A/N: I just like to say thanks for everyone's kind reviews and am glad so many people are excited by this story.
Nomad-117
Yes, I have a romantic interest in mind, though I don't want to ruin it by telling who it is.
Everyone please review for any comments, concerns, or questions that you have.
Chapter 2:
Farmer turned Soldier
A few days later, the father and son pair was in the Illium market with John discussing the price with the merchant.
After settling a price, John turned to his son and said, "Well, it'll take a while for them to transport the machines, so if you want, you can take a look around, but just stay out of the less populated areas and meet back at the landing pad in, say, three hours, alright?"
"Sure, Pa," Clark said before walking off.
Clark was walking for about an hour when his superhearing picked up someone calling for help. He ran down the alleyway that the call came from. When he reached a dead end, he found a human, a krogan, and a turian with their back to him, which he recognized from his studying of alien species. He looked past them to see a quarian with her back pressed against the wall. From her size, Clark guessed that she was about his age, maybe a year or two younger.
"Hey!" Clark shouted, getting the three thugs' attention, "Leave her alone!"
"Get lost, kid," the krogan growled, "This bucket-head's ours. You can have her once we're done with her, though I can't exactly guarantee her condition will be great once we're done. Quarian sluts tend not to survive having their suits ripped off and being used for our pleasure."
The quarian girl was shaking like a leaf. She was clearly terrified. Clark, on the other hand, was furious. He knew people didn't trust quarians, but planning on doing something like he was suggesting was unforgivable.
"I said, 'Leave. Her. Alone,'" Shepard said, through clenched teeth.
"Hah! Teach this little punk a lesson!" the krogan yelled.
The human and the turian pulled knives out of their sheathes and started advancing towards Clark. They hadn't been expecting Clark's actions in response. The farm boy ran at the thugs before jumping into the air to flick the human in the side of the head with enough force to send him flying into the wall and knocking him unconscious. When Clark landed on his feet, he dropped to his knees and used the momentum to slide under the turian's sideways swipe before delivering a powerful jab to the turian's groin plates, smashing it and the organs inside easily. Still using his momentum to move forward, Clark came to right in front of the krogan and hopped up so that his stomach was eye-level with the krogan's head and grabbed the krogan's head as he moved up. When Clark came back down, he delivered a powerful headbutt to the krogan that was so strong that it shattered his headplate. He cried out in agony, clutching his bleeding head.
"I'll kill you, brat!" the krogan yelled, swiping at him with one hand while his other clutched his head.
"Not today," Clark said before clutching the krogan's neck and inhaling deeply, sucking all of the air out of the krogan's lungs and making him slip into unconsciousness.
Clark walked over to the quarian, who was cowering against the wall. He held his hand out to her, making her flinch on impulse, likely thinking he was just someone else that wanted to hurt her.
When she looked up to see he was just offering his hand and a friendly smile, she took it, though her hand still shook nervously. He helped her up still smiling friendly.
She looked behind him and yelled, "Look out!"
Clark moved in front of the quarian and turned around to face the turian, who, with one hand, held his broken groin plate, while, with the other, pointed a handgun at Clark from pointblank range. He fired a shot, which impacted Clark's chest, only to cause no damage. Clark grabbed his gun hand with his left and slowly began to crush the turian's gun and hand with seemingly no effort, making him cry out in pain.
"W-what are you!?" the turian muttered through the pain.
"You're worst nightmare," Clark said before he duplicated the same move he used on the krogan and sucked all of the air out of the turian's lungs.
When he collapsed, Clark grabbed the quarian girl's hand and carefully led her past the unconscious thugs.
When they were out of the alley, Clark turned to the girl, "Are you alright? No injuries or suit ruptures?"
She seemed surprised at this, "N-no, I'm fine, but, um, y-you know about suit ruptures?"
Clark shrugged, "I study other species in my spare time. You seem a little young to be on your pilgrimage, so why are you here by yourself?"
"I, um, got separated from my mom and ended up here. We were buying some supplies in the marketplace and we got separated," she said as she wrung her fingers together, "Um, c-could you show me the way back?"
"Sure, by the way, my name's Clark Shepard," he said, holding his hand out.
"I'm Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. It's nice to meet you, Clark. Thank you so much for saving me from those men," she said, grabbing his hand to shake it, her voice telling Clark that she was smiling.
"It was my pleasure, Miss Zorah. May I escort you back to the marketplace?"
"I'd be delighted, Mr. Shepard," she said giggling as she grabbed his hand.
The two began their walk back to the marketplace, hand-in-hand and when they got there, a female voice yelled, "Tali! There you are!" The two looked to see a quarian woman running towards them, "I told you to stay close! Do you have any idea how worried I was!?"
Tali bowed her head, "I'm sorry, Mom. I got a little lost."
The woman then noticed that her daughter was hand-in-hand with a human. "Tali? Who is this?"
"Oh, this is Clark. He helped me, um," she started suddenly being nervous about what to say.
Sensing this and not wanting Tali to relive the incident, Clark said, "I helped Tali find her way back, Mrs. Zorah. She was really turned around when I found her. Not surprising really, a lot of this place looks the same."
"Well, thank you, Clark. I'm glad my daughter seems to have made a friend," the quarian mother said.
"Hey, mom, do you think I could stay with Clark for a little while longer?"
"Well, I don't see a problem in it, if, of course, he doesn't mind."
"No, not at all," Clark said, smiling.
So, Tali gave her mother final goodbye and the two headed off. After a few minutes of walking, Tali decided to ask the question that had been on her mind, "Um, Clark, how were you able to do those things?"
"Well, it's kind of a secret. Only my parents really know about it," Clark explained.
"I promise that I won't tell anyone! I really won't! I, um, how do you humans say it? I cross my head?" she asked.
"Heart," Clark said, "I cross my heart…alright, but you really can't tell anyone, Tali." With that, Clark led her down an alley and, after making sure that no one could see them, pulled her close.
"C-Clark?" she asked, nervously.
"Stand on my feet," he said as he pulled her in to show that he meant it. When she did, he put his arms around her body and told her, "Hang on tight.
"O-okay," she wrapped her arms tightly around him, "N-now what?"
Clark smirked and suddenly they started rising into the air, slowly at first, but before long, rose even more quickly.
Tali squeaked and pressed as tightly against Clark as she could, burying her face into his chest. "H-how i-is th-this possible!?" she yelled over the wind.
Suddenly, they came to a stop and Clark whispered to her, "Tali, take a look."
She peeked out to see to see that they were over the tops of the sky scrapers. The sun made the massive city shine like stares, "Wow," she whispered, "It's beautiful up here."
"Yes, it is," Clark said with a dreamy smile.
"U-um, c-can we get down now?" Tali asked.
"Sure," he replied, before gently lowering them back to the ground.
"Clark, how did you do that?!"
"It might seem crazy, but I want you to believe that everything I'm going to tell you is the truth, alright?" she nodded in response.
With that, Clark began to tell her everything. She was doubtful when he told her that he wasn't really human, but a human-looking alien that becomes stronger when exposed to the light of a yellow sun. Given what she just saw though, she eventually accepted it. The part of the story that she did have problems with was when he told her about Brainiac. Understandably, she was upset when she found out that her savior was carrying around a potentially dangerous AI, but after he explained how Brainiac has helped him and that he doesn't mean any harm, she calmed down. He told her what he could do, where he came from, everything. He even explained to her the one thing he told no one else: the fact that he felt isolated from everyone he's ever met, due to him being different, the last of his kind. Tali told her new friend everything as well, what it was like living on the flotilla, her favorite studies, which were engineering, the problems she's had with her father, and how she was often feeling isolated from the other children due to her father's position. The two spent the rest of their time together on very good terms, due to the two feeling connected by their similar feelings of being outcasts. When they finally had to part ways so Clark could go back to meet his dad, they exchanged extranet addresses, so they could keep in touch, though Tali explained that she'd have to keep it a secret from her father because of his distrust of other species. For the next year, they would speak to one another as much as they could, whenever they could. The two quickly became each other's closest friends. Clark, in secret, also started learning some things about genetics from Brainiac in the hopes of maybe finding a way to help Tali's people with their immune systems. It was one year after he met Tali that Clark's life took a turn for the worst.
He was sitting in class, listening to his teacher when he heard gunshots in the distance and moving closer. Ignoring everything else, Clark moved to the window and looked out. With his superpowerful telescopic vision, he saw batarian troops moving quickly towards the school.
Clark knew there would only be one reason for it, "Slavers," he muttered.
"Clark Shepard! What do you think you're do-" the teacher's lecture was interrupted by the raid siren going off all over the colony, "Dear god, alright, everyone, we need to head to the gym, just like we practiced."
The students quickly got up to head there, but before the first even made it to the door, they heard gunshots and deep voices shouting. A second later, a batarian pushed the door open, armed with an assault rifle.
He smirked, "Well, well, looks like we've hit the jackpot. Quite a few in here look like they'd be good for manual labor and most of these human skanks look like they'd fetch a pretty penny on the sex slave market."
As everyone else looked in horror at the situation that they found themselves in, Clark moved faster than anyone else could follow and made his way to the other side of the room. He used his superstrength to push the batarian so hard he went flying into the wall on the other side of the hall. He quickly scooped up the fallen batarian's gun and finished him off. More batarians appeared but they were cut down before they even had a chance to fire back.
"Come on!" Clark yelled to the people in the class to snap them out of their stunned silence. He led them to the gym, gathering up other people along the way. The gym was already pretty filled up.
After a quick headcount, it was found that the entire school managed to make it to the gym. Clark knew that it wouldn't be that easy though. He looked around the gym, seeing the worried looks of the people, hearing them worry about their families and friends that weren't there, and made his decision.
He turned to the closest teacher and said, "I'm going out there to ensure the batarians don't break down the door. Seal it behind me."
"Wait, are you insane!? You won't stand a chance against their forces!" he insisted.
Clark looked at him with deadly seriousness, "Maybe, but I'm the only one here with actual firearm training, ergo I'm the one that needs to go. If I don't go, then they will swarm in here and get the door open and kill or enslave everyone. At least if I go, then I'll likely be able to at least slow them down long enough for the Alliance to get here. Now, move and seal the fucking door behind me."
He pushed past the teacher and walked out. He heard the door seal behind him and he walked out to the front entrance of the school. He looked in the direction of where he heard more batarians coming from. It was another unit, maybe fifteen slaver soldiers. As he prepared to take on the new forces, his superhearing picked up something that chilled his blood. He could hear batarians heading to his home, the Shepard family farm. Clark was now faced with a choice: if he flew back home, he could stop the batarians, but that would leave the school open to attack and everyone inside would be taken. The choice was painful, but easy.
"I'm sorry, Ma, Pa," he said, with a tears streaming down his face. He opened fire on the advancing batarians. His aim was spot-on and felled fifteen enemy soldiers before his only clip ran out. He hadn't thought to grab more, mostly because he was too pissed off to think of much of anything. When the gun clicked empty, he broke it in half and threw them like javelins, impaling two batarians against a wall. He ran forward appearing as a blur to the batarians. He got in close and began to tear the invading unit apart. He backhanded one, sending him flying through a wall. He used his heat vision to burn the face off of another one. The batarians tried shooting the attacking "human," but their shots just bounced harmlessly off of Clark's body. Clark responded to the attacks by breaking the neck of one with a sharp punch to his face, using his heat vision to burn a hole in the neck of another, and breaking a third's spine with a single stomp. His fires of rage was further fueled by his picking up that his parents had grabbed the firearms they kept in the house and were fighting back against the slavers.
As Clark continued his attack, one of the batarians used his omni-tool to connect to the leader. "Martog! This is Tavrek! We need reinforcements at the school! We're being slaughtered over here!" he yelled.
"Damn! How many defenders?" Martog replied.
"It's just one, but he's not normal! He's tearing us apart! Send everyone! Even the ta-ack!" his plead was cut off by Clark's bloody fist emerging from his ribcage.
Pulling his arm out from the batarian's body, Clark flicked his arm to try and get some of the blood off. Knowing he couldn't do anything, but wait for the batarians' reinforcements to arrive. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter how angry he was, Clark couldn't abandon the school and the people inside, even to save his parents. This made what he heard even more painful.
He heard one of the two guns at the house stop firing, followed by Martha yelling, "John!" confirming Clark's fears. A moment later, her gunfire slowed and he could hear his mother begging for his father to open his eyes. His father didn't respond in any way that Clark could hear, but what he did hear were more feet on the hardwood floor. Clark's mother apparently saw them because she started firing, but only for a few moments before Clark heard an "oof!" along with a hard "thack!" like someone's gun butt connecting with someone's face. He heard something, Clark guessed his mother, being dragged out of the house.
"Any last words?" a deep, no doubt batarian, voice asked.
"Fuck you, Four-eyes," his mother growled. Clark could practically hear her glare.
"So be it," the batarian said to the sound of a gun being cocked.
His mother, then, whispered, so only Clark could hear, "Clark, we love you. Always remember that."
Any further last words were rendered moot when a single gunshot rang out, signaling the end of his mother's life. Tears were streaming down Clark's dirt, ash, and blood-covered face. His feelings of pain and anguish built up until he couldn't contain them any more and he let out a long and powerful yell of emotional agony. He began to sob, the world fading away as the pain of losing his adoptive parents engulfed him.
The world came screaming back when a fired shell hit Clark square in the chest, engulfing the area in smoke, dust, and fire. There were even more of them than with the first group, even a tank. The large batarian force surrounding the tank waited for the dust to clear, so they could see if their target was down.
As the dust began to settle, the batarians saw two small bright red lights in the cloud. Stepping out of the cloud was their target, his shirt completely destroyed and his pants were torn, but he was otherwise unharmed. Clark leapt into the air, to a height no sentient being known could ever match. He landed hard on top of the tank, making it bend in half! Then, he tor the main turret off by the barrel and began to use it as a club against the batarians. Twenty were either crushed or sent flying in a matter of moments. Brainiac entered the fray as well by well by hacking the suits of armor of the batarians, causing them to short circuit and electrocute their wearers. The batarians' weapons from small caliber handguns to grenade launchers all proved useless against the rampaging farm boy. By the time nine-tenths of their number were either dead or dying, the leader was ordering the batarians' retreat, but Clark broke the base of the turret off of the turret he was holding, leaving only the barrel. He threw the barrel like a javelin and impaled the batarian leader on it. He, then, slaughtered the remaining batarians to ensure that none lived to tell the tale of what he could do.
He then walked back to the school entrance and sat down in front of it. It wasn't for two more hours that the first squad of Alliance soldiers showed up. A few vomited at the sight of the carnage, especially since some batarians were torn in half.
The commanding officer walked up to Clark and asked, "What the hell happened here?"
"I killed them, sir," Clark said, remember the military protocols that his father taught him.
"By yourself!?" the officer exclaimed.
"Yes sir," Clark replied.
"How!?"
"By using the skills my parents taught me," Clark said, partly lying, "They used to be Alliance soldiers. Now, would you mind explaining why it took so long for the Alliance to get here?"
The officer bowed his head in shame, "The batarians had defenses so thick that we couldn't break through. All we could do is wait and take potshots at 'em. It wasn't until they started having their aerial defense troops join the land forces that we managed to break through. If it's any consolation, they had to send a lot of their "loaders" to augment the ground forces, so they couldn't lift off in time to keep us from preventing their escape with their captives."
"Well, that's something at least," Clark sighed, "You guys should head inside the school. All of the students and faculty are sealed inside the gym. Now, if you'll excuse me, sir, I need to go home and give my parents a proper burial."
With that, Clark started walking in the direction of his home. The officer was about to say something more when one of the soldiers yelled to him, "Sir, you may want to come take a look at this!"
The officer turned to tell the soldier that he'd be there in a minute, but when he turned back to look at Clark, he found that the farm boy had completely vanished. He looked around for some trace of Clark, but found none. Had he looked up, he might have seen Clark's departing shape soaring through the sky. The officer went over to the soldier that called him earlier, after ordering some troops to evacuate the civilians from the gym and found a batarian impaled to a wall by the barrel of a tank's turret.
"What the hell?" the officer exclaimed.
"And that's not even the strangest part, sir. Take a look at the end of it."
The officer took a closer look at where the soldier was pointing and saw that it was crushed with strange grooves. The officer gently touched it and found that his fingers almost perfectly fit into the grooves, telling him what happened to it. As impossible as it sounded, that kid had crushed it with his bare hand.
When he landed, Clark found the house surrounded by batarian corpses. Walking past them, Clark found his mother on the porch, a single bullet hole in her head along with numerous cuts and scrapes. Inside, Clark found his father with a shot to his chest. Using his x-ray vision, Clark saw that the shot had hit his heart.
Clark took his parents' bodies, carried them to the tree out front, where the swing from his childhood still hung, and buried them beneath the tree's leaves. His parents had never been fans of big funerals, claiming it was a waste of time. After using his x-ray vision to make certain they wouldn't poison any ground water sources, Clark buried them and made crosses with plaques he engraved with his heat vision. They were simple epitaphs, "John/Martha Shepard, Loving Father/Mother and Beloved Husband/Wife." Clark stood over their graves, his tears all used up.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Ma and Pa, but I hope I made you proud and continue to do so. When I turn eighteen, I'm going to become an Alliance marine and I'm going to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else," Clark vowed.
The next two years, Clark's only comfort came in the form of Tali's calls. She was heartbroken when she heard her best friend had lost both of his parents, especially after they'd encouraged Clark to actually start this long-distance friendship, something Tali knew most parents wouldn't do. Even though Tali didn't say it, when she heard about the tragedy, she'd wanted to hold her friend close and tell him everything would be alright.
A few months before Clark's eighteenth birthday, Tali appeared on his viewscreen, sobbing. When Clark asked her what was wrong, she explained that she'd been hacking into the Rayya's comm. systems to contact him and keeping it secret from everyone, though it was especially from her father, since he would never allow her to be friends with a non-Quarian. She'd managed to keep it a secret until a few minutes ago. Her father had finally caught her and he was furious. He told her that it wasn't befitting for the daughter of an admiral to be affiliated with a human, especially one that's planning on becoming an Alliance soldier. He told her that she could speak to him one more time and that would be the last time. After explaining this, Tali began saying that she thought she could still hack the communications, bypassing her father's new security measures, but she was interrupted by Clark saying something that she hadn't expected.
"I think he's right, Tali," Clark said solemnly.
"W-what!?" she said, surprised and a little hurt.
"Tali, your people will rely on you for every aspect of life, so they need to trust you. If they find out that you've been secretly communicating with an Alliance soldier, then that trust will be lost."
"B-but, C-Clark, I don't want to stop being your friend!" Tali said, her voice breaking with sobs.
"I know, Tali. I don't either, but this is the way it has to be. That doesn't mean we will stop being friends, though," Clark said before typing a few commands, "I'm sending you a program that I'd had Brainiac make. If you're ever in trouble, use the program and no matter where I am, I will come to your aid. I'll always be there when you need me. I promise. If Fate, Destiny, the Galaxy, or whatever it is that controls the path our lives take decides that we should meet again, I promise you that no one will make our friendship end again."
"Okay, I-I understand," she said, heartbroken. She understood and agreed with his words, but that didn't mean she had to like it, "Goodbye, Clark. I'll never forget you," she said before the she deactivated the terminal.
Clark was sad to see his friend leave, but he felt it was for her own good. He hoped that he'd get to see her again someday, though not because she used that program. On Clark's eighteenth birthday, a few months later, he went to the nearest Alliance recruitment office and signed the form. It was official. Clark John "Kal-El" Shepard was an Alliance soldier.
A/N: Thanks for reading and please review!