Chapter I: Krypton
One particular morning on the planet Krypton began, unlike any normal morning. A woman was in the process of giving birth to her child, something that had not happened on the planet for centuries. When they began to produce offspring artificially with genesis chambers, it was never necessary to do so naturally. This was a part of the Kryptonian culture that a scientist named Jor-El despised, and he and his wife, Lara-El, decided on the traditional way to create a child, a decision that was agreed on nine months ago, and Lara was currently in labor, giving birth to her son. There were many shouts from Lara, but eventually, and on Krypton this would be called sheer dumb luck, the son of Lara and Jor-El was born.
Although, since Kryptonians hadn't given birth in eons, simply doing it out of nowhere, conceiving a child naturally, he now had some mistakes for evolution to solve, for example, the baby; Kal-El; came out of the womb…different from other Kryptonians. His hair was white instead of the color of black hair that all Kryptonians had. His parents' eyes were blue, but his eyes were black as coal. Those were considered deformities in the society of the planet Krypton. Lara and Jor-El didn't care. But the timing could not have been worse. The planet Krypton was dying. Jor-El intended to save his newborn son, no matter how strange he looked to the rest of the Kryptonian race.
"Don't you understand?" Jor-El asked incredulously to the Krypton Council. "Krypton's core is collapsing in on itself! We have barely weeks left. I warned you that harvesting the core would be suicide!" Jor-El shouted at the council, furious that they had ignored his data and paid no attention to him ever since they discovered his natural conception of a boy with black eyes and white hair. He was even angrier because they referred to Kal-El as a freak or a mutant abomination for not having a programmed purpose. Ostracizing the entire house of El just because Kal was born different from the rest, undermining them, without paying attention to them or their work. "It has accelerated the implosion process," Jor-El said furiously to the council.
"Our energy reserves were exhausted!" shouted one of the members of the Council. "What do you want us to do, El?" the Council Member asked condescendingly and hatefully to Jor-El.
"Look at the stars!" Jor-He exclaimed in anger. "As our ancestors did. There are habitable worlds within our reach, we can start using the old posts."
"Are you suggesting we evacuate the entire planet?" asked another council member.
"No, I am not," Jor-El said grimly. "No, everyone here is already dead thanks to you!" Jor-El told the council. "Give me control of Codex!" Jor-El demanded of the council. "I will ensure the survival of our race!" Jor-El swore to the council. "There is still hope! I have held that hope in my hands." Jor-El tried to explain to the council when an explosion occurred. From that explosion emerged insurgents led by General Jax-Ur, the latter stormed into the room. Like Jor-El, Jax-Ur wanted to save Krypton, but his plan was monstrous, Jor-El would have no part in it. It seemed that nothing would deter Jax-Ur or his insurrection.
"This Council has been disbanded!" the general roared.
"By whose authority?" asked a member of the council.
"Mine!" Jax-Ur responded sadistically while vaporizing the council member with his weapon. "The rest of you will be judged and punished accordingly."
"What are you doing Jax-Ur?" Jor-El asked the general. "This is madness."
"What I should have done years ago," Jax-Ur stated with conviction to Jor-El. "These lawmakers and their endless debates have led Krypton to ruin!" The general shouted angrily at Jor-El.
"And if your forces prevail you'll be the king of nothing," Jor-El argued.
"Then join me, Jor-El, and help me save our race!" The general said, putting a hand on Jor-El's shoulder. "We'll start anew, we'll sever the degenerative bloodlines that us to this state," Jax-Ur said to Jor-El.
"And who will decide which bloodline survives, Jax-Ur?" Jor-El asked doubtfully to the general. "You?"
"Don't do this, El…" Jax-Ur said to Jor-El. "The last thing I want is for us to be enemies."
"You have abandoned the principles that bound us together," Jor-El said, outraged at what he was witnessing from General Jax-Ur. "You've taken the sword up against your people!" He shouted at the man before him. "I'll honor the man you once were, Jax-Ur. But, I shall never honor the monster that you've become."
Jax-Ur was angered by this. He had wanted Jor-El on his side, and the scientist spat in his face. "Take him away." As he spoke those words, Jor-El was captured and being led elsewhere. A security drone stood between Jor-El's captors and their destination. It gave a brilliant flash of white light when Jor-El closed his eyes, blinding Jax-Ur's followers, disorienting them as Jor-El fought to get away from them, even going as far as to steal one of their weapons and use it against them, changing the setting from vaporizing to normal, shooting a white laser at them. After defeating the insurrectors that tried to take him captive, Jor-El turned to the drone.
"Get me Lara!" He ordered the device as it switched to communication mode and displayed Lara's face.
"Jor…" Lara said as she noticed more insurrectors behind her husband. "Behind you!" She shouted as Jor-El turned to face his attackers and subdued them rather quickly for a mere scientist before turning back to his wife.
"Lara…" He said to his wife with a heavy heart. He didn't want to do this, but it was the only option to ensure Kal's survival and the survival of their race. "You have to ready the launch." He told her with sadness in his voice. "I'll be with as soon as I can." He promised.
He ran outside to try and make it to the vessel that would guarantee that Kal-El would survive to see another sunrise. He got onto his vessel and took off for the registry, the storehouse for the Kryptonian Codex. He flew off as Jax-Ur's insurrectors fired at his vessel, narrowly avoiding their fire. Jor-El decided that if he wasn't going to be given codex, he'd steal it.
"I need to get the Codex!" Jor-El shouted to himself, going inside with the intent of stealing the Codex.
"The Codex is just beneath the central hub, sir…" Informed his robotic companion. "But I am compelled to warn you that breaching the Genesis Chamber is a class B crime, punishable - -" The robotic voice attempted to warn the hellbent scientist.
"Nobody cares anymore, Kelex…" Jor-El interrupted the machine now known as Kelex, "The world is about to come to an end." Jor-El said resolutely, making his way inside of registry and to the Codex through the aqueducts. He swam to the central hub and shed a few tears for the infants who were still being bred. As soon as he made his way to the Codex, he grabbed it and took from its place in some grand machine that provided the donated genetic material to the Genesis Chambers to make more Kryptonian children. He got out of there as fast as he could. When he came to the surface, a ship with weapons trained on him emerged.
"Jor-El…" Said an automated voice to the Kryptonian scientist. "By the authority of General Jax-Ur, surrender the Codex!" The automated voice ordered the resistant scientist.
Jor-El would never surrender the Codex to a monster like Jax-Ur, so he jumped as the ship fired at him, landing safely in his vessel and flew off for home, hoping against hope that he could lose these insurgents as they gave chase, firing at his vessel. Jor-El, luckily, was able to lose them in the chaos and explosions then ensued. Jor-El eventually made his way home, where his wife and son were waiting for him. His son was sedated and Jor-El held the Codex up to a machine that was able to convert it into a part of the sleeping babe, encoding the Codex into Kal-El. Jor-El turned to his loving wife.
"Did you find a world?" He asked Lara.
"We have, a planet called Earth…" She said as another security drone, similar to Kelex spoke in an automated, robotic voice.
"Orbiting a main-sequence yellow sun, Jor-El…" Said the drone. "Just as you said it would."
"A young sun…" Jor-El said. "His cells will drink its radiation…" He said as he thought the planet's dominant species. "It's a seemingly-intelligent population," Jor-El said as Lara proceeded to get worried for her son.
"He'll be an outcast…" Lara said to her husband. "A freak…" She lamented. "They'll kill him…" She said as the worst scenarios played out in her mind, scaring her.
"No, Lara…" Jor-El told her, having run every possible simulation, having a good idea of what would happen once Kal was on earth. "He'll be a god to them." He said simply as his wife continued to worry for her son.
"What if the ship doesn't make it?" She worriedly asked. "He'll die out there…" She said as she began to worry more as her maternal instincts began kicking in. "Alone…I can't do it…" She said as she shed tears from these thoughts. "I thought I could, but, now that he's here…"
"Lara…" Jor-El said, getting his wife's undivided attention. "Krypton is doomed…" Jor-El reasoned with his wife. "This is his only chance now…" He explained with conviction evident in his voice. "It's our people's only hope," Jor-El said as the drone that spoke to them about the planet Earth wrestled their attention. "What is it, Brainiac?" Jor-El asked, a little annoyed.
"Five attack ships are converging from the east…" Brainiac replied. "The citadel's defenses are being scanned and evaluated.
"I'll upload the Codex, Lara…" Jor-El said mournfully.
"No, wait…" Lara said, beginning to have second thoughts about this whole plan.
"Lara…" Jor-El scolded his wife.
"Just…let me look at him…" Lara pleaded with her husband as she looked down at her son. "We'll never get to see him walk…" Lara lamented as she turned to her husband. "Never hear him say our names." She said as Jor-El took his son in his hands and consoled his wife.
"Out there, among the stars, he will live…" Promised Jor-El. He and Lara uploaded the Codex into Kal-El and bid their farewells to their son as they placed him into his pod and programmed the coordinates into it. "Farewell, my son," Jor-El said with sadness evident in his voice. "Our dreams and hopes will travel with you." He said to his sleeping son as he began to prep the ship that would send his son on his way to earth.
"Sir, Jor-El…" Brainiac spoke to the Kryptonian scientist. "The Phantom Drives are coming online," Brainiac informed.
"Proceed to ignition, Brainiac…" Jor-El said resolutely and as the launch of Kal's ship was commencing, General Jax-Ur's forces had arrived to take the Codex by force and slaughter the house of El, not knowing that the Codex was leaving Krypton.
"Focus fire on the main door!" Jax-Ur ordered his troops of insurgents as they fired their weapons, breaching the entrance to the Jor-El's home.
"General…" said one of Jax-Ur's insurrectors, a woman named Mala, to the general. " We have identified an engine ignition in the citadel."
"A launch…" Jax-Ur said angrily before calmly turning back to Mala. "Protect this platform, Commander Mala," Jax-Ur ordered as he marched forward and once inside he discovered evidence of a ship having been launched from inside the chamber the disheartened Lara was in before Jor-El came in, ready to do battle. "I know you stole the Codex, Jor-El. Surrender it, and I let you live." Jax-Ur threatened Jor-El. Jor-El didn't flinch one bit.
"This is a second chance for all of Krypton," Jor-El told Jax-Ur, much to the general's shock and fury.
"What have you done?" Jax-Ur demanded.
Jor-El merely glared at Jax-Ur before he indulged the mad Kryptonian with an answer. "Lara and I have had a child, Jax-Ur. A son." Jor-El revealed, prompting shock from the Kryptonian general. He didn't like where this was going. "He is Krypton's first natural birth in centuries. He will be free! Free to forge his own destiny." Jor-El finished with a smirk as Jax-Ur grew enraged and was appalled by what Jor-El had done.
"Heresy!" Jax-Ur roared in his enraged state as his troops barged into the room. As he turned to them, he decided to have something done about this. "Destroy that ship and the abomination inside!" He roared right as Jor-El shot Jax-Ur's men down. This infuriated the already enraged general to new levels of anger and with one roar of boundless fury did the two Kryptonians do battle, Jor-El quickly gaining the upper hand in the fight, and what Jax-Ur quickly found was that Jor-El was hellbent on stopping his treason.
Meanwhile, with a heavy heart, Lara prepares the ship to launch. Jax-Ur was getting desperate by that point to preserve Krypton and reinvent it into HIS vision of society. "Lara! Listen to me!" Jax-Ur pleaded as Lara was about to jettison her son to Rao knows where. "The Codex is Krypton's future! Abort the launch!" Jax-Ur begged as Lara and Jor-El look at each other for a moment before Lara finally pushes the button that sent the ship far away from Krypton's atmosphere and star system. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Jax-Ur screamed in fury and impales Jor-El with his knife making Jor-El fall to the ground, injured, Lara runs to Jor-El and kneels beside him, crying.
"Your son, Lara!" Jax-Ur growled out in rage. "Where have you sent him?" He asked as Lara looked to the man angrily.
"His name is Kal, son of El, and he is beyond your reach!" Lara said with anger in her voice as Jax-Ur turned and walked up to the rest of his forces.
"Bring that ship down!" He ordered as his troops readied their weapons systems and as Jax-Ur's ship is about to shoot the ship carrying Kal-El, his ship is shot down by the council's forces.
"Lay down your weapons!" Roared a member of the council's forces. "your forces are surrounded." After that was said, the Kryptonian criminals were slated for a trial in the future after they were locked in prison cells for the time being.