"Almost done Mister Hunt!" Clark shouted as he threw the last bale of hay into the bed of the truck. The farmer wasn't kidding when he said he was going to put him to work. Both he and Chuckie were doing all the chores on his farm. "With all the labor costs you boys are saving me, I'll be able to buy two fancy cars!" Hunt chuckled.
Clark tapped the car twice and the old farmer was off, Chuckie tossed him a water bottle and Clark was happy there was a break in the workload.
"Hey, Kent, I never had a chance to say this, but I wanted to thank you for staying and pulling me out of the car."
"No problem, I'm glad the adrenaline kicked in. And that Mister Hunt was there to help."
Except he was lying, he might not even have adrenaline like other people. He was an alien from some far off world. At first he didn't believe his parents; he thought it was some new way of punishing your kids by freaking them out.
But then they brought him down under a secret hatch in the shed. He'd never been down there, didn't even know it existed.
"Is this where you keep your moonshine?" Clark bit his tongue after that joke, but he was nervous descending the dusty stairs.
"No…well yes, but that's not the main purpose of the basement here." His father said.
"Well then, what is?"
With that his mom flicked the switch, and right in the middle of the dirt floor under a single flickering bulb was a large egg shaped pod.
"No way, where did you guys get this."
"Well son, it landed in our farm about seventeen years ago. We checked it out, and you were sitting right in that seat." He pointed to the circular window that revealed a tiny cockpit.
"But I look human, I feel human. If I was an alien, why do I look like this?" Clark was in hysterics.
"Son, you are human. You may not be from here, but you were raised here. You are also something else, and that is important. But you are strong; you are destined to do something amazing. You might not be from earth, but you are our son and you are human." His mother embraced him and he slumped over holding back tears, overwhelmed by everything that was happening.
They talked more that night; they showed him everything that was in the pod with him some different strange styles of clothing hung up on a cheap rack.
"I wonder what this 'S' thing is?" He had picked up a black and red cloak that had the letter wrapped in a diamond-like emblem. "The aliens couldn't have our alphabet, the other outfits had much stranger runes and writing on them. But the cloak with the 'S' left an impression on him the most. It was alien but still resembled something human.
"Hey, Clark, what the hell are you thinking about?" Chuckie snapped him back to reality.
"Sorry, nothing. Say, have you seen Bruno around lately?" Clark asked, the revelation that he was an alien had been a week ago. He kept expecting to be beamed up to a mothership or start probing cows while he sleep walked. But everything just felt the same, still felt human.
"No, I haven't seen him, and I don't want to. Good riddance. That guy scares me Clark. Not just because he left us stranded there, he's just a little unhuman." Chuckie said. Clark cringed at the word.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know, all of his talk of those wild nights out being like going to church or praying or what not. Always kinda freaked me out. I just wanted a thrill, and I got all my thrills done now. But…but he did it for a different reason."
"Yeah…I get what you mean."
A short while later they saw Farmer Hunt's truck in the distance on its way back to the farm.
"Huh. That's strange; it usually takes him way longer to get to town and back." Clark said.
"Hey, Mister Hunt what'd you do run every red light on your way there?" Chuckie was laughing, but Clark saw the serious look on the farmer's face.
"What happened?" Clark hadn't seen that look before, not even when they were taking Chuckie to the hospital.
"Boys, I was listening to the radio, and, well…somethin' happened in Metropolis today. Somethin' big."
That was where Clark Kent was when he first heard the news of Mister Marvel. He was one of the handful of remaining superheroes left in the public eye. Many would remember this day and recount where they were when they first heard the news. Later the newspaper called it the 'End of the Golden Age' which seemed fitting. It started as an attack on Metropolis tower by terrorists which were quickly thwarted by Captain Marvel. As he was handing them over to the authorities Black Adam, his arch-nemesis had appeared on the scene. Clark would remember the haunting play by play of their battle over the radio. They had dueled many times before, but something was different. There was a tone of ice in the reporter's voice, he knew something was off.
The reporters lost the two super beings on the top of the tower, but a helicopter camera crew caught the last few moments of the battle. Captain Marvel and Black Adam were grappling each other, locked in an embrace that generated waves of energy. Until, something happened. A sudden bolt of lightning crashed down on the two, and in the next frame of footage there was no superhero, no supervillain. There was just smoke and ash where they had previously stood.
"I- I see no sign of Captain Marvel or Black Adam." Clark listened as the radio reported spoke, "Something terrible may have happened."
They were silent the rest of the day, but Clark spent the rest of the evening with his parents watching the footage repeat over and over again on the news. Two smaller buildings were hit by bombs it turned out, and there was chaos in the aftermath. But the facts started to slowly come to light. Some terrorist organization had tried targeting Metropolis tower, but Captain Marvel had stopped them. And in the following weeks it became clearer that he given up his life to save millions.
