Aaand another warning: the general seems to have hijacked the story, insisting on getting an equal share. So, expect the POV to switch alternatingly from here on, with some overlap between the scenes.


There is a little fuss when Kal has a bad reaction to the ship's atmosphere, but Zod stays out of it. The boy will either get over it or he will not, but as he has survived Earth's atmosphere as an infant, the general sees no reason why Kal should not – and is proven right, quickly enough.

A few hours later, it is Jor-El who insists on retrieving the pod – and/or Kal-El who insists on introducing his true parents to his foster parents on Earth.

Zod is not about to let the scientists go off on their own, of course, but while Jor-El and Lara indulge in their fascination for local culture, the general plans to conduct a few experiments of his own.

Even filtered through his visor the yellow sunlight felt remarkably refreshing. Zod is looking forward to see what Earth feels like without a visor – the dense atmosphere will be an irritant, probably, but nothing he can't stand, he is sure ….

SZSZSZSZSZSZS

The Kents and their farm are as quaint as the general expected, an aged couple with workers' builds and a few flimsy wooden buildings, respectively. Jor-El is immediately charmed by the technology – or rather, lack thereof – Lara is charmed by the humans who raised her son.

Zod nods curtly at the awkward introductions, stands around for as long has he can bear politeness, and then steps outside to check on the loading of the pod – should anyone ask him.

The pod is long aboard and secured, needless to say; the sight is barely enough to repress the urge to search it for the Codex immediately, but knowing Jor-El as well as the general does these days, it might not be that easy to find, anyway.

Nevertheless, it is fortunate that Zod has a distraction in mind already, and so the general leaves the shuttle and its precious load behind, to find an out-of-the-way spot between the wooden outbuildings and retracts his visor.

The entire world hits him in the face.

Groping blindly for a hold to keep from falling over, Zod feels the feeble wall warp under his fingers and is about to reclose his visor and admit that Earth needs a slower acclimatization, when a soft voice cuts through the painful chaos.

"Without your helmet, you're getting everything," Kal-El says. "My parents taught me to hone my senses, focus on just what I wanted to see."

Focus. Focus is something the general has practiced all his life. Focus on the voice, on the steady Kryptonian heartbeat beside him, a little faster than his own but still slow by human standards, and pandemonium recedes.

Shoving himself back upright with a grunt, Zod forces himself to keep his eyes on the boy's face, not the bones underneath or the building behind him, and finds Kal staring at him, open-mouthed.

"It took me years!" the boy exclaims.

"I was bred to be a warrior, Kal," the general gives back when he trusts his voice to be steady again. "I trained my entire life to master my senses. You were a child, untrained and raised on a farm."

"There's nothing wrong with farming," the boy grumbles defensively, and then, when Zod raises an eyebrow, abruptly changes the topic.

"I thought I might have to fight you for Earth, when you first arrived," Kal blurts. "I'm glad it didn't go that way!"

Part of that might be a scientist's genuine dislike for physical conflict. The rest seems to be the sensible understanding of being atrociously outclassed. There might be hope for the boy, indeed.

"You would have lost," the general agrees.

Kal grins. "All things being equal, sure. But things are never equal for me. I would have figured out soon enough how to use Earth to my advantage – such as the sensory overload you get without your helmets …."

Zod inclines his head – knowing the terrain and using it against the enemy is a time-honored tactic, after all – but shoots the boy down before he gets cocky.

"But being your father's son, you couldn't have stopped yourself from explaining how you hold the advantage, I expect." A tap against the still open collar of his armor reminds the younger El how fast that particular handicap was overcome, once the general knew how.

Kal opens his mouth and then closes it with a click of teeth. "You mean Jor … uh, my father, is always like this? I thought it was because I know, well, nothing about Krypton or anything outside Earth."

"He was leader of the science caste on Krypton, born and raised for it just like I was for the military," Zod reminds the boy. "Lecturing the less knowledgeable is literally in his blood."

Kal chuckles at that, but quickly sobers. "Then it should be in my blood, too. But I'm not a scientist."

"No, you are not." And that is the most perplexing thing about the boy. As amusing as it was to needle Jor about preferences, the offspring of two brilliant scientists should have bred true and gone for whatever passed for science on this mudball, even with his genetics mixed at random by natural conception.

That Kal did not do so contradicts everything the general knows about the Codex and the strict predetermination through genetic attributes it enforced for centuries. It's like the potential was already there, to think or protect or produce, without a fundamental difference, only a choice and an upbringing ….

A persistent drone at the edge of his hearing shakes Zod out of the troubling thoughts and he goes for the distraction gratefully.

A bit of concentration identifies a number of those human flying machines, approaching the farm in a wide circle, and some more humans in vehicles on the ground beneath them.

Kal catches his switch of focus and quickly steps forward. "They are just afraid. If you don't attack them …."

"I won't. But I will not have them circle me like insects, either."