her nudity that bothers her or even the strange devices that when placed on her skin cause her to scream. No what really bothers her was that all this was being done to hurt Clark. The pain on his face was worse than anything her body felt. She knows this is exactly why he tries to keep people at a distance. She is proud of one thing: when it was clear the alien intended to torture them, she saved the league members by volunteering she is Clark's lover. The look Clark gave her hurt but she suspected the alien would not be interested in torturing the league if he had someone else more valuable to work on. She was right. The downside is the alien doesn't believe what she and Clark told him. He cannot seem to accept that Draggon let Clark live. He is convinced they ambushed and murdered his friend. She fears he will grow tired of the torture and just execute them all.

The alien has returned, Chloe notices. She braces herself in her restraints and tries not to scream when he applies his devices to her skin. The pain proves too much for her once more and screams escape her lips. Clamping her jaw down harder she tries to cut them off but is unable.

"Since her screams fail to move you to tell me the truth perhaps I should try a more permanent method" say the alien while holding Chloe's head in his claw. One claw tip hovers just above Chloe's eye.

Clark screams "I told you he died saving this world. If you take me to the location, I told you about you can see his grave. He was my friend I swear. Please don't hurt her anymore. Hurt me. Kill me if you have too. Just let her and my other friends go." Clark breaks down into sobs. He has never been so helpless before. Whatever ray this alien used on him as robbed him of his powers. No matter how hard he struggles he has not been able to slip free. He hates himself for putting his friends, Chloe in particular, in such danger.

"Since her fate matters so little to you, I will save you the trouble of listening to her anymore." says the alien as he grabs Chloe's head. But before he can twist it to snap her neck, his ship alerts him that it has detected a distress call. Leaving Chloe hanging, he rushes to the control console. There is no doubt, his comrade is alive. "I knew you were lying. Despite your best efforts he survived. I will save you for him. I am sure he will thank me for the favor." the alien says. He orders his ship to fly to the distress call's location.