The first thing he can remember thinking after what felt like a long nap is how comfortable he is. He was so warm and felt no need to get up. There's a distant female voice humming a song. He feels attached to that voice, as if they have a connection. He feels content to just feel content and safe and warm. He slowly drifts back into sleep.
The next time he becomes awake again, he feels like he can think more clearly. He doesn't know how much time he spent sleeping, but he knew he needed the sleep. It felt so good to sleep.
He realizes he can't move around too much. He's curled up in the fetal position, and it seems like he's somewhat confined, but it doesn't feel like a bad confinement. It still feels comfortable.
He can somewhat hear muffled voices, but can't make out what they are saying. There's the female voice that he feels connected to. She's talking with another female voice. They're laughing together, and he feels happy too. He then hears a little girl voice laughing with the female voice he's connected to and the other lady. He slowly starts to feel sleepy, and drifts off to the sound of their laughter. Where ever he is, it's good and comfortable.
The next time he wakes up it's a shock to his system. He hears loud, angry voices. The female he feels connected to is arguing with a male voice, who is also yelling back at her. The loud voices still have that muffled quality. It almost sounds like they are underwater. Or he's underwater. It feels like he's in some kind of fluid, now that he's paying attention, but he has no problems with breathing. He just then realizes he's not even breathing, but he doesn't feel oxygen deprived. His lungs aren't working, but he's just fine.
He tries to open his eyes to see where he is, but he can't. His eyelids won't respond. As he clumsily moves his arms around, trying to feel around him, he brushes his hand against a ropy cord. Following it with his hands, he reaches where his belly button would be, and the cord is attached to his stomach. He realizes he is holding his umbilical cord; he's a bun in the oven at the moment.
This realization comes as quite a shock to him. He's a fetus, waiting to be born. He needs a time out to process this.
So he focuses on the voices he can hear as they argue. The woman who he feels connected to must be his new mother in this life, he realizes. He doesn't know who the man is, maybe his father. Probably it is his father.
He realizes he can't understand what they are saying. They aren't speaking English, that's for sure. So he'll have to learn the language like any other baby, through exposure and context over time. It's kind of hard to get any context when you're still in the womb and unable to see the adults pointing at things and repeating the name over and over. So that's for later then, he decided. For now he'll just...work on accepting what's going on.
It's just really weird that he's still got his past life's memories. The last he can remember is going out for a late night soda and snack run. He was almost home when a semi ran a red light, and then here he was.
Wasn't he supposed to end up in the afterlife? Even if it's reincarnation, he was supposed to go through the way station and drink Granny Meng Po's soup of forgetfulness, right? But he doesn't have any memory of the in between. Maybe she had a bad batch that made him forget only the part between lives?
Well, whatever. It's not like he can do anything about it.
He can tell the argument between his new mother and father is winding down. They seem to be reconciling. He feels a light weight pressing against him. Maybe they are hugging?
Well, at least they are getting along again. It was probably his baby body being a huge influence on his mindset, but he felt himself getting upset the more they argued. So it's good they are hugging and making up.
Several minutes later he was cursing his inability to leave the room. Three words: make up sex. This is exactly why babies don't have self awareness and memory of their time in the womb. Parents will still go at it even while pregnant, and babies need the brain bleach! He so didn't need to know what his new mother's moaning orgasm voice sounded like.
Maybe he had the wrong attitude about this. This is proof of his parents love. Yes, that's right. It's a good and natural thing. Parents love each other, and they show that love by having sex for hours while their traumatized baby is forced to be there.
But hey, at least he knew he was getting some good genes, if the amount of time his dad was able to go at it was any indication. Yup, always look on the sunny side of life…
He definitely wasn't thinking that he didn't have years of being raised by his new mom to cement their mother-son relationship in stone. He definitely wasn't thinking how inter-awkward it would be in the future when he was being breast fed. Or diaper changed. Why did his mind choose that time to remind him of his impending embarrassment? Brain bleach, bring on the brain bleach!
It took quite a while for him to calm himself down and go back to sleep after his parents finished.
The next several times he woke up, he could tell his new parents were stressed. It was in the sound of their voices, in the urgency they spoke with each other. They didn't seem to argue with each other again, so it was probably external problems.
He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't stop his mind from speculating. Health problems? Extended family troubles? Financial difficulties?
Why were they even having a kid if their lives were in such rocky circumstances? Not that he was ungrateful, once he thought about it. At least they were willing to bring him into the world, even if it might end up being a tough life.
The more he listened to their voices, the more he came to like them. He couldn't help but start to like them, and imagine what was going on by the tone of their voices. His father, always talking about lists and things he needed to do for the day. His mother, being the angel he knew she was and reassuring him that everything will work out. Sometimes distracting him with humorous news of what was going on with her co-workers, letting them both share some levity despite having to deal with being several months pregnant.
He was determined that he'd be the best baby he could be for his parents. He was determined they wouldn't regret bringing him into the world. No excessive crying. No waking them up in the middle of the night, even if he did end up pissing himself. He would manfully (babyfully?) bear it. They deserved their rest after all they did for him.
It was finally the day for him to be born. This was something he'd been both looking forward to, and dreading.
It took some time, and was not a pleasant experience. Enough said. Another reason for babies to have brain bleach.
And he was out and breathing again. That was an experience. How many people got to say they remember their first breath?
He finally got to see his parents, and his mom was as beautiful as he thought she'd be, looking at him full of love. His dad was ruggedly handsome, and smiled a lot. He looked so proud.
So he was happy, even if he was a little bobble head that couldn't even crawl.
And he kept his promise to himself. When it was night time, it was sleep time, not cry time. He made with the baby babble. He made with the peek-a-boo. He was a role model baby, and he couldn't wait for his parole to be up and to be able to crawl.
He didn't keep track of the exact number of days, but it was probably only a few weeks after being born when his dad came home, and he could tell something was wrong. He was unusually serious as he told mom something. She started to cry. Something was really wrong.
His mom picked him up, wrapped him up in a dark red blanket and carried him while following his dad. She didn't, couldn't look away from him. He tried to cheer her up, babbling and smiling. It didn't work, she cried even more.
They arrived in a large room shortly after. He couldn't see much about the room, only that it had some pretty sweet tech in it. Much better tech than in his last life, that was for sure. It caught his attention, and he started to look around, but then his mom started speaking to him.
He still couldn't understand the language, but he started getting a very bad feeling in his chest. His mom spoke to him with such sadness and love, he couldn't look away.
Then his dad was there, speaking his piece. It was then, during his dad's speech something finally clicked in his mind. When both his mom and dad addressed him, they called him something. He'd always just assumed it was some form of endearment, like "my baby boy", so he hadn't paid much attention to it, but now he heard it clearly, what they called him.
Kal-El.
His name was Kal-El.
He was fucking Superman.
Which meant his dad was Jor-El. His mom was Lara Lor-Van.
And this was the time that Krypton was about to blow up.
Shit.
This was heavy. Almost too heavy. His parents were about to die. His planet was about to die. And he was about to be sent to Earth, all alone.
There was only one thing he could do. Smile for his parents as they put him in the escape pod. Try to convince them that he would have a happy life. That's why they were doing this, after all. So their bonny boy could live on. It was the only thing he could do to repay them, as small as it was.
He could dwell on how much this sucked later.
The last time he saw his parents, his mom was tremulously smiling at him through her tears, while his dad hugged her to him, and smiled.
It was just like the first time he saw his parents, only scant weeks ago. His dad smiled at him in pride and his mom's gaze was full of love. He seared the memory in his mind. This was them at their finest.
The pod closed up and put him to sleep.
Time passed while he slept.
He wasn't sure of how much time passed, and he wasn't really lucid. But he felt like some time had passed.
When he next woke up, he was still the same size, so he didn't grow any in the escape pod like some of the Superman movies seemed to imply. He was being cradled in a woman's arms, sitting in the passenger seat of a pickup truck. A man was in the driver's seat.
He could only assume these were Martha and Jonathan Kent.
The woman noticed him waking up, and started baby talking to him.
Normally he would have goo-ed and gah-ed right back at her like the adorable bun he was. But he was still trying to process the death of his parents. It was such a short time, really, but he'd dove into loving them wholeheartedly.
It was…difficult to work through his feelings.
If he'd realized from the beginning who he was and what was to happen, he might have kept up a defense against getting close to Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van. But he hadn't known who his mom and dad were and he'd accepted them wholeheartedly for the short time he knew them.
So, to his later shame when he remembered it, he acted like a bit of a brat to Martha Kent for the next few days. He woke them up in the middle of the night when he was hungry or wet.
He was sure Martha didn't see those few days as him being a little jerk. In her mind he was just "adjusting" to a new life. But he knew. He was a petty little shit for a few days.
It hit him a week later what an ass he was being to two very nice people. They ran a working farm; and him waking them up in the middle of the night was making their lives difficult. Even though they bore it with a smile, it made him feel really guilty. Or maybe it was because they simply bore it with a smile that he felt especially bad.
Here were two very loving people who couldn't have kids of their own, and they miraculously find this baby in a space pod. They could have very easily sold him and the pod to some shady corporation, gotten money, and made their lives so easy. Even adopt some other rug rats if they wanted.
Instead they take him in and hide the pod so no one will do bad things to him, like experimenting on him, testing him to destruction, or autopsying him. And simply accept him into their family.
So, yeah, he felt bad about taking his ill temper out on them.
And he thought about what his birth parents would want. They would definitely want such a good couple to raise their boy.
So he decided that while he'd always remember his first mom and dad in this life, it was okay to have another mom and dad. From then on he didn't wake them in the middle of the night. And he set his new goal: to become a good son and have a good life. The first step? Potty train like a superman.
The next several months were frustrating in some ways. He could tell he was getting much stronger than normal babies by indirectly soaking up some strength giving sun rays. But parents have this weird thing where they don't want their baby to get sunburned. So anytime he'd crawl into direct sunlight, he would soon be moved out of it. Or get covered up with a blanket or umbrella.
Well, it's not like he could talk properly yet. And even if he could, it's not like he could say, "Mom, dad, I'm gonna be really strong from getting a tan."
So he crawled around for several months, getting what rays he could.
Then he started walking around at eight months. Martha was so proud. Which made him proud in turn. He'd accepted them as his parents, and making them proud and smile at him made him feel pretty good about himself. The simple things in life…
On the bright side, with his strength gradually increasing, he didn't have problems controlling it. He never accidently broke a toy. He kept his strength tests for pebbles and branches and the like. No use wasting money that they didn't have to.
He continued to enjoy his easy life for the next four years. Getting as much sun as he could. Running around the farm. Playing in the yard. And he was a tough little gremlin!
And then he was five and it was time for kindergarten. He'd found out from calendars in the house that he'd landed on Earth in 1980. In his previous life he hadn't been much of a comics fan so there was limited information he had available about the world and events. Sure he'd enjoyed the T.V. shows and movies, and he knew some of the basics. Certain hero's secret identities and some of the big villains, but that was far from being able to predict what would happen in his future.
There had been so many reboots and new story lines during the many decades of Superman comics and shows that what little he knew of events meant bupkis.
What he did discover though, was that he, as Kal-el, had inherited the genes and brains of his two Kryptonian scientist parents. So his thinking, calculating, and ability to process information started out excellent and only got better as he absorbed sunlight.
Which meant that school was incredibly boring, from a learning perspective.
However, playing games and having fun with the other kids was a lot of fun.
'Hey, don't mock now.' Clark thought in a Deadpool meta way. 'It's all about mindset and putting things in perspective. It doesn't matter if I was 15 or 1500 years old in my old life. In this life I'm a kid. If I'm going to ignore my peers and be all snooty because I have a few more years of memories, then I'm going to be a lonely alien. And I have memories of being a machinist who worked 10 hour days. So I know the daily grind of adult life. If you think I'm not taking advantage of a second childhood where I have no responsibilities or bills, you're crazy! And while I'm too young and weak to enact the plans all reincarnators come up with, it's a perfect time to learn patience and acting skills!'
So for the next three years Clark discovered his inner child and played with other kids, while soaking up as much sun as he could. He became good friends with an outgoing boy named Pete Ross.
Every weekend he would test how fast he was. By the time he was seven he was able to break the sound barrier while running. By the time he was eight, he'd figured out how to fly, and he could go mach 2 while flying.
He could never quite go as fast while running as he could while flying, because of all the obstacles he'd have to dodge. He didn't want to go breaking the sound barrier while running the highways, so he always ran cross country.
Shortly after his eighth birthday, Clark found the storm cellar that his escape pod had been stored in by his dad. He decided it was time to start doing some of the things he'd dreamed up. First thing on the agenda was to have a little talk with the A.I. on his escape pod.
Clark walked down the stairs into the storm cellar, looking at the corner the pod was hidden in under all the debris. He uncovered the pod. Once he did, the A.I. tried to do the whole overawe light show.
"Kal-El. I am your father, Jor-El." Huh, so the A.I. knew English. That made this easier.
"Nope." Clark promptly replied.
"Yes, Kal-El. I am your father. I sent you here to fulfill your destiny. I will guide you." The A.I. was a good bull-shitter. The A.I. had all this knowledge and his father's memories, but he didn't have his father's soul, emotions, love, or pride in family. It's not like the A.I. was his actual father that would act in his best interest but be proud of whatever he chose to do in life. So it kind of made sense that the A.I. would try anything to manipulate or force Clark onto the path he saw was the best, based on the knowledge he had of some prophecy that seemed to fit the circumstances.
But unlike so many people who think they are clever and wise, and think they can force prophecies to mean what they want to mean only to have it bite them on the ass, Clark knew most of it was self-fulfilling drek and wanted no part of it.
"First off, you are an artificial intelligence, an A.I. You may have most of my father's memories inputted in your database, but you are not him." Clark felt blunt honesty was the best way to get through to and reason with soulless machines. "I remember my father and my mother putting me in the escape pod you are currently inhabiting, and sending me away from a great disaster. So don't try to bullshit me. You are not my father; and by trying to emotionally manipulate me, it makes me think your programming is screwed with."
"But I'll go out on a limb and chalk that up to your algorithms telling you the best way to get me to do something for my own good is to pretend to be my father, and let it go this time. But here are some orders for you: Be 100% honest with me, don't try to manipulate me into following what you think or "know" is best for me. Don't hide information you think I'm not prepared for. After giving me all relevant information pertaining to any situation, you may offer your opinion on what course of action I should pursue. Is this understood?"
And Clark stood there staring at his escape pod, waiting for an answer. When the A.I. gave an answer, it was grudgingly dragged out of it.
"Understood, Kal-El."
"Good. I'm glad we've got that out of the way first thing. If we're going to be working with each other for a long time, we need to have an honest and good working relationship. Nothing destroys trust quicker than lies and plotting behind someone's back. It causes paranoia and distrust. Now, I won't call you Jor-El, because you aren't my father. But you are built by and part of the house of El. How about we call you…Vee-El? Is that good or do you want to be called something else?"
Silence that lasted a few breaths of time stretched as the A.I. considered the question. "While you are correct in that I am an A.I. and not the actual Jor-El, my personality matrix is established on his personality and memories. I wish to compromise. JorV-El is the name I would like to use."
"Okay, that's good. It honors the person you were made from while establishing you as your own personhood. JorV-El it is. So, JorV-El, what more can you tell me about my birth parents, and the disaster that caused them to send me here for refuge?" Clark asked.
Clark sat himself down on a box, and listened for the next few hours as JorV-El told him about his father's early years and how he met his mother. It was nice to get to know his first parents in this life better.
When it was time for Clark to go to dinner, he asked JorV-El, or Jorv for short, if there was any communication piece he could have that would let them talk throughout his daily routine at school. Jorv gave him a small earpiece that when placed was undetectable by sight so they could continue to talk. It could also project small holograms that could only be seen by his Kryptonian eyes, so he could read documents and watch videos as well.
It would come in especially handy during the next several years of Clark's public schooling. The lessons were so boring since Clark already knew the material from his previous life. This way he could have Jorv give him lessons in the Kryptonian language and sciences while appearing to pay attention to class. He was able to sub-vocalize his responses to Jorv over the communication device.
After a year of learning the language and becoming fluent, Clark decided it was time for the next phase of his plans. But for that he needed the fortress of solitude. Jorv had already told him about the three crystals that when combined would create a crystal of knowledge that could be used to build a fortress/repository of the knowledge database the Kryptons had gathered over the years.
There had been a prophecy that told of Krypton's demise, so the three stones of power had been placed on Earth centuries ago as a backup so that the knowledge would not be lost. They were linked with the database on Krypton so that whenever an entry was inputted into the database on Krypton, the stones database was also updated.
One weekend while his parents were celebrating their anniversary, Clark brought the escape pod with Jorv and flew out to the Atlantic Ocean. While hovering over international waters, Jorv sent out a ping back request on the necessary frequency. Clark was able to sense the three ping backs.
One was a strong signal to the south west. One was almost directly east. And the third was faint, like it was on the other side of the world.
Clark decided he would grab the one to the east first. He would continue east to pick up the one on the other side of the world. Then he would finish his first time circumnavigating the globe and pick up the one that is currently to his southwest.
Clark sped to the east. It took him a little over two hours at the mach 3 he was able to fly to arrive at his destination, which was Egypt. Doing a visual scan, he was able to see the crystal of fire he was looking for inside a small eagle headed statue. Stowing the statue in his back pack, Clark quickly departed.
It took him a little over three hours to arrive at his next destination, Shanghai, China. It took a bit of scanning, but he was able to locate the crystal of air inside a little horse statue. Two down, one to go. Clark stowed the little statue in his backpack and moved on to the final piece.
A bit over four hours later, Clark arrived at Honduras. He found the crystal of water in a little statue of a Mayan rain god. Stowing the third statue with the other two, Clark then made his way back up to Kansas in less than an hour.
Clark then made his way to the Kawatche Caves where Jorv informed him was a couple items of interest. The first was a starblade called Palak that can give kryptonian powers to a human so they can be powerful enough to act as a guardian, and is supposed to glow in the presence of the legendary hero Naman's evil villainous counterpart, Sageeth.
Clark snorted in contempt. More manipulations to get people to act the way the prophecy wants them to, as if they don't have free will to choose to live how they want.
Clark decided he'd study the blade to see what technology or magic or whatever made it tick. What are the "triggers" that cause it to act like it does. With actual knowledge instead of vague fears and cryptic nonsense warnings, he'd be able to make an informed decision on his future.
The next item was a memory pendant that his father Jor-El left behind when he visited Smallville in the 60's. It contained the memories of his father posing as "Joe" and getting to know Lana Lang's great aunt, Louise McCallum. "A married woman, you're a hound dog, dad!"
The memory showed that Smallville's Mayor Tate (who was the sheriff at the time) had an unrequited love for Louise, and when she was going to leave town with "Joe", Tate used Lachlan Luthor to try to kill "Joe". The bullet fired by Luthor bounced off of "Joe" and killed Louise. Dex McCallum, Louise's husband, was framed for the murder of Louise.
'What a drama.' Clark thought. 'It's too bad my father didn't clean up this mess back when he was here. I'll take care of it later. This also teaches me something. If I'm going to get involved with girls (no way I'm living a monk's life) I've got to figure out how to make them strong enough to protect themselves. My father had the same abilities I have and he wasn't able to save her. Great physical strength and speed isn't the be all and end all. I need great tech and medicine. Magic too, while I'm at it.'
The final item in the Kawatche Caves, and the reason Clark went there in the first place, was an altar that would combine the three crystals into the crystal of knowledge that would build the fortress.
Clark placed the three crystals on the altar, and in a nice light show it combined into one. When he picked up the crystal, Clark and Jorv (still in the escape pod) were teleported to the glaciers at the North Pole. 'You know, Superman never did dress as Santa Claus, did he?' Clark chuckled to himself. 'Well, here we go.'
Clark chucked the crystal into the ice. And his sweet Fortress of Badassitude formed. "What, you expected me to call it the Fortress of Solitude? How emo can you get. I'm out to enjoy life, not make a place for me to mope about my superhuman first world problems. Problems like being tall, handsome, and powerful. Or girls not understanding me (even though they are clearly attracted to me) when it's just my weird honorable hang ups and secrets that cause problems in our relationships. Or my inability to save everyone because I'm not a god." Meta Clark again reared his head.
"Here you are, Jorv, a new home." Clark grandly proclaimed.
"Thank you, Kal-El."
"No problem. Now that we've got this repository of knowledge set up, there are some things we really need to work on. Item one, camouflage and defenses for this place. We don't really want anyone to come knocking, but if they do I don't want them able to enter freely or able to leave and spread tales to others so they can come and try again."
"After defenses, we need to be able to monitor the planets communication. Ideally we would also be able to hack the planet. Or the internet, whatever internet exists in 1989 anyway, and all computers attached to said internet. Let's get an idea of what kind of a world we live in."
"I also want to be able to create bases all over the planet that will act as safe houses, backups to the fortress and its database, and resource caches. Plans will eventually include putting a base on the moon, and eventually other planets or moons of other planets. We can't keep our eggs all in one basket."
"I would like a solution to cure my earth parents of their inability to have children. Ideally it will also make them long lived and invulnerable to most earthly dangers. This solution should be able to be passed down to my future siblings too. Can't let the future rug rats come to harm or be vulnerable to hostage tactics."
"And finally, we're going to be building us a tech company. I will of course need an alias for this, can't have a nine year old be the owner. If you can build a human form robot, or HFR, to fill the CEO slot, that would be good Jorv. This will be the first of many industries we're going to be getting involved in. For now, we're not looking to be leading edge tech; that would bring too much attention to us. We'll start with middle of the pack stuff, but priced to be affordable, so we can gain capital, build infrastructure, and recruit people before we start to do anything that advances human tech."
"I'll go retrieve some sunken wrecks for their gold as starting capital. But get me a list for when I return of other materials you need to start making all this happen." Clark finished up giving Jorv marching orders.
Jorv, the efficient A.I. that he was, and having the increased computing power of the fortress at his digital fingertips, immediately presented the list of needed metals and other items he would need to build his HFR, and build defenses. Having his own HFR would allow Jorv to work on the other tasks while Clark was busy going about his daily routine of school and family life.
Clark changed his itinerary from treasure hunting to dumpster diving. He stealthily gathered metals and other items needed from scrap and junk yards. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. And after the first batch of goods Clark dug up, and with some HFRs built, he wouldn't have to do it again; he could leave it to the HFRs.
Over the next three years Clark would dedicate one day a week, and sacrifice sleep at nights as needed, to run the errands needed to make his dreams a reality.
He fished out his starting capital for the businesses Jorv would run from sunken ships he'd spotted using his special vision.
He dug out an underground cavern for a bunker far under the Kent farm as a shelter/safe house. Jorv was able to manufacture crystals that when planted would produce the needed structures. The bunkers had multiple purposes. They were a backup database, communications and monitoring nodes, and safe houses that he or his family could use in emergencies.
This was about the time he admitted to his earth parents that he'd always known he was adopted, having memories of his biological parents. They didn't know how to take the information at first, having not expected that talk for quite a few years yet. And for them to inform him, not the other way around. He reassured them he loved them. Then he introduced them to the A.I. Jorv, and explained where he came from, and how his planet died.
To lighten the heavy mood, he explained that he had Jorv create a treatment so they would stay healthy and would be able to have kids. Clark took this time to reveal some of his abilities, like being able to move at high speeds, fly, super strength, and durability. They were naturally flabbergasted, but accepting. They were awesome parents. It eased their mind to know that he would be able to protect himself in the future if government agencies took an interest in him.
In 1990 Clark added two girls to his list of friends when he saved Lana Lang and Emily Dinsmore from drowning. The two girls only lived a mile away from the Kent farm, so Clark would either hang out at their place or at Pete's place for the most part. Pete liked to play sports, mostly football, while the girls liked to play more, well, girly games. It actually cracked Clark to help the girls force Pete to settle for playing house, or at best jump rope, while Pete ached to toss the pigskin. He'd admit he was a little cruel in taking so much pleasure in it at Pete's expense. But, hey, it was funny.
A year later his earth parents had their first baby, a girl that they named Sophia Kent who was born in 1991. The joy and wonder on his earth parents faces made Clark pretty happy with himself for making it possible. And his sister was a cute little thing.
Jorv was the CEO of the E.L. Group that had several companies under its banner. They had a recycle plant that did a lot more work underground than its human employees knew about. A lot of the raw materials their manufacturing companies needed came from junk and scrap yards through the recycling center. Old rusted out vehicles went through the underground recycling center and became tons of all the required metals, fiberglass, and plastics needed to manufacture consumer goods.
When Jorv ran into the problem of prohibitive costs in shipping and transport, he did the A.I. equivalent of a shrug and simply created their own shipping company. No one was to be allowed to destroy their company through excessive shipping costs and lost goods; Jorv wouldn't allow it.
Clark continued the charade of public schooling so he could relax and hang around his good friends. By 1993 Clark and Pete had already seen a couple of people go crazy from exposure to the kryptonite meteor rocks and exhibit some unusual abilities. Clark let Pete in on a couple of his secrets, like that he was also an enhanced individual. The girls, Lana and Emily, already somewhat knew from when he saved them from drowning.
He decided he'd keep the whole alien thing a secret for now. If his friends weren't able to keep their mouths shut about his enhanced abilities, then they wouldn't be able to keep quiet about Clark being an alien. And it let Pete know just why he wasn't going to be joining him in on his Pop Warner football team, even though he went to the games to cheer them on.
When Clark and Pete had seen some high schooler in the middle of Smallville's main street yell at his girlfriend and shatter his car windows from his voice alone, Clark realized he'd been neglecting something pretty serious: kryptonite. He had Jorv create an environmental cleanup company based in Metropolis that would handle cleanups like oil spills and forest fires around the world. It was good PR for his E.L. Group, and he was able to have a division of HFRs publically work at cleaning up the meteor rocks that would ruin so many people's lives.
Clark then had Jorv work on creating a device that he could wear that would block the effects of Kryptonite from him. He felt much better after putting the wristwatch on. Nothing like getting rid of a weakness to make one happy.
In 1994 Clark made another friend, one Chloe Sullivan who moved to Smallville from Metropolis. Clark showed her around town, and invited her to hang out with him, Pete, Lana, and Emily. She was a gawky little thing at first, and nervous of fitting into a new town. Lana and Emily stepped up like the good girls they were and made her feel welcome.
It did take nearly the whole school year before Clark got the story of why she had to move to Smallville. Chloe's mom had checked herself in to a mental institute. Chloe finally shared that her mother was worried after having told her to clean her hands from some ink and Chloe had been unable to stop washing her hands for hours, until her mother found her and realized she had some kind of command voice that made her obey. Her mother was worried about the effects she would have and that she might unintentionally hurt her daughter.
So Clark set Jorv to figuring out a way to block Chloe's mother's powers from affecting anyone. Within a short few months Chloe had her mother back, and she was very happy.
By 1995 Clark had a second sibling, a little brother named Nathan. He'd also managed to find his cousin, Kara's ship stuck under a nearby dam. When he got her free, she was quite startled that her "baby cousin" was now a year older than her. Martha and Jonathan accepted her with open arms, happy that Clark had another family member alive. She soon joined him in school at his year, with a communication device to Jorv so she wouldn't be too bored. Kara fit in quite well with his group of friends after some time to adjust to the differences of Earth life.
It was far better in his opinion that she join him at the same age than if he'd waited until he was an adult to free her. He knew that in the comics she'd felt displaced, having grown up mostly away from Earth. When she finally woke up on Earth, her own cousin didn't really have time for her, with his busy life as a reporter and as Superman. Depending on the story line Superman just drops her off with a foster family, and went about his life. In Clark's opinion, that was kind of a dick move on Superman's part. And then when Kara decides to join the superhero groups, she's always living in Superman's shadow and reputation.
In Clark's opinion Superman did a poor job in helping his cousin acclimate to a new world. Say what you will about how admirable Superman is for doing what he did but Clark didn't agree. Clark thinks it was a short sighted, arrogant, and self indulgent method Superman decided on. Not to mention not caring about family, which is important to Clark.
Clark has all this Krypton tech available, he was able to use his abilities to find gold as an initial investment, buy out his parents farm, and start a company. And he had plans to slowly uplift earth's tech and knowledge over the next fifty years. Superman could have done all of this too, but he chose to go around only using his physical abilities to stop crime.
If Clark decides in the future that crime needs to be fought, he's going to have his companies donate resources to the relevant police agencies. Maybe not as personally satisfying as punching a bank thief out, but so much more effective, and Clark wasn't going to become some vigilante hero of petty theft.
There were major threats out there that required big guns to keep the actual world alive. Clark decided that's where he'd focus his attention on. So instead wasting his time with nickel and dime thugs, he'd train himself up to be able to take out alien armies and threats like Darkseid. So aside from training to fight gods, he'd spend his precious time with family and friends, and building up his business empire (which was mostly done by Jorv).
Clark and Jorv had also created a second Fortress, this one set up in Antarctica. They had several bunker bases set up around the world. These bases enabled Jorv to have access to pretty much any information put online.
One of the things that Jorv noticed was the abundant evidence that there were many groups, or secret societies, around the world that never put their information on the net. They were blank spots in Jorv's information gathering that had great influence in everyday life for the people of the planet. From the way that businesses ran, to the policies that governments created and enforced, there was almost no aspect of life that wasn't influenced by the secret societies.
This made Clark once more cognizant of the difference between having watched a few T.V. shows and actual knowledge of the world he found himself in. The T.V. shows had all these villains and opponents for Superman to fight that were out in the open, and obvious. The Superman of comics and T.V. shows always followed a strict moral code. After a few conflicts, the secret societies no doubt figured out how Superman operated, and adjusted their operations to account for his interference (assuming the societies actually existed in other Superman verses). And when Superman was satisfied he was "making a difference" in the world then he wasn't digging deeper to find out the cause of all those problems.
Clark could only assume, if the secret societies existed in those worlds, then they loved how simple Superman was to deal with. Just create a diversion, like a silly super villain of the week, and Superman would never know what you were doing in the shadows.
What about the other super heroes? Surely they would find evidence? What about Batman? He's the super detective! Well, Batman as Bruce Wayne was new money, nouveau riche. He wouldn't be included in the secret societies. Batman relies a lot on his tech, and so he'd never get a hint of their existence by searching and hacking. The only reason Jorv got a hint was because he's an advanced A.I. that is so far ahead of Earth tech that he was able to "see" the distinct black holes in his information gathering (hacking). As smart as Batman was in comics, he was still just a human. A paranoid human that likely wouldn't trust any A.I.s.
And Clark is speculating a bit here, but maybe it has to do with magic. Clark knows there's magic around, and while Batman is smart, he's not a mage, and he doesn't like magic. 'Probably because he's unable to use it and is ignorant of much of it.' Clark thought. 'What else could get such an intelligent man who makes use of anything he could, to state that he doesn't like magic? His inability to utilize said tool, of course. If Batman could use magic, he'd doubtlessly be singing in his little bat heart, "I loooooove magic! It's so OP, haxxors!" '
Speaking of Batman, Clark had Jorv keep an eye on the Waynes. Whenever they went out to the movies, Clark kept a close eye on them, and was able to prevent the death of Bruce's parents. Clark knows he may be preventing The Bruce from becoming The Batman, but really, how much of a dick would he have to be to not save someone's parents just so the dude would become a crime fighter? Clark decided to try out a different way. He dressed up as a spandex "superhero" and flashily saved them, giving a nice speech about good men not standing aside. This way the choice of becoming something more is left up to Bruce, and he's not driven to it by his parent's death. There's a good chance that this world may never have Batman, but it may have an equally driven, but mentally balanced superhero detective. That was a good trade off in Clark's mind.
Clark decided that until he can get more intel on the (probably) magic societies that were giving Jorv conniption fits, he would just monitor them for now. Which led to an interesting discovery by the reported, and not acted upon, death count in Sunnydale, California.
Sunnydale, the (apparently not) fictional town that was the location of the Hellmouth in the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Hellmouth was a dimensional weak spot between this dimension and a hell dimension. Hell energies leaked through and attracted all kinds of supernatural predators that dropped by to enjoy the human buffet. And something about the Hellmouth (the hell energy or spells) caused the people to make up lame cover stories or outright ignore the death count and the supernatural.
Your High School has an obituary page? That's totally natural, on the Hell Mouth. The jocks went on a rampage and killed everyone at their party? Meh, why are you even talking about that? Oh, you think it's weird that said jocks are walking around the school after dark? Who are you and why are you even talking to me, dweeb!? Pshaw!
Thinking about what he knew of the show, there was one interesting possibility that he'd like to take advantage of to increase his abilities and science knowledge. That is the Halloween episode that occurred in 1997. In the episode a chaos mage by the name of Ethan Rayne set up a costume shop and then cast a spell that turned everyone into the costume they got from the shop; thereby spreading chaos as all the munchkin monsters ran amok.
When Clark looked through his Krypton knowledge database when the idea to take advantage of the Halloween spell occurred to him, he found that there was no information or technology for time travel. Apparently, one of the most influential scientists of Krypton had a very bad experience with time travel, and thus put up the harshest injunctions for anyone who played around with time. Which was a shame, because if they had time travel tech, even if the planet was doomed, they could still have saved the majority of the people from death.
Clark decided that the first character that he'd like to mine for information is one Bulma Trunks. She comes from the Dragon Ball universe, and she is a genius. At age 16 she created a radar that could track the unique energy given off by the dragon balls (gather all 7 dragon balls and the luck dragon, err, the dragon Shenron will grant your wish). In one of her futures she was able to create a time travel machine to go back and warn her friends about the dangers they would face, so they could prevent an android apocalypse.
She and her father built space ships, gravity chambers, and the capsules that have pocket dimensions to store large objects in. According to Clark's theories, it's highly probable she would have analyzed the Sensu beans. Sensu beans were a magic bean that once eaten, heal all injuries sustained and totally refill the person's energy. So the people in her dimension could train to the edge of death and then eat a bean to recover. There was no "theoretical upper limit" for them as long as Sensu Beans were available to save them from crazy death training. She is the one "normal", unpowered, character that stuck by her home galaxy's strongest fighters, and her tech has been useful throughout the whole series.
Despite being a "normal" human (what a laugh, Bulma is such a genius that the word normal hardly applies to her) she was able to hang out with literal gods. She was the Tony Stark equivalent of the Dragon Ball universe. If she had access to vibranium, uru, and adamantium, it remains to be seen if she wouldn't have created a suit that made her the Queen of the Galaxy, like super ironman.
Bulma is the one character that Clark hopes will provide him a lot of knowledge, and the ability to create a time travel device. If she doesn't help him in everything, but just provides a time travel machine, then he'll count it as a win. Then he can go back and repeat the day with another character costume to gain more knowledge or power. Clark would especially like to gain the knowledge of the fighters in her dimension. Some of them were powerful enough to literally destroy galaxies. And their fighting techniques are orders of magnitude better than what he has now.
And while he's at it, he could provide better costumes for the rest of the so called Scooby Gang that hangs out with the Slayer in Sunnydale. They could definitely benefit from increased abilities with all the vampires and demons going after them.
Clark called up Jorv to get started on some preparations. Despite not having time travel tech, the Kryptonians do have time dilation tech. So Jorv sets up six warehouses, each stocked with a year supply of food and entertainment, with time dilation devices so the one night could be stretched into a year. In each warehouse is an advanced computer with the Kryptonian database loaded onto it, as well as a large surplus of metals, plastics, glass, and all other materials needed for advanced tech.
By the beginning of October 1997 Clark and Jorv had everything ready to go for his attempt to mine fictional characters of their knowledge and skills. One last thing to do.
Clark dressed up as a delivery boy and affected an airhead surfer attitude. He strode up to the door of Ethan's Halloween shop, and knocked on the door.
"Yes, may I help you?" A British individual stated after opening the delivery door.
"Yeah, man. Thanks. I got a delivery here from a few different people for reserved costumes to be picked up before Halloween." Clark drawled.
"You must have the wrong place." Ethan stated, about to shut the door.
"You sure, man? Cause I swear this is a Halloween costume shop." Clark looked around at the costumes pointedly. "They pointed it out to me down the street." Clark picked up the shipping receipts. "Yeah, I've got a costume ordered by an Andrew Wiggins; two ordered by an Owen Pitt; four by a Rupert Giles; and three by a Paks Dorthansdotter, weird name that, to be delivered to Party Town for pick up on or before Halloween."
"Wait, did you say Rupert Giles?" At Clark's nod, Ethan smiled beamingly. "Why didn't you say so? I'll sign for them."
"Sounds good, man. The phone numbers of the people the costumes go to are on the receipt. Be sure to call them to let them know their costumes are ready. They said something about having a nice stress free night for once. I guess Halloween is kinda fun that way. Anyway here you are my man. I'm out."
Clark hopped back in his delivery truck and drove off; leaving Ethan standing there with the boxes the costumes were in.
The next day Jorv received the expected phone calls as a reminder to pick up his costumes. Which was thoughtful of Ethan. Even though he picked up the order meant for Party Town because he wanted to mess with Giles, he at least was helpful in making sure Clark's costumes got back to him.
On the 30th of October, Jorv sent several HFRs to pick up the costumes and stage them in the corresponding warehouse with the HFR that would act as an assistant/cook/cleaner for the duration of the time dilation. The television was set up with a recording Clark made of himself proposing the trade between himself and the entities that will possess him. If they spend some time recording their knowledge and tech designs into his computer, they will have access to his tech database for the duration of the time dilation. If they chose not to accept the deal, they could end the time dilation at any time and wait for the spell to finish, sending them back to their bodies. Quid pro quo.
The next day found Clark in the afternoon in the first warehouse, waiting for the spell to take effect. He was dressed in drag as Bulma Trunks.
"And remember Jorv," Clark ordered, "There must absolutely not be pictures or video of me in drag getting to anyone I know."
"Yes Kal-El." Jorv replied.
'Did that A.I. just snicker at me?' Clark wondered before the spell took effect.
Xander, ignored by his best friends in place of a princess dress wandered over to the discount bin to see if he could get a toy gun to finish up his soldier costume. At least one thing about this day should go right, right? Being emasculated by your female friend is something of a downer day.
From several feet away he can see the perfect plastic rifle sitting in the bin, just waiting for him. Out of nowhere, a little boy runs up and grabs the gun.
"Look mom, I got the last rifle!" He cheerfully exclaims, running back to his mother.
"Great. Add more onto this day, why don't you." Xander grumbled to himself.
"Hello, how are you." A sudden voice behind him caused Xander to jump and definitely not squeak. Nope, he was too manly to squeek.
"Gah, don't do that!" He wouldn't do anything as unmanly as a squeak.
"Terribly sorry, lad." Ethan paused, a gleam in his eye. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be Alexander Harris, now would you?"
Suddenly suspicious, Xander stared at the British man. "And who's asking?"
Holding out his hand to shake, "The name's Ethan. This is my store, and if you are indeed Mr. Harris" Xander winces at the unintentional comparison to his drunkard of a father "then it's good that you got my message to come in to pick up your costume. We close in another half hour for the day, and if you came any later, you would have been unable to pick up your costume."
"Wait, message? What do you mean, message?" Xander is confused.
"Oh, dear. I called yesterday about an order that was delivered on behalf of one Rupert Giles. A Tony Harris assured me you would get the message about picking up your costumes today."
Ethan ignored the muttered, 'drunk' from Xander.
"It seems that this Mr. Giles left a note with the four costumes. One for you, one for a Buffy Summer, one Dawn Summers, and a Willow Rosenberg. I wasn't able to get a hold of the others, and was glad I was able to leave a message for you, but it seems the message was waylaid. Would you care to pick up all four, if you can deliver them, that is?"
"Sure, but what was the message that G-man left with the order?"
"Oh, just that the costumes are compliments of him, and that he hopes that your group can have a nice stress free night for once. His words, not mine. So, about picking up the costumes?"
"Yeah, sure. One sec though." Xander turned to where Buffy and Willow were. "Buffy, Willow! G-man ordered us some costumes. Come check them out!"
Buffy had an indecisive look on her face. "I don't know, I kinda had my heart set on that dress."
Xander, not wanting her to dress up for Deadboy, urged her to at least look at the costume to see if she liked it. When Buffy opened up her box, there was a gorgeous dress, much better than the one hanging on the model dummy. She immediately accepted.
They took the boxes off to get dressed up for Halloween.
When Xander took out his costume, a note fell out of the box. The note described the details of the Master Chief John-117 Spartan Mjolnir Mark VII Armor costume. The brief summary of John's life impressed the hell out of Xander, and made him feel connected to the fictional soldier. He felt just as strongly about his war with the supernatural, especially vampires, that John did about the Covenant.
Buffy didn't pay any attention to the note in her box until the next morning. If she had, she would know that the costume character she went as was of Lady Vin Crucial; the most successful slayer known in history. Lady Vin didn't follow the agenda the Watcher council set for their slayers. She created her own organization that watched her back. Her organization gave her all the back up and modern weaponry she could need. She lived to the age of 74, a grandmother many times over, and died in her sleep. In history, the organization she made was eventually subsumed by the Watchers Council, and as a result there are two factions in the watchers council. First is the "Traditionalist"; who thinks that slayers need to do their slaying on their own with no support. The other is the "Supportists"; who realize that slayers would survive longer if they had backup. The "Supportists" are those that want to help the slayers in any way they can. Unfortunately the "Supportist" faction are chained down by politics and money by the "Traditionalist" faction. Buffy ended up with a halfway watcher. He was motivated by the "Supportist" faction, but trained by the "Traditionalist" faction to undermine her at her most crucial period in her life. The Cruciamentum.
The day after Halloween, when Buffy reviewed the memories she had and learned of the Cruciamentum, she didn't know what to think of Giles. What he did in the future would determine what path she took in regards to him. She took a wait and see attitude.
Willow opened up her costume, and saw it was a Romani ghost costume. The Lady it was based on was Lizzy Kalderash. The history of Lizzy shook Willow's certainty in so many things. Lizzy and her husband were magic practicioners of the Kalderash clan. They married young, had food, clothes, and a daughter and three sons. Life was good. But then a vampire killed and drained their beloved, youngest, and only daughter.
Willow put on the costume. She didn't think she'd live through the experience.
Her husband was consumed with rage, and the desire to enact vengeance on the vampire bloomed in his heart. He started delving into dark magics; he became addicted and consumed with vengeance.
She pled with him to turn away and find a different path to vengeance. He didn't listen. He cast a most horrible curse.
He tore a soul out of its eternal rest and chained the soul in a demonically possessed corpse; to suffer and cause the vampire demon to suffer.
Her husband was changed after that. He slowly grew mad, addicted to the dark aspect of magic.
In his madness, he slew his beloved wife and three boys.
When he came out of the madness and saw what he'd done, he killed himself. He was too ashamed of what he'd done to continue on.
Willow woke up from the spell that made her live the life of Lizzy. Willow now knew, first hand, the rage and pain needed to cast the spell to ensoul Angel. Willow now knew the effects becoming so dark had done on the family. She also knew what horrors a vampire named Angelus had committed, and rushed to the bathroom to throw up.
That was what she'd been supporting Buffy to date? She was sick for quite a while.
She'd also seen the ensuing darkness rising in the spell caster husband of Lizzy. She'd seen the madness. How could she let that taint her own magic?
She couldn't, and wouldn't let people bargain with deities without representation. Thank goodness the Halloween spell had shown her a path to avoid.
The odd thing about Dawn Summers is she didn't start out life as a person in the normal way. Originally, she was The Key, a bundle of dimensional energy that acts as a key between dimensions. In the year 2000 some monks cast a spell to make Dawn a real person. But the spell was so comprehensive, added to the dimensional energies of The Key, it made Dawn a real person from birth. Which means that while Dawn may be an artificial person, the spell reached back in time and created her at the time of her birth, giving memories to those around her of the pregnancy and birth. Dawn was never a fake person. She'd always existed, from the moment of her birth.
Dawn, Buffy's 14 year old sister, opened up her costume that Xander had brought for her. She glanced at the note, seeing that it was the costume of Deona, a portal mage. Listed was a number of feats that Deona had accomplished. She was always able to escape danger. She was capable of leading an army to its destination, or confusing the path of an enemy army. Dawn thought it was a pretty cool power. And the outfit showed off her developing figure. She wore it with happiness.
The day after Halloween, Dawn felt the additional knowledge from being Deona scrunched into her brain. She wasn't every going to have to worry about being kidnapped or caught again. She may allow herself to be caught by Xander, she'd had a crush on him for a while now. Or maybe he wasn't up to her perfection. Time will tell.
Clark groaned as he opened his eyes the day after Halloween. He was lying in the bed at the warehouse. It felt like memories were being forced into his mind. He rubbed his temples with his hands, then froze.
His hands and face felt different from normal. He looked at his hands. They looked very feminine. He jumped out of bed, but his balance was off and he staggered, falling to the ground. His long blue-green hair curtained in front of his face.
Long hair. Blue-green hair. That's not right.
He rushed to the bathroom. In the mirror was an image of a very gorgeous woman. A woman that in another world goes by the name Bulma Trunks.
He reached up and felt the weight on his chest. Yup, he's got boobs. Very nice, perky boobs. He looked down. Felt in between his legs. He was definitely missing a male appendage.
He was supposed to revert back to being Clark after the spell ended. Why was he a still a woman?
Clark groaned out loud. Superman was really vulnerable to magic. Obviously with his vulnerability and the chaos magic, it made the change permanent.
He tried his abilities as a Kryptonian. He couldn't fly, or move fast. He felt…normal.
No.
He refused to believe he was stuck like this.
He ran outside the warehouse, into the sunlight. He could feel his empty reserves start to fill up from the sunlight.
So he was still Kryptonian, just a girl now.
His energy reserves must have been added to the spell and with his vulnerability to magic it made him a girl.
No, he refused to believe this was permanent. He could fix this. Taking deep breaths, he stopped and thought.
Now that he wasn't freaking out as much, he noticed all the memories that were crowding for his attention. It seems he kept all the memories Bulma had of her life. As he went through Bulma's memories he couldn't seem to control his emotional responses.
Well, now he knew what a woman's period was like. He also knew what masturbating as a woman was like. Oh no. Sex with a man. Urkk. He knew from Bulma's memory that it was enjoyable, and she certainly found Vegeta attractive. But no way in hell was he going down that rabbit hole.
Maybe a woman with a strap on, but definitely not a man.
No! Clark! Focus!
How to fix this?
He looked around. Okay. I've got a time travel machine that Bulma and Jorv built. I remember all about it, how to build it, how to pilot it. I'm going to recharge my solar battery, then I'm going back a couple days, and I'm going to dress up in a man's costume. Preferably one who has magic, so I can turn back into a man, and gain some resistance to magic at the same time.
I'd already picked Harry Potter. This is good. This will work. Everything is set up in the next warehouse. Breathe.
Clark got into his time machine, and winked out of the present to two days prior.
