Jor-El and Lara: A Tale of Love and Tragedy

by Ryan Brandt

A tale of star-crossed lovers...

Jor-El and Lara: A Tale of Love and Tragedy

By Kator (inspired by the story of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)

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This is an IMAGINARY STORY

Aren't they all?

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Main Entry: jeal·ou·sy
Pronunciation: 'je-l&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -sies
Date: 13th century
1 : a jealous disposition, attitude, or feeling
2 : zealous vigilance

[Ex: I'm jealous of Tommy's new ride.]

Indeed, Jealousy is one powerful emotion. It can destroy even the most powerful of friendships.

Like the one that originally existed between Kal-El aka the man known as Superman and Kon-El, a young man known as Superboy.

Kon-El, a clone created when Superman was presumed dead, always dreamed of becoming Superman. When Superman retired from active duty, Kon-El was ecstatic. Finally, the role he was born into was finally his.

But that glee was short-lived as soon as he learned that Kal had a male child between himself and Wonder Woman. One that as Kal put it, "Would become the new Superman when you retire".

Kon-El didn't like that. For you see, no one knew whether or not Kal could age or have children. Kon had imagined that Kal could age but couldn't have children, and therefore, once the 'S' shield became his, he'd be able to hand it down to his children, and have it be HIS legacy.

Even when he had his own child, Kal's son Van was older than Kon's child Rav, so although Kon wanted to hand the cape to Rav, he had to give it to Van.

Kon resented Kal for that, and was jealous that his own son was now denied the 'right of the family' to become Superman.

And while this event didn't destroy the relationship between the two houses of El… it would only continue to deteriorate through the years.

Due in part that over the course of hundreds of years, the original jealousy of Kon-El continued to grow within his descendants.

But, all the blame cannot really lie on just one family. As it is true in every family, not even the Kal-El family's children could all be perfect little angels. For every bad seed the Kal-El's produced, it only heightened tensions.

Like take for instance, Oro-El. He is the main instigator of the modern El Family Feud.

For he was the Superman in the 25th Century. Up until then, although both families didn't care for each other, they still practiced the one tradition started by Kal-El and Kon-El, giving the cape to each other's children. But Oro refused to give the cape to Kan of the Kon-El clan and instead, gave it to his own son, Jon.

This finally broke the two families apart, and the tensions were only made worse when Oro stated that the members of the Kon-El clan didn't deserve the privilege of wearing the cape since they only had cloned blood, not 'pure' blood.

So now the world has TWO Supermen, TWO Superboys' and TWO Supergirl's in any given family generation.

Not that it makes the world any safer. Whenever rival members of the El Clans get together, it makes an ordinary situation bad, and a bad situation worse for the simple fact that both sides always try one-upping the other, instead of putting their differences aside and working as a team.

Which brings us to the 30th Century. Metropolis, on a Friday, to be exact.

The situation? The Brande Chemical Plant is going up in smoke. And to the rescue, dodging all the flying cars is Jor-El, son of Seyg-El, latest holder of the mantle Superboy of the Kon-El Family. As he soars through the air, we see he has purple hair with the familiar spit curl, blue eyes and around the age of 19. He is wearing a black Superman costume with the 'S' shield only having the colors of Black and White. He also is wearing silver bracelets on his wrists. This suit is to commemorate the death of his 'Gene-Father' who died on this day, some thousand years ago.

As he is about to reach the plant, a red and blue blur streaks in front of him and cuts him off.

"Sorry about that, but I need to get to the plant quickly. A real hero needs to diffuse this situation." A young man says, wearing a suit looking like a sleeker version of the original Superman costume (and with the red streak near the crotch section now actually a sewed in part of his costume, rather than being on the outside). He has silver hair with brown eyes and seems to be around 21.

"Funny hearing you say that Kru-El. I would've thought using your name and the word hero in the same sentence would be an oxymoron."

"Just the type of a remark I'd expect from cloned blood."

"Why don't you come down here and say it to my face?"

"I'd love to, but unlike your family, I don't have time to waste."

"You Sprocking Durlan Egg-layer!"

"Oooh, I'm shaking!" Kru says as he turns to leave and Jor moves his arm back to prepare to fly up and punch Kru-El in the back when a green arm grabs his shoulder and a voice as old as the Earth itself said…

"Let him go. He isn't worth it." And Jor-El turns to see his mentor and friend, J'onn J'onzz, last of the Martians standing with him.

"You Kru-El, are disgracing your ancestor with this unnecessary feud! It is long past time for this to have ended!"

"Yeah right, old man. You were only a second stringer compared to my ancestor, the 'actual' Superman. You can't tell me to do anything!" He says as he flies off towards the burning building.

"Why that piece of…"

"No, you don't need to defend me, Jor. But why don't we go to the ground and have a little talk?"

"Yes sir." Jor said kneeling his head down slightly as they floated down to the ground.

"Jor, why time after time do you always seem willing to start a fight with him? Haven't you learned yet that fighting will never end this feud, only serve to increase the flames between families?" J'onn asked as they walked into an alley together.

"I understand J'onn… it's just… guys like that Kru, I just want to tear them apart!"

"I know, I know, it's hard to keep your emotions in check. You remind me of Kon-El in that way."

"And it just seems whenever one family starts trying to make amends, someone always screws them up! It's futile!"

"No, it's never futile. Never believe that. If you start believing that fighting to bring the estranged El Families back together is futile, how do you ever hope to keep fighting for truth and justice? If you give up and fail something that can be fixed, you'll never have the willpower to keep fighting against something that never, ever stops."

"How come everything you say always rings true, J'onn?"

"Hm. That's just from experience. Something you learn after thousands of years of living." J'onn said with a little smile.

"Well, in that case, I'll circle the city one more time to see if there's anything that needs my help, and then I'll head home. There's a party I need to attend tonight."

"All right. The next lesson is Wednesday, the coming week." J'onn said as he watched Jor-El slowly lift into the sky and blast off.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch (and no signs of the Kal-El's) so Jor went home to his estate on the outskirts of Metropolis.

Jor flew past a gate that served to keep outsiders from the main courtyard, and landed just in front of a water garden, made out of marble, to represent the Superman 'S'.

Jor looked around at all the trees and various plants as he made his way to the front door.

Inside, Jor looked around to see various Kryptonian robots flying around keeping the place clean, and looking after various artifacts that his gene-father Kon-El acquired during his many adventures and his other ancestors picked up on their journeys.

Jor slowly made his way up the winding stairs to the second floor where his room is located. Jor started creeping to his right, where two doors away his room is.

As Jor-El crept to his room, in vain hopes to change into his costume and get out, his father Seyg-El spotted him.

"JOR!"

"Oh boy…" Jor muttered to himself as he closed the door and turned around to see his father staring at him. His father was 6 foot 4, with purple hair and a purple beard. He is wearing a gray business suit.

"I heard that you were about to save the Brande Chemical Plant from burning down until Kru-El stopped you and saved it instead. Why?"

"Well, it's because…"

"Don't beat around the bush, tell me why! You had better have a good reason, because whether or not Kru-El was there, you could've still attempted to save the building, instead of letting the Kal-El's get all of the credit."

"Kru-El got me angry… and I was about to punch him… when J'onn stopped me. He told me to let him go and allow him to save the building, Father."

"J'onn, huh? I thought he'd teach you how to be a better hero, not a stupid zero… I think I'll have a talk with him…"

"Don't, Father! It's not his fault!"

"It is his fault! Ever since I allowed him to begin teaching you, your performance record has been less than stellar. You cannot let anyone keep you from doing your job. I don't care if Jesus Sprocking Christ appears and tells you not to go save someone; you will go and save that person! Do you understand, Jor?!"

"Yes, Father."

"Good. Now, where are you planning on going?"

"I was planning on going to a costume party with Cousins Lor and Naj."

"Fine. But be back before curfew, understood?"

"Yes, Father." So Jor-El crept back into his room and sighed. Poor J'onn. Lord only knows what Seyg was going to yell at him or what he'd do when J'onn started lecturing him on how to be a hero. If J'onn had any character flaws, that was it.

"I hope Father doesn't do anything rash…" Jor thought to himself as he started to become depressed. Jor liked J'onn. The last great hero from a by-gone age. And if J'onn was forbidden to teach Jor anymore… Jor knew that, inevitably, something bad would happen; as J'onn always seemed to pop up to keep Jor from doing something he'd regret doing later on.

But as Jor opened his closet and looked at the Phantom of the Opera costume he was going to wear to the party, his spirits lifted.

If everything gets blown to hell, at least tonight Jor would be able to pay Kru back for what happened earlier today.

So Jor put on the black costume and attached the white paper mashie mask to his face, which hid it. Just then, his Video-Phone came on, revealing the faces of his cousins… the black haired Lor and the brown haired Naj.

"Come on Jor! We're all ready to go!"

"Hold your horses, I'll be right there!" Jor said as he walked out the door. He reached the main hall where his two cousins where standing, dressed as characters from the movie "Dressed to Kill". Lor was dressed as the hero, Ethan Allen, a secret agent fighting against the imperialistic forces of the Space Cartel and Naj was dressed as Robert Dubois, the villain of the flick.

When they both saw Jor's getup, the laughed their butts off.

"You call THAT a costume?"

"It's from the Holo, 'Phantom of the Opera'. A great movie."

"A chick movie, more like it." Naj butted in.

"You wouldn't know a great movie if it bite you in the ass."

"Well, 'Dressed to Kill' was a great movie!"

"Like I said, you wouldn't know a great movie if it bite you in the ass." Jor said with a smile.

"Let's go, already. I want to crash the party soon, so we then can muck things up." Lor said as he exited the front door, and then took off into the sky. Jor and Naj followed.

Soon, the three cousins were in the heart of Metropolis and above a very special building. It's not a building in the normal sense of the word, rather it's a living organism found 5 galaxies away from here. It has an abnormally small brain, but it's talents lie in its unparalleled ability to shape shift. Using a special machine or a high level telepath, you can 'feed' it an image of the type of house you want and it morphs it's entire body to fit the type of house you need. The Kal-El clan discovered it and they routinely use it to hold parties.

Tonight, it has taken the shape of an old 19th Century Victorian House.

"Okay, you guy's ready to infiltrate the party?" Lor asked his cousins and they nodded in agreement.

You see; the Kon-El clan doesn't use Secret Identities. Much like their Gene-Father, they detest them. On the other hand, the Kal-El clan does use them. And their Secret ID's are very well hidden. Every once in a while they hold a social gala in their Kryptonian names to socialize with Celebrities and old friends. Partially so that they can show that they too have Kryptonian names, and they deserve to use them, not the 'cloned bloods'. And since this is a rare occasion, it's seen as a rite of passage for the younger members of the Kon-El clan, where they infiltrate and try to pull some pranks on the other clan.

"Okay then, let's turn invisible." Lor says as light begins to bend around him and he disappears. Jor and Naj do the same.

The float down to the ground, and when the doors open to let in newly arrived guests in; they walk straight in as well.

They look around for a bit; to see hundreds of people dressed up as numerous characters, brightly lit chandeliers, and lavishly decorated curtains hanging from the barristers.

The 3 cousins float up and find a shadowed corner, which they stop bending the light around them and they step out of the shadows.

"Let's go mingle, Cousins!" Lor said as they split up and head off different ways.

Jor walks around, actually admiring the interior of the building, while trying to recognize a song that's being played.

He looks over a balcony to see a pretty popular Durlan band called the 'Shifters' playing for this party.

"Well I must admit, the Kal-El's at least have good taste in music." Jor thought to himself as he looked over the edge to see a girl, wearing a white dress with gold trim, on the dance floor. If Jor-El was a cartoon character, his head would've twirled 360 degrees, his jaw would hit the floor and his heart would burst out of his chest.

"Wow…" was all Jor could muster as he stared at her with longing eyes. This girl had long blue hair and green eyes. Her face looked like as smooth as crystal. This girl had freckles across her nose. She was smiling and the way her face looked as she did this, made Jor think he was looking at an angel.

As he continued to gasp at her beauty, 'The Shifters' began playing their #1 Song, "Return my Love". The nanosecond he heard this, Jor literally ran for the stairs. When he reached the main floor, she was still waiting for someone to ask her to dance, and Jor thanked Rao that he got to her first.

"Um, excuse me, may I have this dance with you?" Jor asked with a nervous glance in his eyes.

"Sure. I just hope you know how to dance." She said as his heart began pounding like a jackhammer. In fact, the only other time his heart pounded this hard was one of his first outings as Superboy, where he faced the 4-D Man alone and nearly died. This time, instead of signifying how close to death he is, it's showing him how alive he's feeling.

The lead Durlan singer, named Indigo, begins sing the lyrics. As she does, Jor puts his right hand against her back, and grips his fingers of his left hand between her own. They begin to dance around the dance floor.

"I've never seen you here before, a new friend of the El's?" The girl asks as Jor twirls her around him.

"That would be telling. Let's just say I'm a Phantom that's come to haunt this party. And you might be?"

"Um, I'm Laura Vander. I'm a friend of the family."

"Oh. Well, judging from your beauty, I can see what type of friend you are." Jor says as Laura giggles just a bit and begins to blush.

"You're just saying that…"

"Trust me, I'm not one to lie. All my friends say I state the obvious. And it's obvious to me that you're beautiful." Jor said, as Laura's cheeks became a bright red. As the song enters it's instrumental phase, Jor grips both of Laura's hands and they begin to twirl around in a circle. Indigo began to sing the final leg of the song, and Jor stopped twirling them both around. Laura laid her head on his shoulder and Jor could feel his temperature rising.

The song then ended, leaving both Jor and Laura exasperated as they applauded the band.

"Do you, well… that is to say… would you like to walk out to the upstairs canopy, with me?" Jor asked. He noticed that as the song ended and with the heat of the moment passing away, her face looked more cautious than anything since she couldn't even see his face.

"Well…" Laura began to say as she considered his offer. Her mother, Funaho, always warned against going with boys she hardly knew. And if she got caught with this one, Mother and her brother would have a time chewing her out for it. But she then looked at his face, past the paper mashie mask and into his eyes. It was then that she finally made up her mind.

"Sure!" Laura replied and the hopeful look in his eyes was replaced with relief. They began working through the crowd that was gathering for the next song and headed upstairs.

In the corner, dressed up as D'artigan from 3 Musketeers, Kru-El watches as Jor and Laura walk up the stairs and head to a canopy. He grabs an apple sitting on a tray table and begins to walk over to the canopy where Jor and Laura are standing out on.

As they walk out onto the canopy, Jor-El begins staring at the stars.

"So, 'Phantom', who are you really?" Laura asks with a sexy smile.

"Like I said, if I told you, it would spoil it."

"Well, I could just check with the registry and found out who came to the party as the Phantom from the 'Phantom of the Opera'…"

"Well, I can already tell you that it won't work, because I wasn't exactly invited." Jor said as he looked away from Laura.

"Oh, so you're a gate-crasher, hmm? That takes guts to infiltrate an El party. Now I've really got to see your face…" She said as she brought her right up to take off his mask… touching the outer edge of it, when Jor brought up his left hand and after softly grabbing her hand, moved it back down.

"I would let you see it, but it's just that…" Jor began to say as he finds himself unable to finish his thought. Generally, if you're a friend of the Kal-El's you're not fond of the Kon-El's. And the thought of her face going from amusement to disgust wasn't something Jor wanted to see.

Laura couldn't contain her curiosity anymore and faster than he could blink; his mask was in her hands. She gets a good look at his face and his looks confirmed what she already suspected from his unique hair color…

"*Whispers* I knew it… I knew it! You're Jor-El, aren't you?" She said with that same look of amusement on her face.

"That I am…" Jor said, somewhat relieved that she didn't seem to care that he comes from the Kon-El clan.

"I had figured you were because of your purple hair… I must say Jor-El, you're cute when you get anxious." She said with a laugh because Jor began blushing at the statement.

"So… the fact that I'm from the other El family doesn't bother you?"

"None at all…" Laura said as she brought her right hand up and touched his cheek. Jor brought his left up again, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. He started to kneel his head down a bit and Laura started to raise her head up towards his…

When, *BAM*, something inside crashed and various guests began yelling.

"*Sigh* Of course it had to happen now…" Jor cursed under his breath as he could hear his cousins laughing from inside the party hall.

"Aw damn, I've gotta go. *Jor looks around to see a napkin lying on the floor* Here, let me give you my Video-Phone number…" Jor says as he scrounges around his costume for a pen and after finding one, praises Rao once again. Jor quickly scribbles his number on the napkin, puts it into her hand, grabs his mask and launches into the air.

"Please, give me a call tonight, I want to continue where we left off!"

"Sure thing!" Laura said as Jor began to smile and flew off into the sky.

Jor was about halfway home, when he stopped in the middle of the sky, floating in front of the moon and yelled…

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!" while throwing his arms into the air. This was heard by the all people in the Neighborhood he was floating above, especially by one tenet, his teacher J'onn J'onzz.

"Looks like Jor's in love. Finally."

And after letting out his excitement, Jor raced home, to wait in front of the Video-Phone for a call from Laura.

Meanwhile, Laura on the other hand was working her way through the crowd [still in a state of shock over the pranks Jor's two cousins pulled, which were namely causing tables to fly into walls and chandeliers to fall from the ceiling], trying to work her way to the front door.

She was nearly out of the front door, when she heard her brother's voice ring out, asking…

"Where are you heading too, Lara?"

"I'm going home, Kru. I'm tired, and after the pranks those two gate-crashers did, I don't see any reason to stay."

"I heard there were 3 gate-crashers." Kru said as he took a bite out of his apple.

"Hm. That's news to me. Well, I'm off. Make sure to tell Mother that I'm going home." Lara Andver-El said as she took off into the sky. Kru merely grimaced as he crushed the apple that was in his hand.

As Lara flew up into the sky and above the clouds, she slowed down her flight to where she was slowly floating along, then flipped onto her back to look at the stars. The clouds were now gently brushing up against her back.

Whenever a bit of cloud would brush up against some of her bare skin, Lara would giggle just a bit. It gave her the sensation that she got when Jor touched her.

"Boy, Jor-El is a cutie. Never would I have imagined someone from the Kon-El family being that sweet and charming…" Lara thought as she closed her eyes and exhaled. Her mother and brother always have warned her about the Kon-El's… 'They're unruly, disrespectful, and tarnish the Legacy of our ancestors' and used other unflattering words when they thought Lara was out of ear-shot…

But Jor-El was different. He wasn't the type of boy her Mother and Brother tried writing off as the typical Kon-El Clan son. Maybe it was because of the way he shyly asked her to dance. That genuine look of interest in his eye, not the look of lust most people his age have.

Of course, it could be that she listened in on his heartbeat and noticed that it never skipped a beat. But then there were those baby blue eyes of his. Like an ocean, they were. God, she could lost in those eyes, just soaking in that never ending sea…

It was then that Lara decided to put on the speed so she could reach home and give Jor-El a call, so she could speak to him instead of think about him…

And in the room of Jor-El, he is impatiently waiting by the Video-Phone. He's been fidgeting there in his chair for the past 10 minutes, waiting for a call from Laura.

As he stares at the phone, waiting for the familiar ring to go off, his enthusiasm starts to die off.

"Man, what am I sitting around here for…" Jor thinks, "I must be nuts to think that I'd immediately get a call from her…" and as Jor gets up and heads for the door to go downstairs to get a drink, he hears the phone go off.

And faster than a speeding bullet, Jor is back in that chair and has the monitor up and running. Sure enough, it's Laura on the other side.

"Sorry to keep you waiting Jor, but… traffic was terrible."

"It's okay, really. I mean, it's not like I was waiting for you to call…" Jor said, his eyes darting to the left.

"You're lying." Laura said, with a little bit of a smile, having listened in to his heartbeat.

"Huh? Why do you think so?" Jor said as Laura realized that he still thinks she's just a regular human.

"I thought you were by the look of your face."

"Well, I..." Jor begins to say as he hears someone knocking on his door.

"Jor? Jor! What are you doing? It's past your curfew!" Seyg-El's voice boomed.

"But Father, I'm on the Video-Phone! I'll go to bed after I finish my conversation!"

"No buts! If you don't get in your bed and I don't see the lights go off in 5 minutes, I'll come in there and PUT you to sleep, understand?"

"Yes, Father. *Looks back at Laura* Sorry about that, but I have to get off."

"Well, howabout we meet someplace tomorrow? Is 12 o'clock, by the fountain outside the Metropolis Opera House, soon enough?"

"Not soon enough for me, but it'll do."

"Good, and please, could you wear something other than your Superboy suit? I don't want to attract attention."

"Okay, Okay, I won't wear the suit. I'll see you tomorrow!" Jor said as he turned the phone off and the screen turned black.

Jor took off his shirt, then his pants and got underneath the red sheets of his bed.

"Lights off!" Jor commanded and the lights turned off. He then laid his head on his soft, fluffy pillows and slowly drifted off to sleep, excited at the prospect of seeing Laura again in the flesh…

And in the room of Lara Andver-El, she was looking in the mirror, slowly brushing her hair. As she did, she wondered what type of clothing she would wear tomorrow to meet Jor. Lara also pondered on whether or not to tell Jor the truth about who she really is. The fact that she'd been lying to him thus far made her feel a bit naughty for the fact that Lara has never been a good liar and rarely does it.

After brushing a strand of hair one final time, she undid her dress, and put her pajama's on. She slowly lifted up the air and climbed into her Kryptonian Hover bed. Lara snuggled herself underneath her silver silk sheets and smiled at the prospect that she was going to see a boy (in what could result in a date) tomorrow. Lara then clapped her hands and the lights turned off.

Saturday: Morning in the Kon-El House.

*Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz, Bzzz…* the alarm rings as Jor-El stirs in his bed. He fumbles around on his counter to find the alarm to turn it off.

Unable to find it, Jor weakly opens his eyes to locate the clock. When his eyes transfix on the time of 11:30, Jor-El suddenly springs to life.

"Oh no! I'm gonna be late!" Jor yells as he scrambles through his room to find something to wear.

About five minutes later, Jor is running through the halls wearing Khaki pants, a blue and gold long-sleeve shirt, and sunglasses. As he runs towards the front door, he passes his personal robot, Rotak.

"Master Jor, Breakfast is ready for you in the…"

"Sorry Rotak, no time to talk, I'm late for an important date!" Jor hurriedly said as he opened the front door and zoomed out into the sky.

"I'll put it in the refrigerator for you then, Master." The little robot says as it turns around and floats back into the Dining room.

Upon exiting the house, Jor blasted into the air and flew towards Metropolis.

Laura on the other hand, was making her way to the fountain. As she walked, she adjusted her red long sleeve shirt, baggy pants and what seems to be red boots. Every once in a while as she walked, you could make out ridges on her clothes, like she was wearing something underneath them.

Just as she reached the fountain, Jor flew into an alleyway and made sure no one had seen him. He looked out of the alleyway to see Laura sitting by the fountain. And upon seeing her, he ran his fingers through his hair and reminded himself that he just needs to 'stay cool' and everything would go smoothly.

With his right hand in his pant's pocket, Jor strolled out of the alleyway and waved to Laura.

As she waved back towards him, Jor told himself… "Okay, I've got to think of something to say to start this meeting off right…" but as Jor stood before her, all that would come out of his mouth was, "Um… hi?" to which Laura giggled at.

"Oh, THAT was smooth Jor…" he thought as he took off his sunglasses with a nervous smile.

At this time, Laura was observing the clothes that Jor was wearing and was happy at the fact that he kept his promise about not wearing the union suit. She was also giving herself a pep talk…

"Okay, so far so good. All I need to do is to get a conversation going and then I'll be able to tell him…" She said as she looked at Jor and noticed that he was staring at her.

They both took a seat on the fountain and both wanted to get a conversation going, but neither knew how to quite break the ice. So they both sat there, began to twiddle their thumbs or tap their toes.

Finally, Jor could no longer stand the silence and said…

"Sorry for not saying anything, but this is a unique situation and I don't want to say anything stupid that'll break the mood. *Jor realizes that what he just said was the type of statement he was trying to avoid saying and so he tries again* Okay, we want to get to know each other a bit better right? So why don't we play the word association game? We ask each other questions and we answer with whatever comes to mind first. I'll start. Music?"

"The Retros." Laura replied as Jor smiled. That was one of his favorite bands. She then asked, "Ice Cream?"

"Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough."

"No way! You know where to get that type of Ice Cream?!?"

"Oh yeah, I prefer the old flavors instead of the 'new' flavors mixed with all sort of ingredients from other planets… okay, Sports?"

"Magnetic Sole Basketball." Laura replied. And so it went on as they both relayed what their favorite foods, clothes, movies, and hobbies were.

As they continued to talk, a shadowed figure in an alleyway continued to view the both of them. His eyes squinted as he watched both of them laughs at a joke Jor told.

"Ah, were did you learn that one?"

"From my teacher, J'onn J'onzz. He's great and he's got more jokes than I could possibly remember… I should tell you some stories of his obsession with Oreo's…" Jor said trying to regain his composure from that last joke…

"Say Jor, there's something I need to tell you…" Laura says as Jor looks at her, trying to resist the urge to laugh after remembering an incident with J'onn…

"I'm… I'm not really…"

But before she could finish, a loud *KA-BOOM* was heard and in the distance smoke was seen rising into the air.

"Just when it was getting good…" Jor mutters as he stands up, "Sorry Laura, but duty calls, and I've gotta go." He says as he twists a dial and his clothes get re-arranged to resemble his commemorative Superboy suit.

"Hey! I thought you said you weren't going to wear your suit!"

"I didn't, but you didn't say I couldn't bring my matter transmuter which allows me to morph whatever I'm wearing into a replica Superboy suit." Jor said with a smile.

"Well, then let me come with you!"

"Uh, sorry Laura, but you're just a human being, I can't bring you along because you could just get hurt!" Jor says as Laura doesn't even bother trying to argue with him. She just grabs his left arm and drags him to a nearby alley (which surprises Jor, since he has super-strength and no matter how much he tries to break her grip, he can't).

"Just stick there, I'll be done in just a second…" She says as she let's go of Jor's hand and begins to take off her shirt.

"WHOA! Wait a second, what are you doing? Aren't you afraid someone might notice you?!?" Jor yells thinking that there's nothing underneath her shirt. But to his surprise, what he sees is a blue tunic with the 'S' symbol on the chest and a folded up cape, which Laura undoes and attaches to her shoulders. She then takes off her pants to reveal a red skirt with yellow trim, and red boots.

"Well, I'm ready! At least let me deposit my clothes on the top of this building and we can go!" Laura says with a smile as he floats into the air.

Jor hardly registers what she just said, focusing on the fact that she's some sort of Supergirl and has powers.

"Jor? Jor! We need to get going!" Laura states as Jor shakes his head and floats into the air besides her. Laura flies up to the building on the right and lays her clothes down on the roof. They both then blast off into the air.

As they zoom to the burning building, Lara stares at Jor, who hasn't said a word since she revealed herself as Supergirl.

"So… you're Supergirl?"

"…Yes. I'm from the Kal-El side of the El's." Lara says wondering if Jor hated her now just because she was a Kal-El.

"So I take it you're real name isn't Laura, huh?" Jor said with a smile, as he looked her in the eyes.

"It's Lara Andver-El."

"Heh, so all I needed to do was drop the 'u' and rearrange the letters of your last name, and I would've known who you were. Well, paint me a dummy." Jor said with a laugh.

But that laugh faded as soon as Jor spotted which building was on fire.

The Brande Munitions Factory. Lara could hear people screaming from the inside and her face lost all flippancy.

"Dear lord, this is an emergency! If any of those weapons inside that factory go off, we'll have a major fire on our hands!" Jor yells as a loud *BOOM* is heard and the building begins to sway.

"Lara, see if you can rescue the people inside and find a way to stop the fire… I'll keep the building from falling!" Jor says as he flies down towards the entrance and upon touching the ground, puts both of his hands on the building. His TTK starts flowing over the building, into every hallway and into every crack… stabilizing the building.

Lara on the other hand, plowed through a cracked window into the blazing inferno inside the building. Strolling through the flames as if they were not there, Lara can hear people screaming via her enhanced hearing, but cannot pinpoint their location. So she begins scanning with her X-ray vision into various rooms on this floor plus the floor above and below. That's when she notices a group of five workers trapped in weapons room 2 doors away from the end of the hall. Lara first blows her freeze breath to quell the flames in the hall, then makes her way down to the door and rips the door off.

"Everyone please stay calm, I'm Supergirl and I'm here to help." She says as the group breathes a collective sign of relief to see a super-hero here. Lara then takes a deep breath and uses her freeze breath to snuff the flames out, preventing any of the armaments from exploding.

She then walks over the right wall, and punches a large section out.

"Everybody, hold on tight, because we're outta here!" Lara said as they all grabbed a hold of her, and she lifted off out of the building.

As she put the workers on the ground, she looks at Jor, who asks…

"Is that all of 'em?"

"Yep. So if you could hold tight, I'll stop the rest of the flames." Lara said as he flew back into the air, towards the roof. She landed near the ventilation shaft.

Lara brought her face near the opening and then blew her freeze breath into it. She then took a quick breath and blew another blast of Freeze Breath into the ventilation shaft.

The frigid air blasted through the shaft and entered all the various rooms on all 3 floors of the building. The frigid air upon touching the raging fire turned to water, which in turn squelched the flames.

Using her X-Ray vision to see that the fire posed no more problems in any of the floors, Lara floated back down to the ground, where she noticed Jor still had one hand on the building.

"Jor, the fire's over, you don't need to keep the building stable anymore."

"Yeah I know, but I figured you might wanna meet the guy who started it all. Okay, why don't you come out now?" Jor said with a grin as his TTK forced a man to walk out of the burned building into the daylight. A bald man (with a scar over his right eye) wearing a red and yellow suit emerged.

"Pyron, why don't you say hello to the lady?"

"Don't mock me, boy! If it weren't for you two meddling kids, I would've had my revenge on R.J. Brande!" The man yelled, very pissed at the fact that his 'beautiful' fire was snuffed.

Several members of the Metropolis SCU came up and chained Pyron.

"He's all yours, officers! See in 10 to 20 years Pyron!" Jor said with a smile as the Police dragged him away.

Before Jor and Lara could even breath a sigh of relief that the threat was over, the media swarmed them, like vultures do to dead cattle.

"Amazing! I'm Cindy Poteir for SBS, and we've just witnessed Superboy of the Kon-El clan and an unidentified girl put out a fire ravaging the Brande Munitions Factory, also catching the man responsible. Can you give us your thoughts?" Cindy said as she stuck her microphone in Jor's face and her floating hover-cam focused in on his face.

"Well, I must admit that I was a bit afraid for a while because the fire was extensive and I worried what would happen if the fire set off any weapons. Luckily the problem was solved rather quickly because I had Supergirl her at my side. *Jor puts his hand on her shoulder* If she wasn't here, putting out this fire on my own might've cost some people their lives." Jor says, as Lara blushes a little.

"Well, I'm still a newbie so I can't take all the credit. I can definitely say that if it was just me alone without Jor's experience to help guide me, I wouldn't have done so well either."

"I must ask, since you go by the name of Supergirl, which family do you belong to? The Kal-El's or the Kon-El's?" a brown haired, blue-eyed reporter named Matthew Rider asked.

"I'm a Kal-El." And when she said this, pretty much every reporter fell silent. Two children of the respective El families working together AND complimenting each other?

That's a first.

The reporters then started asking questions again, wondering why they were working together or even if they were an item, but Lara just replied…

"Sorry, but that's all for now." And she slowly lifted into the air. Jor looked up at her face, smiled, then followed suit. They both then blasted out of the vicinity towards the Metropolis Opera House so Lara could pick up her clothes.

"We make a good team." Jor says as he zooms a bit past Lara.

"I'd like to think so." Lara said, relieved at the fact that it seems Jor could care less that she was a Kal-El.

As they arrived at the building, Lara just gathered her clothes.

"Jor… I just want to know so I can put my mind at ease… but you don't care that I'm a Kal-El right?"

"So what if you're a Kal-El? I mean, you knew I was a Kon-El and you didn't care, so why should it be different the other way around? I just know that since I've gotten to know you a bit better that you're sweet, cute, and unlike many other girls of your beauty, you're smart. All of them are pluses in my book!"

"Well in that case Jor, would you care to fly me home?" Lara said holding her hand out. Jor's face brightened as he said…

"I'd love too." And Jor tentatively took her hand. Jor softly squeezed her hand as they floated up into the air and flew off to the North.

Lara led the way, while Jor held onto her hand. Nothing was said for almost the entire portion of the trip, it mostly consisted of either Jor looking at Lara's face and how the wind caused her hair to whip around, almost majestically or looking at the silky smooth hand he has holding.

They were now in a posh region of Metropolis, to which Lara softly said…

"We have to be careful, so we are not seen."

"I'll take care of that." Jor said with a wink as he extended his TTK over her and then caused the field to reflect light, so they were practically invisible. They flew over to a house consisting of two floors, with the bottom half of the house covered by chunks of rock, and the upper portion of the house, very fine wood. They flew past some trees up to a window on the second level, on the left side of the house.

"You can drop the field now, no one can see us." Lara said, as Jor did so. He then opened up the window for her.

"I'll hold the window open for you."

"Thanks, because that's as far as you go for tonight." Lara said, as Jor blushed a bit.

"I wouldn't dream of entering your house after having just met!"

"Suuure. But thank you, today was fun. So… do you want meet again tomorrow?"

"Absolutely. Where should I pick you up?"

"Well since you know where I live, why not here?"

"Alrighty then. Will I be allowed to come in, or should I just be floating by the window?"

"You'll be able to come in. Same time?"

"Might as well. See you tomorrow!" Jor said as he twisted around, bent the light around his body rendering him invisible, and took off into the sky.

Lara smiled and faster than the eye can blink, had changed back into her regular clothes, with her Super-costume thrown on to her bed.

Then she heard a knock on her door. Lara didn't want to answer, but begrudgingly, she walked over to the door, opening it up to see her brother Kru standing before her.

"Lara, Mother wants to see you. It's pretty important." Kru said, wearing his Superboy costume.

"Fine, where is she?"

"She's downstairs." And having said that, his sister immediately starting walking down the hall to head towards the staircase. Kru caught up to her and they began walking side by side. Kru cast an evil look towards his sister and against better judgement he said,

"Why do you insist on hanging around with that lowlife?"

"What?" Lara said in mock confusion.

"Don't play games with me. You know whom I'm talking about. That scum from the Kon-El's. I saw you two hanging out last night and hanging out today. Not that I wouldn't have known if I didn't see that since you two were caught on TV." And with that, Lara stopped right in her tracks.

"What? You were spying on me?!?"

"I was keeping an eye on you. I can't have you make stupid mistakes that could endanger you or the reputation of this family."

"Kru, the last time I checked, you were merely my brother, not my Father or my keeper. I'll hang out with whoever the hell I want to."

"The Kon-El's are scum! Less then scum, they're not even human! You shouldn't associate with cloned…" and finally, Lara could take no more and *SLAP* her hand connected with his face.

"I'm so tired of you lording over my life, telling me what to do and who to befriend! He's not the scum you're making him out to be and if you want to see scum, try looking in the mirror!" Lara said as she stomped off to the downstairs.

As she reached the first floor, Lara spotted her Mother standing at the end of the hall, by the door. She was talking to a redheaded teenaged boy, wearing some kind of golden armor.

As Lara walks up, she looks to see that her mother Funaho has her silver hair flowing freely, which she usually has tied up in a ponytail. Lara noticed that she was wearing her formal black silk business suit. As Funaho's talking to him, her brown eyes caught Lara walking towards them, so she said,

"Ah! Adam, this is my daughter, Lara. Lara, this is Adam Luthor." She said as Adam looked intently towards her. Lara looked back and noticed that his eyes were the color blue.

"Pleasure to meet you." And she shook his hand.

"Adam, I'll talk to you later. I'll start the preparations."

"Thank you. I can't wait to see you again." Adam said to Lara as he took her hand and kissed it. He then opened the door and walked out of the house.

"O-kay, what was THAT all about?"

"THAT'S what I called you down here for. You see, Adam is to be your husband."

"WHAT? Husband?"

"Yes. Adam's been interested in you for some time. He asked me for your hand in marriage and I gave it to him."

"WHAT?!? Excuse me, but I thought when it comes to marriage, I get a say in this."

"I don't see your problem… he's handsome, from a prestigious family, has powers that will add on nicely to our lineage, and a good hero."

"The problem is that I don't love him. Marriage, at least this is what I thought, was supposed to be a union of two people who loved each other, not a union to add stuff into our family."

"Well, your father and I were married like this. Don't worry, you'll learn to love him just as I did." Funaho said as she put her left hand her daughter's shoulder.

"Wa-wait a minute. You're saying you and Dad were married like this? He always told me different!"

"Well, he would tell you different, but that's how it happened. Don't worry, it's not as bad as your thinking it is…" Funaho says as Lara swats her mother's hand away.

"It's not as bad? I don't want to get married to someone I don't love! I don't want to marry him! I don't want to turn out just like YOU!" Lara yells with tears in her eyes as she turns around and runs up the stairs with her super-speed. She happens to knock her brother Kru out of the way who finally made his way down the stairs.

"Grr, I don't care if she's my sister or not, but if she does something like that again, I'll…" Kru says as his mother steps up to him.

"Calm down my son. Just let her be, she'll feel better about this whole thing tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Lara had just entered her room and slammed the door shut. She locked the door and was trying to hold her tears in.

That's when her eyes focused on an old picture of hers. It was a picture of her father, who had blue hair with green eyes and smiling with a big grin, holding Lara his arms, when she was still a baby. It had her mother sitting on his right holding her brother Kru in her lap.

Lara always treasured this picture, but looking at it… at her father, she couldn't help but get angry. She then threw the picture towards the right wall where it smashed apart.

On the other end of town, Jor-El had just descended onto the ground, right in front of his house's front door.

Jor opened it up and after hitting his watch again to re-form his costume into regular clothes, he stepped inside to see his personal robot attendant floating down the main hall.

"Hey Rotak! Any messages for me?"

"Hello, Master Jor. No, there are no new messages. I've prepared lunch for you. It's in the dining room."

"Thanks, I'm just going upstairs to put some stuff away and then I'll be right down!" Jor said happily as he strolled up the stairs.

As he walked down the hall to his room, he couldn't help but jokingly strut his stuff.

But as he opened his bedroom door, he heard a voice ring out that crushed his happiness like a bug under a military boot.

"JOR! Care to explain this to me?" His father Seyg-El said as he held up a newspaper that read,

[Superboy and Supergirl Save the Brande Munitions Factory!]

"What's there to explain? I saved a factory! I don't see the big deal…"

"Don't smart mouth off to me boy. The deal is this 'Supergirl'. She isn't any of your female cousins. Who is she?"

"Is it really that important?" Jor said sarcastically, trying to put on a brave face for his father.

"YES, IT IS!" Seyg yelled at Jor. Jor slowly turned his eyes away from his father as he said,

"A Kal-El."

"That's what I figured. Have you forgotten every single thing I've taught you? How could you not only help… that… that thief stop the fire but give her credit? HOW?"

"Cause maybe it was the right thing to do! Maybe because this whole feud is stupid! Maybe it's because someone's got to bring the families back together since neither you nor anyone else makes any attempts!!!" Jor said, as he could no longer hold back his feelings on the matter.

"How dare you disrespect me!" Seyg yells as he slaps his son right across his face.

Jor is shocked at this and slowly turns around, unable to face his father anymore.

"I work hard to try to keep our ancestor's good name untarnished with all the attempts made by the media and the Kal-El's to undermine it. I work hard to protect this world from all sorts of deadly threats. I work hard to put a house over our heads. I worked hard to make you the best superhero you could be, but all I get is snide remarks and get told off. No more. From now on, you will do as I'll say, or you'll regret it. I do not want you socializing with any of the Kal-El's anymore and/or giving them credit for something you did. Do you understand?" Seyg said as Jor brings up his right hand to rub the cheek that Seyg slapped.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!?"

"Yes father."

"Good. Now go do whatever you needed to do, I'll be downstairs waiting for you so we can eat lunch." Seyg says as he turns around and walks off.

Jor, almost numb, opens his door and walks inside. As he shuts the door, he brings his hand up again to feel his still stinging flesh. As he does this, tears escape from his eyes.

The rest of the day passes and day turns into night. Throughout all of this, Jor-El and Lara-El wonder how their lives could've gotten so fucked up in such a short amount of time.

As Jor-El's alarm goes off, he quickly opens his eyes. Not having gotten a lot of sleep last night, Jor looks at the clock and stares at the time to notice that it's 11:30.

Jor sighs and wonders if he should just give Lara a call and cancel the whole meeting.

As he's pondering this, Jor gets up from bed and starts to get dressed. He puts on his 'union clothes' so to speak, realizing that if he does go see her one last time, they aren't going out, so it doesn't matter how he's dressed…

And after he finishes dressing, Jor realizes that it would be better to tell her in person. At least then he can tell her face to face, so she can see his sincerity, which usually doesn't happen when you're talking to someone through a viewscreen.

Not wanting to run into his father, Jor walks over to his window and opens it up. He quickly climbs out of it and floats into the air. Once outside, he closes the window and flies the direction of Lara's house.

As he flies, Jor wonders how he's going to break it to Lara that they can never see each other again.

It's not like their boyfriend & girlfriend… they've only met… what, twice? And it's not like this means they're not friends… it's just that they can't see each other publicly. Maybe they could talk on the phone… but as Jor even considers this, he worries what would happen if his father were to walk in on a videophone conversation between them… his father did say that if Jor disobeyed him again, he'll regret it.

And Jor knows that Seyg's actions will be a lot worse than a slap across the face.

So as Jor reaches the suburb where Lara lives, he bends the light around him to be invisible.

He zooms past the trees and comes upon Lara's window.

Jor looks through the pane of glass to see Lara on her bed, with her head lying in her pillows.

Jor wonders if she's asleep. Jor takes in a breath as he quietly raps on the side of the window.

Lara looks up from her pillows to see Jor-El at her window. As Jor looks at her face, he can see it's as troubled or even more troubled than his face. It also looks as if she's been crying recently.

Lara quickly leaps off her bed and unlocks her window. As it opens, she quickly grabs Jor's arm and pulls him in.

"Lara, what's wrong? You look distressed…" Jor said in the understatement of the year. Lara didn't say anything back, she just hugged him tightly. Jor needless to say, was taken aback by this. He just started patting her on the back to make her feel better. That's what his mother did to make him feel better, so he felt it was the right response.

"Oh Jor, it's horrible! My mother's forcing me to marry someone!"

"Your own mother's forcing you to marry? But… why?" Jor asked as his reasons for coming here were replaced by the need to find out more about this situation.

"Because it will be good for the family… and because she and my father were married that way, so she thinks it's okay. She says I have to do it whether I love the guy or not! I don't love him… and I don't think I ever will…"

"Oh Rao, I'm sorry… is… is there anything I can do?" Jor asked because he felt bad. Lara was a friend… maybe more… and he wanted to do something that would make her feel better. Not to mention the fact that this whole situation sounds like something his father would pull.

"There… there is. Marry me!"

"What?" Jor yelled. He couldn't believe his ears. He came over to tell her it they couldn't ever be together again, and she asks him to marry him! Jor was understandably stunned by all of this.

"Jor… after hearing my Mother say I could learn to love this man… I thought about it. I thought about maybe what if she was right? What if I could learn to love this man? That's when I realized that I couldn't. It's because I'm already in love… I'm in love with you, Jor. I knew it when I saw you shyly ask me to dance. If I'm forced to be married, I want to be married to you." Lara said as she looked into his eyes with a genuine expression of love.

Jor on the other hand wasn't sure what to think.

What's the right thing to do in this case? Say yes? Even when he's not sure what his feelings are towards her? Or say no, even when you sympathize with her plight?

'Oh sorry, but I can't marry you and I'm just going to leave you here, so you can marry someone you don't love, leaving the rest of your life something undesirable?'

But what if he says yes, & he doesn't love her? What would it do to the both of them? What about the relationship between the El clans?

And if he said yes, what would the repercussions be when his father finds out?

But as he looks back at Lara, his heart tells him to say…

"Yes."

"I know a Preacher who'll be able to marry us. I want to do it tonight." Lara says as her face brightens up. "Let me quick freshen up, and then we can leave so we can be married." Lara says as she walks over to her closet to get some clothes out.

Jor turns away so he can't see her changing.

"What the hell am I doing? I'm going to get married! What… what do I do now?" He thinks as Lara taps his shoulder. Jor turns around to see her in a stunning white dress.

Her hair was all brushed, and she had makeup on.

"How do I look? This is my old Prom dress and I'm surprised it still fits!"

"You… you look great."

"That's good." Lara said as she kisses him on the cheek.

"Come on, I'll show you were the Chapel is that the Preacher works at."

"Good. Then I'll go get a tux and someone to be our… witness." Jor says as he and Lara climb out of the window and blast off into the air.

Later that night…

Jor is standing in front of a mirror adjusting a tuxedo that he just put on. As he's looking into the mirror, he notices that he's trembling.

There's a knock on the door and a voice as old as time rings out…

"Jor, are you finished dressing?"

"Yes J'onn, you can come on in." and as he hears this, J'onn walks through the door resembling an old identity long since dead, John Jones.

"Jor, how are you holding up?"

"Oh J'onn, not good. I… I don't know if I'm doing the right thing…" Jor says as he brings up his left hand to cover his eyes…

"Jor, all the years I have dwelled on Earth, I've never quite understood the Earth emotion of 'love'. On my native Mars, we picked our spouses via our telepathy. If their souls echoed our own, then we knew we were meant for each other."

"Thanks, but that doesn't quite solve my problem."

"Jor-El, I think the real reason humans have such trouble finding the right one is because they don't take enough time to look into themselves… to see who they truly are. On the surface, a couple could seem like they were destined for each other, but if they don't truly complement each other on the inside, it falls apart. I guess what you should do is look on the inside… what do you see inside yourself? And is that what you see within Lara? Or are you doing this because you think Lara's pretty? Or to stand in defiance of your father? Or to make Lara feel better? Or maybe in the hope of just ending the feud?"

"Can't you tell me?"

"Jor-El, you know that I do not care to dive into the minds of others to respect their privacy. And this isn't something I should have to tell you, it should be something you know yourself." J'onn said as he exited from the room.

As Jor-El stood by himself, he thought to himself, what is it that he likes about Lara?

Of course, her looks are part of it, but that won't matter in a couple of years now will it? Beauty isn't everlasting. One day she, as well as himself, will be old and decaying.

As he thought to himself, he realized what he did like about her. She wasn't judging. She didn't immediately turn face when she learned he was a Kon-El. She was kind to him, as well as sweet. She was someone Jor knew in his heart he would be able to stand… the old adage of "Relatives, like fish, begin to smell after 3 days" wouldn't apply to her. Also the fact that Jor would like to wake up each morning with her smiling him in the face, no matter how old and wrinkled it got. That he'd like to know there would always be a hand to hold and someone to confide in. Someone to have children with.

And with that, the jitters were gone. Jor-El looked at himself in the mirror and smiled.

He had made the right decision after all.

Jor walked out the door and into the main hall were J'onn was standing on the left side of the altar. Jor thought about the fact that J'onn not only bought his tux, but also got rings. Jor would never be able to repay him, but as he looked at J'onn to see him smiling, he knew J'onn wouldn't want to repaid. He did this out of the goodness of his heart, which is why Jor admires him so much.

As Jor walked up and stood next to him, J'onn asked…

"How are you feeling now?"

"Like a louse, since I'm never going to be able to pay you back." J'onn grinned at this, the flippant comment showed that Jor was now content with his decision.

The Preacher(who had gray hair with brown eyes) had signaled the Piano lady, so in turn signaled that Jor-El was at the altar and they were ready to begin.

So the piano lady started playing the wedding procession and Lara started to walk down the aisle.

Added onto her Prom dress was an extra wedding veil that the Chapel had.

When she made it to the front, she turned to face Jor-El and he to Lara. Jor-El then lifted the veil over her face.

"Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here today to join one Jor-El and Lara Andver-El in holy matrimony. It is a blessed event that two young souls can find a love so true early in their lives. We are here before God to bring these two together for the rest of their lives, through thick and thin, through good times and bad, in the hope that they will live the rest of their lives together.

Jor-El… do you promise to take Lara Andver-El as your lawfully wedded wife? Through sickness and health, good times and bad, to remain faithful to her, to promise to have and to hold her, for the rest of your life?"

"I do."

"Lara Andver-El, do you promise to take Jor-El as your lawfully wedded husband? Through sickness and health, good times and bad, to remain faithful to him, to promise to have and to hold him, for the rest of your life?"

"I do."

"The rings?" the Preacher asks as J'onn hands them to him. The preacher hands one ring to Jor-El and says,

"With this ring, I thee wed."

"With this ring, I thee wed." Jor says as he slips the ring onto Lara's ringfinger on her left hand.

Then the Preacher looks to Lara and says,

"With this ring, I thee wed."

"With this ring, I thee wed." and she slips the onto Jor's ringfinger on his left hand.

"If anyone has anything to say about this union, speak now or forever hold their peace." And since there's only 5 people there, no one spoke out.

"Then with the power invested in me, I now pronounce you Man and Wife. You may kiss the bride." The Preacher said as Jor cupped Lara's face and they kissed for the first time.

As J'onn watched this, he couldn't help but be reminded of his dead wife M'yri'ah, he shed a few tears.

As Lara thanks the Preacher for helping them, Jon walks over and shakes J'onn's hand.

"Thanks. I really appreciate you acting as a witness and more…"

"Say no more. I'm happy I was able to witness it." J'onn says as he pats Jor-El on the shoulder.

"Thank you so much Mr. J'onzz. I don't know how I can ever repay you…" Lara says as she kisses him on the cheek.

"As I told Jor, say no more. All you need to do for me is just live. Live life together. Let your love blossom and bear fruit. If you're able to do that… then you will have made this very old man content. Now, it is your time. I'll see you later Jor for our training." J'onn said as he used his shape-changing powers to render himself invisible and exited the building.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"I was thinking… back to my house."

"Are you sure?!?" Jor asked, making quite sure he heard what he thought he heard.

"Yes. Don't worry, when you live in a house where almost everyone has enhanced hearing, certain… precautions are taken so we don't hear anything that could be… unsettling."

Jor pondered on what she meant and when it finally dawned on him what she meant, he muttered,

"Ewww… I see your point."

"Well, let's leave already!" Lara said as she swept Jor-El off of his feet. Using her super-speed, Lara was out of the main Chapel door and into the air.

In just a short time, they were in Lara's suburb. As she poured on the speed to make sure that no one saw her flying through the trees that surround her house, Jor said,

"Hon, isn't usually the Groom who carried the bride over the threshold, or am I mistaken?"

Lara looked down at her husband who was wearing a big grin, and she replied…

"If it means that much to you, you can carry me in."

So she let go of Jor. He swept Lara off of her feet and then opened up her window.

They flew in and Jor put his new wife Lara down.

As he did this, he noticed that this was it. This was the moment.

The lights were off, they were just married, and they were in her bedroom.

"I… I don't believe this! I'm… I'm about to do… IT!" Jor thought as he started to get nervous.

You see, he was still a virgin. Lord knows he wanted to loose it, but unlike some of his friends and even cousins, he remained steadfast. Hell, that fact that *COUGH*sex*COUGH* was involved on the wedding night never even crossed his mind.

Lara meanwhile had taken a couple steps away from Jor. She took a deep breath and her arms were wrapped around her waist.

"Jor?" Lara said weakly, "I know some people think it's alright to find partners after their married. I… I don't. What I'm going to do tonight is for your eyes and your eyes alone. I want to know… I need to know, is that the same way with you? Am I going to be the only girl you want?" Lara then turned her head slightly towards Jor.

"Lara…" Jor said softly as he walks up to her, "I married you because I thought you were the right one for me. Emotionally, Spiritually, and Physically. If I didn't, I wouldn't have married you in the first place." Jor says as he puts his arms around her, "Besides… I've… I've never been with a woman before. You're the first. And there's no one else I'd rather loose it too." Jor says as he kisses Lara on the neck.

"Same here." Lara says as she turns around to kiss Jor-El on the lips.

The rest of the night belongs to them.

A Few Hours Later…

Jor-El wearily opens his eyes, unable to sleep. He looks at Lara who is fast asleep and is nestled in his right arm.

Jor looks at her face, staring at her freckled nose and her rosy cheeks. He notices a few strands of her blue hair are dangling in front of her face. Jor slowly and softly brushes them away from her face, savoring the sensation of touching her face.

Jor breathes in and is happy. For a second he had believed he dreamed the entire wedding… day and night. As he wearily closes his eyes, he is content.

The Next Day at 11:30 a.m.,

"Morning, sleepy." Lara said as her green eyes stared into Jor's now opening blue eyes.

"Morning. How'd you sleep?" Jor-El asked as he stared at her, because for a brief moment, as the sun was shining in from a window onto her face, it seemed like Lara was an angel.

"How do you think?" Lara said as she tumbled down upon him. They both wrestled around a bit in the Hover-Bed, and once Jor got Lara pinned down, he kissed her…

only to be completely and utterly be taken off-guard by someone knocking on Lara's door.

"Mistress, I have your breakfast ready for you!" Her personal robot said as it began to twist the door open.

Jor meanwhile was so taken aback by this that he feel out of bed. And once he saw the door creaking open, he immediately bent the light around him to be all but invisible.

"Jor, don't! You don't…" but as she said this, her personal robot Dovod floated in with a plate of breakfast in her left hand.

"Morning, Mistress."

"Morning, Dovod. Would you just leave my breakfast on my dresser, please? I'll eat it in just a little bit." So the robot put her food down and prepared to leave.

"Oh, one more thing, Mistress. That boy had better be gone by the next time I check up on you, or I'll have to report it to your mother." And the robot flew out of her bedroom and closed the door.

Jor stopped bending light, and Lara could see the surprised look on his face.

"Sorry Jor, but since we've built this house to ensure privacy since family members have both enhanced hearing and vision, my parent's decided to have some precautions. Our robots were built with extra-sensory functions to be able to see or hear near anything. Like near naked invisible boys…"

"Ah, so I guess it has all types of vision capabilities then?"

"Yep, I bet she saw you because of your body heat. That's why I was going to say you should fly up to the roof, because her hearing isn't as good as her vision. But too late for that now…" Lara said as she wrapped some of her bed's silver sheets around her and then floated out of her bed.

"Sooooo, what now?" Jor said as he slid over to her.

"Nothing much, since Dovod will be back quickly. I think it would be best if you got dressed." Lara said, running her fingers down his chest.

"Awww…" Jor disappointingly moaned. Jor grabbed his clothes at super-speed and had them on in a blink of an eye. Not that it stopped Lara from seeing some eye-candy though, since her eyes can follow Super-speed as if people were moving still.

"Dang, I forgot, I left my Superboy outfit back at the Chapel! Oh well, this Tux will have to do…"

"So, husband 'O mine, what do we do now?"

"Well… I was planning on going out and picking up my working clothes, then going out on a patrol. Then… after that… I'm probably gonna tell my dad."

"Really?"

"Yeah, if I can find a way to tell him that won't result in me being a bloody mess afterward…" and Lara didn't find the comment amusing in the least.

"Your father beats you?!?"

"Well… mostly it's just verbal but…" Jor says as he stops, not being able to find the courage to explain what happened yesterday…

"Look, if your father might do anything… rash, then you don't have to tell him today!"

"No, it's something that I've got to do. I don't intend on keeping 'us' a secret for any great length of time. Besides, it's kinda creepy sleeping in your house… especially since anyone could've walked in on us…"

"Well, that one's my fault. I always lock my door, but I got up before you to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, I forgot to lock my door." Lara said as her eyes drifted away from his…

"Ah, don't worry about it. Just next time, lock the door. Are you going to tell your mother today?"

"I don't know. She isn't in the house… as usual. I guess I'll have to wait till she gets back."

"Well, if she doesn't come back by the time I return to visit… when can tell her together when she does. Well, I better be going before… Dovod, was it? Before Dovod comes back." Jor says as he winks at her, opens the window and then leaps out the window flying high into the sky.

As he emerges above the clouds, Jor thinks to himself that today is gonna be a good day.

Lara, who is staring at the sun, hears her door creek open again to see Dovod floating back in.

"Ah, I see that the boy is gone. Are you going to eat after getting dressed?"

"Yes. And I shall do that after I stop… admiring the beauty outside."

"Yes, it is a beautiful day today."

"Indeed. A beautiful day for me and the world!" Lara says as she closes her eyes, grasps the blankets, and giggles a bit.

"In case you weren't informed Mistress, your Mother will be out for the rest of the day today."

"Huh? *Lara opens up her eyes* What's she doing?"

"She's picking out your wedding dress."

Meanwhile, Jor is now in the chapel putting his Superboy clothes back on. As he's looking into the mirror to make sure that he has his costume adjusted right, he looks at the golden wedding band now adorned on his figure.

"Hm. Not bad…" Jor says liking the newest addition to his costume, so to say.

Jor then makes his way out of the dressing room, into the main hall and out the door. Jor looks up to the sky and slowly lifts himself into the air.

After zooming off to the west of Metropolis to start his patrol, Jor hears something peculiar, like something out of a cartoon… and as he's listening to it, he notices that it's getting closer and closer… until it's right on top of him.

Jor barely manages to shift left as a mass zooms down past him. Jor quickly identifies who the mass is…

Kru-El.

"Kru-El, what do you want? I'm busy right now."

"Well, that's surprising for a Kon-El." He said with a smirk. And as much as Jor-El wanted to beat that smirk off his face, he resisted his urge. Because, having since married Lara, Kru-El is his brother-in-law now.

"Look, if all your going to do is insult me, I'll be on my way now."

"No… I want to talk. Why don't we do it on street level?" Kru said as started descending to the ground. Jor, against his better judgement, decided to follow him.

They both landed down in front of the Metropolis Metroplex.

"Okay, so what is it that you want to talk about?"

"It's about my sister. I know you two have been seeing each other."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, don't bother lying to me. I can listen to your heartbeat, you know."

"*Sighs* Yes, your sister and I have been meeting. So?"

"So? So, I want it to stop. Look, you know that I hate you and I know that you hate me. And for some unfathomable reason, my sister has taken a liking to you. My sister is going to be married to a man worthy of her. And her attentions need to be towards him and only him. All I want you to do is just end the friendship. Look, if you care for her, you'll do it. Whether Lara likes it or not, she's going to be married. She needs her full attention on her upcoming marriage and nothing else. So, will you do it? Will you give her some peace of mind?"

"Gee, let me think…*Brings up his left hand to rub against his chin* Oh yes, here's my answer. NO." Jor says as he turns around and begins to walk off.

"*Grabs Jor's shoulder with his right hand* I tried doing it the easy way but you WILL do it, even if I have to force you." Kru says, as Jor-El doesn't even bother to turn back around.

"Kru, the hand. Remove it."

"Why? What are you going to do about it?"

And that was what finally made Jor snap.

*KA-POW*

And Kru was sent flying though the Metroplex.

"That's what's going to happen." Jor said as he pointed in Kru's general direction. Jor turn backed around and prepared to vault into the air when he heard almost an in-human howl…

Which as he turned back around, Jor saw that it was Kru-El. Kru was flying towards Jor with both fists out in front, and barreled straight into Jor's chest. The impact sent Jor reeling backward towards the parking lot, where some unlucky fellow's hover car stopped his momentum.

As Jor shaked his head, trying to regain his sense of self, Kru was already on top of him, his face flushed with anger.

"YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT! How dare you strike me! ME! A descendant of Kal-El of Krypton!" Kru yelled as picked Jor up by the collar.

"I'm going to pay you back for everything your family has done to mine!" Kru bellows as he gives Jor a swift uppercut, which sends him up into the air and into the skyline.

And as Jor comes down from the sky, he lands on Clinton street, hitting the pavement which caused him to bounce a little bit and his body slid across the street.

As the onlookers started to get scared, wondering what sort of hideous monster was headed this way, Jor started to gather his wits…

"Oh Great Rao, what have I done? I… I never imagined a Kal-El to be that powerful…"

But as Jor thought to himself, he started to look around and noticed that he was surrounded by people.

"Superboy, who did this to you? Should we call one of the other super-heroes?"

"Ugh… Please, stay back! He's gone insane!" Jor said as he got up, only to feel a foot smack him his face to knock him down again.

"Stay back good citizens," Kru said, "The time has finally come for the Kon-El clan to feel the power of the Kal-El's!"

"Good God! It's finally started! Someone, ANYONE, phone the Justice Legion immediately!" an older gentleman said as Kru-El advanced towards Jor-El.

"You should've never started this, Jor-El. The power of a Kon-El can't possibly compare to that of a Kal-El!" and as Kru ranted on, Jor was busy affecting his concentration, to make his Telekinetic field denser, in essence to give him more strength.

"Kru-El, would you mind doing me a favor? SHUT THE HELL UP!!!" Jor said as he pulled his right hand back then slamming it straight into Kru-El's nose.

Kru-El was understandably shocked to find himself not only being sent backwards, but to be sent through 4 buildings straight!

After finally stopping his momentum, he saw Jor-El advancing with his left fist pulled back ready to give another punch.

Kru-El grabbed the nearest thing close to him, which happened to be a hover car with a driver inside.

"Holy shit!" The driver yelled as he scrambled to undo his seat belt. He just barely managed to exit the car when Kru-El threw it towards Jor-El.

When the car was only a few inches from his face, Jor used his left hand to punch the side of it, which sent the car into the skyline, out of sight.

When the car was out of Jor's line of sight, he noticed that Kru-El was gone.

Hearing a sudden shift in the air, Jor zoomed to his left to see that Kru had tried to dropkick him, only to now have his foot implanted into the pavement. As Kru was lifting his foot out of the ground, Jor did a sweep kick, which knocked Kru to the ground and then did another one to kick Kru in the face.

Jor got up, his face filled with sweat. Kru quickly got up again, casting an angry glare towards Jor-El.

The battle picked up again, although none of the onlookers could tell, since both Jor & Kru started moving faster than the human eye could follow.

Moving so fast that the people around them seemed like statues, Jor & Kru were now completely in the moment, not caring what would happen to the people around them.

Since they were both moving incredibly fast, neither of them could truly get a bead on the other. Not that it mattered, as they both continued to trade punches and kicks anyway.

Jor tried connecting a punch with Kru's face, but Kru dodged it. But moving at such an incredible speed combined with the power of the punch creates a windblast that strikes a hover car sending it straight into a building.

Kru tried a forward kick, only to miss. Alas, his attack too created a windblast that struck a building, knocking out a section of it.

As the battle drew on, more and more of the city became damaged and more lives continued to be lost.

Finally, in a fluke move, a punch of Kru's connected with Jor's ribs. This slowed down Jor's movement, allowing Kru to do a roundhouse kick, which connected with Jor's face, causing him to spin into the air.

And as Jor spun to the ground, his speed went away so when he finally touched the pavement, the crowd could see him again.

Kru, never one to let an opportunity pass, ran and grabbed a bus, filled to the brim with people.

Jor was wearily raising himself up from the ground when his eyes caught the damage he and Kru have done to the city.

"Good God! What have we done?" but as he said that, he heard people screaming.

That's when he saw Kru holding the hover bus above his head.

"Kru! What the hell do you think you're doing?!?" Jor said but his plea fell on deaf ears because Kru-El lunged the bus at him.

Not wasting a second, Jor-El used his super-speed to get underneath the bus while it was still in the air. Grabbing from beneath it, Jor touches his feet on the ground, trying to use his TTK to lock his feet in place as to stop the bus's momentum, which is pushing him back.

When his feet finally stop sliding against the ground, Jor-El is relieved. Even more so when he realizes that he stopped the bus from just crashing through the side of a building.

But, as earlier said, Kru-El never lets an opportunity pass as he runs, grabbing Jor-El by the collar, (which causes the bus to fall to the ground as Jor-El was still holding it above his head) and then slams him face-first into the pavement.

After slamming Jor's head into the pavement three times, Kru makes sure to hold Jor's head down to rub it into the cement some more. Kru then picks up Jor's body and gets him into an arm-lock, using his left hand to grip Jor's face with the intention of breaking Jor-El's neck.

As Jor-El valiantly tries to struggle, his own left hand comes up to try to pry Kru's left hand away from his face.

This is when Kru notices that on Jor's left hand, he has a golden ring. So with his curiosity getting the best of him, Kru asks…

"Before I kill you, where'd you get the ring?"

"*Heh* I got it from Lara." Jor said with a smile although it ached to do so.

"What? What do you mean by that?"

"Just what you think I mean. You see, Lara's got one from me. We're married."

"No… no she'd never… NO!" Kru screamed unwilling to accept the truth.

"YES!" Jor said as he lowered his head only to bring it up to head butt Kru. With Kru slackening his grip, Jor took his right arm and elbowed Kru to the head.

With that blow, Kru had let Jor go and with that, Jor spun around, punching Kru hard on the jaw with his left hand. Not letting Kru even get a moment to himself, Jor gave Kru a massive uppercut with his right hand, knocking him into the air towards the harbor, which used to be Suicide Slum.

Flying there as fast as he could, Jor arrived to see Kru on his feet. Most of the people there had already scattered when they saw Kru-El hit the ground.

"It can't be… she'd never spoil our genetic purity by marrying scum like you!!!" Kru bellowed as he shot a beam of heat vision towards Jor-El.

Jor-El countered it with his own beam and they were stalemated. Until Kru cut his off beam off, ducking Jor's beam and tackling him into a vegetable stand.

"DIE, CLONE SCUM!" Kru screamed as he unleashed a barrage of super-speed punches towards Jor's chest. Jor-El countered this by a kick to the family jewels and then using his feet to kick Kru off of him.

Kru then tried a forward kick, which Jor grabbed. Jor-El then swung Kru around and threw him into a fruit stand.

A Kon-El Clan Fact: While all members are Telekinetic, at birth they only have Tactile Telekinesis. At an appropriate age, when the adrenaline is flowing, their power will evolve from TTK to pure telekinesis. And unfortunately for Jor-El, his power is about to emerge in the most gruesome of ways.

With his hands still outstretched after letting go of Kru's leg, his Telekinesis activates, locking in on something Jor-El has always believed Kru never had.

"Rrrrraaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhh! I'm going to…" Kru yelled as he noticed something was wrong with his chest. He felt something tugging, but when he found out what was being tugged, it was too late for him.

Kon's Telekinesis latched on to Kru-El's heart, and it burst out of Kru's chest and started flying towards Jor-El.

Jor-El, shocked and repulsed by what just happened, loses his concentration, which causes the heart to fall to the ground, which bounces on the floor twice and then skids to a stop.

Kru-El stares at his still beating heart, and then stares down at his chest to see a gaping hole where his heart used to be.

"I-I… I can't believe…" Kru stutters as he stumbles forward a bit, only to fall to the ground dead.

Jor-El stares as his lifeless body as the Marketer's and their patrons came out of hiding to see Kru-El dead.

Slowly… people began to whisper. Then the whisper's started getting louder and louder… finally turning into screams.

They were all saying the same thing. "Jor-El killed Kru-El."

Then they began pointing fingers and yelling obscenities at Jor. Jor-El was now crying, not wanting the battle to have ended this way.

"I…I didn't mean this to happen. I didn't mean to… I DIDN'T!" Jor screams as he bends the light around himself and flies away from the crowd.

30 minutes from now, on the other side of Metropolis, Lara is downstairs, fixing herself some lunch. As Lara is putting the finishing touches on her PB & J sandwich, she hears someone come in through the front door.

Lara takes a quick glance with her x-ray vision, to see her mother Funaho is home.

Realizing that this may be her only opening to tell Funaho that she and Jor-El are married, she hurries out of the kitchen turning right down the hall where her mother was leaning on the right wall by the front door.

Not noticing it before, but Lara noticed that her mother's face was as white as Death itself.

"Mother… what's the matter?"

"Hm? *Funaho looks up to see her daughter* Oh honey… I don't know how quite to say this… *Can no longer hide the tears as the stream out of her eyes* your brother Kru is dead."

"WHAT?!? How… how did this happen… was he killed?"

"Yes, he was killed today in the Harbor." Funaho say's as she hugs Lara.

"Who? Is it known? Have they caught him?"

"No, they haven't gotten the person responsible yet, but we do know who he is. It's a scumbag son of one of the Kon-El's. I believe his name is Jor-El." Funaho says as Lara's face turns white.

"Mother… I'm can't believe this has happened…"

"I know baby. *Pats Lara on the back* We'll get him."

"Mother… I-I need some time alone, to let this all sink in…"

"I understand. If you need to talk, I'll just be in the living room, making vital preparations…" Funaho says as she backs away from Lara, turns to the right and walks off towards the living room.

Lara takes a deep breath as she turns around to walk down the hall to the stairs. As she makes her way up the staircase, her lips begin to tremble and her breathing becomes labored.

Lara rushes to her room where after she enters, slams the door shut. She falls down to her knees and brings both of her hands up to cover her face with is now wet with tears.

"Damnit Jor, why'd you do it? Why did you kill my only brother?" She whispers to herself as a few teardrops touch the carpet.

"Sprocking Grife, what did he do to deserve death?" Lara says as her personal robot Dovod opens the door and flies in.

"Mistress, you look distressed."

"Is it that blatantly obvious?" Lara says sarcastically as Dovod flies up to her.

"Is it about your brother's death?"

"Another correct assumption…" Lara said as she got off her knees and headed over to sit in her chair residing next to her cabinet.

"Well, I've received an update on the situation."

"Will you leave me alone if you tell me what it is?"

"Yes. Your brother's killer, Jor-El has been banished from Metropolis. Accounts from various people stated that while he started the fight, he was actively trying to stop it while your brother made no attempts too. It's because of that Jor-El has not been sentenced to death of worse. Still, with the damage to the city and the lives that were lost because of him, he must be punished. He can never set foot upon Metropolis again or else… there will be severe consequences."

"Banished?" Lara asked softly. Even while ranting, Lara still felt love for the man she was condemning.

"Yes. I believe the sentence takes place tomorrow. I'll be back to pick up your dirty clothes, Mistress." Dovod says as the robot floats out the door and closes it.

"Oh Jor, I'd rather that Kru would die 10 million times than you be banished. I can only hope that I get to see you one last time before then…" Lara quietly thinks to herself, as she closes her eyes to slowly shed a tear.

Meanwhile on the North side of Metropolis, J'onn J'onzz is flying through dark clouds, hoping that this next place he visits has what he is searching for.

As J'onn softly descends into a graveyard, he walks past a gate that guards a section of the graveyard reserved for the Kon-El's, so they have a section all their own to bury their dead. It is here, that J'onn finds what he has been spending the last few hours searching for.

J'onn sees the object of his search, kneeling in front of a tombstone with his head to the ground crying, Jor-El.

The tombstone Jor-El is crying on is the most famous member of the Kon-El's and the one Jor-El always looked to for inspiration, Rao-El.

As J'onn walks up to Jor, he can hear Jor mumbling something about 'Rao forgive him' and 'look out for me on the other side'. J'onn doesn't think anything of it and says,

"Somehow I thought I'd find you here, Jor."

"It's the only place I thought I could go. Rao would understand my plight. He had to face many of them in his career. *J'onn can hear Jor's breathing become labored* I didn't mean to kill Kru-El, J'onn. I honestly didn't. I just… I just couldn't stand the thought of him keeping me away from Lara… and… it happened." Jor said as he started shaking.

"Jor, please come with me." J'onn said as he put his right hand on Jor's left shoulder.

"To where? To my father? To jail?" Jor asked as he turned his head slightly towards J'onn.

"No, to my apartment. You've… you've been banished from Metropolis. You can stay there until you've calmed down."

"Banished? *Jor chokes up a bit from this realization* Let me guess, it was my father's idea wasn't it? Probably thinks I'm an embarrassment to the line…"

"Far from it. You were originally sentenced to death, until your father and some other's petitioned evidence that made the Mayor revoke the death sentence for a banishment instead."

"Damnit… I don't want to be banished… I'd rather die, at least then I don't have the knowledge of having the ability to visit those I love, but being unable to… and I won't have to confront Lara…" Jor says softly as he reaches into a fold of his cape to bring out a little lead box.

"Jor, calm down. You're not thinking straight; your mind is reeling from the feelings of guilt. Just come with me…" J'onn says as Jor turns around, standing up, and swats his hand away.

"NO! I prefer death to banishment! And this will help me do it!" Jor says as he opens the box to reveal a green glow… the green glow of Kryptonite.

Upon opening the box, the radiation seeps into Jor's body and he begins to convulse.

"NO! I won't let you take the cowards way out!" J'onn yells as he forcefully grabs the lead box containing the Kryptonite and throws it to the other side of the cemetery.

"Don't give up on life! If you want to beat yourself up because of your mistakes, fine. I needed time to do that myself after the death of my family and my race. But I won't let you take your life because of it. You made a mistake, Jor. That's something everyone does. I've made mistakes, your ancestor Kon-El made them, as did the original Kal-El. You just have to learn how to deal with them." J'onn says as he stares at Jor's face.

Jor's face was still filled with rage that his attempt at suicide was stopped, but as he continued to look at J'onn, into those red eyes of his, Jor-El broke down and started crying again. J'onn said nothing, only grabbing Jor-El and hugging him. Jor laid his head on J'onn's shoulder.

"Come on, let's go." J'onn said as he slowly lifted into the air with Jor still in his arms.

Back at the House of Kal-El, in the room of Lara…

Lara is sitting on a chair, that she moved to the window, so she could see if Jor-El would come to visit her.

As she is sitting there, all sorts of thoughts rage thru her mind. Will Jor come to visit? Does he still love her after the incident, or are they no longer friends but foes? Or does he not have the courage to visit her after sending her only brother into the afterlife?

As Lara ponders this, she looks out the windows to see a flash of lightning and hears a crack of thunder.

Shortly after this, raindrops hit her window, and a downpour begins.

Lara doesn't mind this turn of events; she could stare into a hurricane and not have her vision impeded. It almost reflects the turmoil in her soul about this turn of events.

Lara turns her head away from her window when she hears someone knocking on her door.

"Come on in, it's open." Lara says as the handle twists and the door opens to reveal her mother Funaho.

"Honey, I wanted to check up on you, how are you holding up?" Funaho asks, as she notices the distress on her daughter's face. Funaho naturally thinks Lara is still feeling distressed about the death of her brother, not about the other person involved in the matter.

"I'm… I'm all right. I'd just like to be alone, though."

"That's okay, I understand how you feel. I'll be downstairs, and I'll listen to whatever you have to say." Funaho says as she backs out the door.

"I'd better let Lara be for tonight, I can tell her about her the now-set Wedding date tomorrow…" Funaho thinks as she closes the door behind her.

"Jor, please come back to me…" Lara thinks as she once again stares out to the rainstorm outside…

In the apartment of J'onn J'onzz, Jor-El is sitting in J'onn's recliner looking at all the momentos and the historical documents (newspaper clippings, old videotapes/Dvd's) that J'onn has gather throughout the last thousand years, since this is the first time Jor has ever seen the place.

"Jor? How are you feeling?"

"Better."

"Good. Jor, I have something I need to attend too. I want you to stick here, got it? Once I get back, we can discuss what you're going to do."

"Okay. I'll stay put." Jor said as J'onn nodded back to him. J'onn shifted shape into the slightly overweight owner of the apartment and walked out of the door, into the hall.

Jor sunk in his chair a little bit, wondering how long J'onn was going to be out. Since this isn't Jor's bedroom, it doesn't have any of the stuff Jor uses to fight boredom.

Jor gets up from the recliner just as a crack of thunder is heard. He quietly walks over to J'onn's coffee table to pick up the remote for the wall TV. It flips on and Jor-El starts scanning the channels, when it flips onto GBN (Global Broadcast News) and the announcer goes,

"Tonight we shall examine the death of Kru-El, what really caused this tragedy?" which prompted Jor-El to surf the channels again, when he came upon the 8 o'clock news for Turner Conglomerate Channel 13 (Fox). The announcer there started off with,

"Tonight, the shocking death of one of the Kal-El's, and the mysterious theft of a rare Kryptonite Isotope from the Superman Museum. Are they connected? Find out, after the report of the stormy weather outside."

Not wanting to hear anymore of Kru's death or his theft of the Kryptonite, Jor shuts the TV off.

But still, both of the Announcer's words rebound in his consciousness.

Trying not to think about it, Jor-El stared out of the sliding glass door in J'onn's apartment, straight into the raging storm.

Jor could still make out movement on the streets, the hover cars flying through the sky, the lights of the city…

The longer he looked outside, the more his heart ached about being banished. Sure, he deserves it after starting the fight, but he's going to miss home. Never again being able to swoop through the city like his Gene-Father Kon-El was able too, or the original Kal-El was able too, or Rao-El…

Sure, there are other cities more advanced or more beautiful than Metropolis out in the world or other planets, but there's just something about Metropolis… something about it that makes it unique… and now Jor-El is forbidden to experience it. Jor also will miss Lara… even though she probably hates him now, he still loves her and now he's about to be taken away from her and she is to be married to some guy she doesn't even love…

And with that, Jor-El realizes that he can't stay here any longer. He wants to see Lara… but a part of him is scared too. And if he doesn't have the courage to face her, then at least he'll be able to have one last flight through Metropolis, before losing that privilege forever.

So Jor walks over to the kitchen (which is on the other side of the room from the Sliding Glass doors) and scribbles a quick note on a piece of paper.

After doing so, Jor walks back to the sliding glass door and opens it. Jor steps through it and closes it.

Jor slowly lifts into the air floats out into the rain. As the rain drenches his hair and soaks his clothes, Jor feels better. It's as if the water is cleansing his soul of all the acts he has committed this day.

Jor swiftly soars through the air, doing cartwheels, loopty-loops, zipping in-between buildings, relishing the feeling of the water rushing on his skin, and the air hitting his body.

Soon, Jor reaches his first destination, the Cemetery. Jor let's his TTK flow from his body, to cover every inch of the Cemetery. After a few minutes, he feels his TTK flow over what he's looking for, the lead box containing Kryptonite. Jor floats over to where he felt it, and he sees the box laying in a ditch, with the Kryptonite still in it. With the lid still open, Jor-El knew he couldn't get close without the Kryptonite poisoning him. So Jor used his newly discovered Telekinesis to shut the box and then lift the box out of the ditch, into his hands.

Jor put the box back into a fold in his cape and took off into the air again.

Meanwhile, J'onn arrived back at his apartment to see no sign of Jor-El. At first J'onn became angry with Jor for leaving against his orders. That's when he noticed a sheet laying on his coffee table. J'onn picked it up and read it to himself.

"J'onn, I thank you for the hospitality you have shown me, but I can't impose. This is my problem, and I will find a resolution to it myself. I swear to you, I won't take my life as you have shown me that it can get better. But I must take care of a few things here in Metropolis first, before I leave permanently tomorrow. I appreciate everything you've done for me, teaching me to be a hero, listening to my problems and acting like a father to me. I appreciate it all. Hopefully, I can live the rest of my life the way you would've liked.

Your Faithful Student,

Jor-El"

"Oh Jor-El…. Why couldn't you heed my advice?" J'onn said as he sat down in his recliner to think about his now gone student and friend.

At this point in time, Jor-El had descended into the grounds of Lara's house. Since it was still down pouring, Jor-El saw no reason to bend the light around him. As he landed, Jor-El admired the garden outside of Lara's window. It was filled with Hydrangea's, Roses, Lilies and other plants…

Jor stared up at Lara's window despite the fact that raindrops were falling on his face almost blinding him… and he saw no one.

Just then, inside the house, Lara had come back into her room after going to the bathroom. She walked back to the window to see if Jor had appeared.

Jor saw her come up to the window, but instead of being excited, he became scared and bent the light around him, so he couldn't be seen.

Lara looked out and saw nothing. Her heart sank and she softly asked herself, "Jor, oh Jor, where are you?"

And as Lara walks away from the window, Jor stops bending light and quietly says…

"Lara…" and unbeknownst to Jor, inside her room, even though he spoke as quietly as he could, Lara heard him.

"Jor?" Lara said as she rushed back out to her window and saw him standing there in the rain.

Before Jor could react to this, Lara had her window open and flung herself out of the window.

Lara landed quietly on the soft, drenched grass and they quietly stared at each other.

Jor wanted to run. He didn't want to face her now, because he didn't want to see her reaction to him.

Lara was the same way. Her face was stiff, unmoving just like his. Not because neither of them didn't care, but because neither of them knew how the other felt.

Finally, Jor decided to get it all out.

"Lara, I don't know how you feel about me now, but it probably isn't happy thoughts. I… I didn't mean to kill your brother. I don't know whether or not you believe me, but it's the truth. I've been holding a lot of repressed anger about him and I just couldn't take his taunting anymore. And he found out about… us, and couldn't handle it. If I could go back and change things, I would. I just wanted to tell you all this because I'm leaving. I thought I owed you an explanation before I left. I still love you Lara, and I can only hope one day that you can forgive me for what I did." Jor-El said with a saddened face as he turned around to leave.

But then he heard a sudden whoosh and Lara was in front of him.

"Don't leave, Jor. I won't claim to not be distressed by the death of my brother, but that can't change my feelings. I still love you and I'm still happy that I made you my husband." Lara said as she looked deep into his eyes. She couldn't tell if the water running from his eyes were raindrops or teardrops.

"Oh Rao, Lara… I… I don't deserve you…not after what I did…" Jor said as he brought up his right hand to clear his face of the rain/teardrops clouding his eyes.

Lara said nothing, except grabbing Jor-El and hugging tight. Jor-El did the same as lightning and thunder clapped around them.

Late into the night, Lara tosses and turns in her bed, unable to sleep.

She turns over to see her husband sleeping contently beside her. Jor's had a rough day, killing her brother and all.

Lara chides herself for thinking that callous thought, remembering that he didn't mean to kill Kru-El, but that doesn't change the fact that Kru's dead. Lara looks up at the ceiling, wondering where Kru went to, heaven or hell? Where was Jor going to go, when he dies? Would she go to hell for loving a man that committed murder?

Lara sighs and rolls over to her left, looking at Jor's face. His nose twitched like a rabbit's, and Lara smiled at it. She delicately brought up her right hand, and ran her fingers through his purple hair. Jor shook his head a bit from her touch, and Lara slowed down her stroking. Lara enjoyed the feel of his hair, as she reluctantly pulled her hand away from his head.

Lara kept staring at Jor-El's face, as her own eyelids began to droop, until they finally closed.

Morning: 9 A.M.

Lara shifts her body in bed and tries to stifle a yawn, to no avail. As she opens her eyes, she notices that Jor-El is no longer beside her.

Lara quickly gets out of bed, wondering if he is still in the room somewhere, or if he has left her to begin his banishment.

She finds her answer on her cabinet.

"Lara,

While I wish I could be with you right now, I cannot. I have vital preparations to make. Last night, I was relieved to find that the feelings I feel for you, you felt for me too. After I finish my preparations, I will come back for you. I don't know if you want to go where I'm heading, but when I come back tonight you can tell me. Hopefully, it won't take long for me to get back to you.

With Love,

Jor"

"Jor, did you really feel like you needed to ask me that question?" Lara thinks to herself with a smile.

But alas, the smile is short-lived as Lara receives a knock on her door.

"Lara dear, it's your Mother. I have something to tell you."

"Uh, come right in!" Lara says as she crumples the note and throws it into the trash. The door opens and Funaho walks in wearing a startling white dress.

"Mother, why are you wearing that dress?"

"That's the news. With your brother's unfortunate demise, I went ahead and moved the timetable for your marriage to Adam. It's tonight." Funaho said with a smile.

Lara wasn't amused.

"WHAT?"

"Oh not this again. I thought you were over it?"

"NO! I was never over it. Mother, I love you, but there's no way in hell I'm going to let you run my life and decide who I marry. I'm not going to marry Adam and that's the final statement I have regarding this decision." Lara says as Funaho's face turns angry and she impatiently stares at her only daughter.

"Listen here, you little brat. I've done my best to raise both you and your brother the way the great spirits of Krypton would want as well as your Father would want me too. You have an obligation to your family, especially after the way your brother was callously murdered. And right now, that obligation is to expand our family since you are the last one of this branch. You will sire new members of the Kal-El clan."

"No." Lara said defiantly. This angered Funaho who grabbed her daughter's arm and sent electrical pulses throughout her entire body. Lara screamed as she felt the energy coarse throughout her body.

"I'm tired of your petulant little games, Lara. You will get married. I will continue to shock you until you come to that realization. And if you don't, remember, I have telepathy that I can use to force your body to walk up the aisle and make your lips to say 'I do'. Nothing you can say or do can change this. I don't care if you were to get married right now to someone else; I would null it quicker than even you could blink. You're going to get married to Adam Luthor tonight and there's not a thing you can do to stop me. Now, I'm going to leave, as I still have vital preparations to make. What's your answer to getting married tonight?" Funaho said as she forcefully began to crush Lara's wrist.

"Y-yes, I'll… I'll do it." Lara said softly as a tear began to form in her left eye.

"Excellent. I'll leave you alone. And don't even think of trying to leave. Lock Down!" Funaho says as a metal plate covered Lara's window, an energy field flowed over the walls and a plate hovered just above her door, waiting to slam down.

"Now, if you need to go to the bathroom, just rap on the door three times, I'll hear it and I'll let you out." Funaho says as she walks out of Lara's room and slams the door shut. The metal plate then drops, preventing access to the doorknob.

Lara sits down on her chair besides the cabinet and begins to cry.

At the same time, yet a few states away in Gotham City, Jor-El finishes payment for an apartment.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr…" an old black man says as he looks up from his table at Jor-El, who's wearing slacks, a blue and white T-shirt and a trench-coat.

"Jordan. Jordan Lee."

"Mr. Lee. First payment for your apartment is due next month, on the 13."

"I'll make note of that, thanks." Jor-El says as he walks out of the apartment complex into the streets of Gotham City.

Even in the 30th Century, Gotham has retained it's gothic look, with dark tones to the buildings, water running freely on the streets, and the homeless nestled in alleyways.

"Not exactly what I would want in a city, but it's home. Besides, it's time the city got a hero besides the various Bat-people…" Jor thinks as he walks down the street.

He stops at the intersection of Wayne and 32 street, taking a left.

Jor walks down at least two blocks, and then walks into a pawnshop.

"Ah, hello stranger! What can I do you for?" a short little Caucasian man said, wearing blue jeans, a green shirt with a blue vest. He has orange eyes and a shaved head.

"I'm just looking."

"Anything in particular?"

"Shrimp and Mushroom Egg-Fu Young."

"That's in the back. Follow me." The man said as he walked back past a red shroud with Jor following him.

They were back in the man's office when he pushed a block on the wall revealing an opening.

"Come right back here, you should find what you want." The man said as he into the opening.

Jor followed him and walked into a room filled with designer drugs.

"So, what'll it be? Meth? Coke? Durlan Oskepor? Or perhaps the best drug from Carrg, Triflux?"

"Actually, none of the above. I heard you excel at making drugs. What I want is a poison. Is this within your talents?"

"Oh yeah, I can definitely do that. Why, do you have a suicide wish?"

"Not really. Just something for me to use if things don't go as planned."

"Ah, what do you want me to make it with?"

"This." Jor-El says as he brings out a little lead box. He opens it slightly and the man immediately knows what it is.

"That's Kryptonite! You want me to make a poison outta that?!?"

"Yes. I want you to get two samples from it, grind them into powder and put the powder into two individual lead-lined pills."

"Waitaminute, I recognize you! You're that Kon-El, Jor-El! Why should I do this, or more importantly why shouldn't I just poison you to death with this Kryptonite sample?"

"Since I'm wearing a transuit, which protects me from the Kryptonite and because I can pay you very well." Jor says, as he slaps down about 200 UP credits in front of the man.

"Question answered. I must say that this'll take a while. A couple of hours maybe."

"That's fine. I've got some stuff to do anyway. But when you're done, just use this communicator button to signal my watch. I'll come back and pick up the pills."

"Uh… you won't alert the authorities about his place, will ya?"

"Of course not. A deal is a deal. But a word of warning, I found out about this place very easily and if I could find it, that doesn't bold well for you, since you do live in the Bat's town."

"Thanks for reminding me of that fact." The man said sarcastically as he took the Kryptonite out of the box and began to chip off samples.

"Oh, and on your way out, will you flip the sign to being closed? I can lock the door from here." The man says and Jor just nods his head.

Jor heads back out to the door and before exiting, flips the sign from being 'open' to being 'closed'.

After walking out the door, he quickly heads to his left and then turns down an alley.

Jor twists the dial of his watch and his clothes morph into his Superboy costume. He calmly looks up to the sky and flies into the air, towards Metropolis.

And as Jor-El makes his flight back to his home, Lara on the other hand is sitting in her room, pondering how to get out of this marriage.

And as she thinks, she remembers a place her ancestor Kal-El interacted with and the place that created the gene-father of the Kon-El's, a place called Cadmus. If she recalls correctly, the place was deserted around the 25th century, mostly because the technology was outdated and better cloning facilities were built all around the country.

The more Lara thought about the idea, the more she liked it. It poised a way to kill two birds with one stone.

But the main question was, how could she go about it? It's not like she can break her way out of her bedroom prison…

That's when Lara saw a head poke through the wall, the head of J'onn J'onnz.

"J'onn! Thank God you're here!" Lara yelled as J'onn entered the room.

"Hello Lara. I came by to see if you knew were Jor is, but obviously he isn't here. What's the dilemma?"

"It's my mother, J'onn! She's forcing me to get married to a man named Adam Luthor, tonight! Please, you have to help me stop this wedding!" Lara said as she jumped out of her chair to hug him

"Please Lara, calm down, tell me everything." J'onn said as he helped Lara sit back down.

And so Lara began to detail everything about her mother, the situation, and the upcoming wedding.

As J'onn listens to her story, he can sense Lara's genuine distress, which makes him decide to help her. But before he does that…

"Lara, first I am going to briefly scan your mother's mind, to make sure that this is all true." J'onn says as he let's his mind out of it's mortal cage, and his consciousness begins to flow out through the house.

J'onn finds Funaho sitting on the sofa, talking into a videophone built into the wall.

J'onn can't pierce her mind, but he can scan her base thoughts, as they are transformed into speech…

"Lara threw another fit. But don't worry Adam, she will go through with the marriage, and you shall be with the one you covet the most." Lara said, and J'onn was disgusted with her.

Her own Mother knew Lara's answer, but still was forcing her into marriage? It violated J'onn's sense of ethics, as doing something like that in the Martian culture was unheard of.

J'onn's mind flowed back into his body, and he had his final answer for Lara.

"I'll help you Lara, as what she is doing is morally wrong." J'onn said with conviction that relieved Lara.

"Um, J'onn… do you think you might be able to… well… change Mother's thoughts for her?"

"No. Her mind has been trained to shield mental probes. And even if I could, it violates Martian Ethics to do so."

"Oh…" Lara said, kinda sad that she even mentioned it.

"But what is this plans of yours, you were telling me about earlier?"

"Well… you see, there was once a place called Cadmus…"

"I know of the place. I fought a woman named Bette Noir there."

"Great, I wasn't exactly sure where it was! Well, the plan is to create a clone of me, a dead one. We substitute the clone with myself, so my Mother and my 'beau' think I'm dead. That way, they bury the clone, and I'm able to reunite with Jor-El so we can live the rest of our lives together." Lara said, looking inquisitively at J'onn, waiting for his response.

J'onn wasn't sure what to make of this. While the plan could work, he wasn't sure it was ethical to create life only to take it away. But upon looking at Lara, who desperately wants to be with Jor, and Jor who felt so much pain at the idea of being separated from her, J'onn decides to go through with it.

"Alright. I need only two things. A genetic sample from you, as well as a letter that I can give to Jor, so he knows what's going on." And as J'onn said this, Lara appears right in front of him holding a letter.

"There, got it done. *Hands J'onn the letter* And as for the genetic sample… *Jerks off a few pieces of her hair* here you go!" Lara says handing J'onn the strand of hair.

"One last thing, J'onn. If anything should happen to Jor-El and I, could you do one last thing for me?" Lara said as she walked up to him and whispered in his ear.

"Yes, I will do that. Hopefully, the clone will be prepared in about 2 hours, since we do not need to be cautious while cloning her. And I'll deliver this letter right away." J'onn says as he waves to Lara and phases back out the wall.

"With luck, this nightmare will be over soon…" Lara thinks as she lies down on her hover bed.

It takes J'onn about 3 minutes, but he arrives at Jor-El's house. He immediately phases through the wall of Jor's room.

J'onn looks around, seeing no trace of Jor-El. J'onn is disappointed, as he was hoping to find Jor here, so they could discuss things.

J'onn moves to the other side of the room, to Jor-El's desktop, which sits next to the door. J'onn lays the letter down on the table and accidentally knocks over a picture of Jor-El standing next to his father Seyg-El, the day Jor earned his Superboy costume.

J'onn picked it up and put it back on the desktop. But after he did this, J'onn heard footsteps. J'onn turned intangible and flew through the roof.

Just as J'onn's feet passed through the roof, Seyg-El whipped the door open and asked hurriedly,

"Jor?" But he saw no one. Seyg didn't see the letter either, as when he opened the door it created a drift, which caused the paper to float off of the desktop and then float underneath it.

Seyg was noticeably saddened that the noises he heard was just that, noises. As Seyg frowned, he looked to his right to see the picture that J'onn had noticed earlier.

Seyg picked it up, walked to Jor's bed and sat at the edge of it.

"My son… were things really that bad?" Seyg thought to himself as he stroked the face of Jor in the picture.

At this time, Jor-El had arrived at the house and peeked through the window to see his father sitting at the edge of the bed.

"I remember how proud I was that day, my only son, named after one of the originals… finally finished training and graduated into Superboy. Where did I go wrong…" Seyg softly says to himself as he closes his eyes and begins to get up from the bed. Jor bends the light around him to be invisible and it works, Seyg doesn't see him.

Seyg puts the picture back up on the desktop, sighs and leaves the room.

Jor-El quietly creeps through the window and begins to grab various personal belongings of his and puts them into 3 duffel bags that he had hidden underneath his bed.

After shoving a few of his clothes into his last duffel bag, he heads back out the window and out of his house… having never noticed the letter underneath his desk.

3 hours later at the rundown and dusty Cadmus, J'onn is putting the finishing touches on the Lara clone. He already caused her mind to malfunction, causing the rest of her body to screw up as a result, ending with the Clone having a fatal seizure.

As J'onn does this, he can't help but feel dirty. It's for a noble cause, but he isn't quite sure if the ends justify the means. But J'onn puts it out of his mind for now, that's a philosophical point he'll have to ponder on later.

J'onn opens the tube, drags the clone out of it and puts it into a body bag.

"Now, it truly begins." J'onn says as he drags the clone out of the cloning chamber room and begins to head out of Cadmus.

About 30 minutes later, J'onn arrives at Lara's house, with the dead clone with him. When he phases through the wall with the clone, Lara's face is at first happy, but when J'onn unzips the bag holding her clone allowing Lara to see it's unmoving face, she is shocked.

"I… I didn't think the sight would be that disturbing…" Lara thought to herself as quickly changed into her Supergirl suit and helped J'onn put the clothes she was wearing onto the clone.

"I'll put the clone into the bed. That way, when your mother discovers it, she'll think you died while taking a nap in bed." J'onn said as he carried the clone over to the hover bed and put the clone underneath the sheets.

"Now Lara, grab anything that you could possibly want, as we're leaving now and you'll probably never be able to return." J'onn says as Lara looks at the trinket's, posters, pictures, and other objects in her room.

"No, I want nothing. This part of my life is over, and I want nothing to do with it." Lara says as she grabs J'onn's hand.

"Very well then, we shall go." J'onn said with Lara in hand, as they phased through the wall of her room, to go to the place Lara had chosen to wait to meet Jor.

About thirty minutes after they left, Funaho comes up to the room to check up on her daughter, as well as bring in the wedding dress.

"Open." Funaho commands and the entrapments go away allowing Funaho access into the room.

"Honey? I've brought your wedding dress, I thought we might try it on…" Funaho says, noticing that Lara is no longer sitting in the chair, but rather lying in bed.

"Hopefully this nap will have brightened up Lara's mood…" Funaho thinks as she walks over to the clone and says,

"Honey, time to wake up, I've got something to show you." But to Funaho's surprise, nothing happens.

"Lara, I've brought the wedding dress!" Funaho says as she begins to shake her daughter a bit in the hopes that it jars her awake.

Still nothing happens. Funaho is getting a little bit concerned, it's not like Lara to be like this. She starts shaking the Lara clone more and more, getting no kind of response.

Finally, Funaho uses her low-level telepathy to force her daughter to wake up. It's when her telepathy picks up absolutely no brain activity that Funaho starts realizing that something has happened. Having only lost her son a day ago, Funaho begins to panic.

"Lara, please don't do this to me… Lara! LARA!!!" Funaho starts to scream as she tries to take the clone's pulse to see that it has none.

It is here that she realizes that the Lara clone is dead, and Funaho breaks down…

"Ancestor's… forgive me, I've… I've done something horrible!" Funaho yells as her now flowing tears fall upon Lara's bedspread.

Back in Gotham, about an hour from the incident with Funaho and the clone, Jor-El is in his new and slightly run-down apartment, taking all of his belongings out of his duffel bag.

"Almost done here. Now all that's left is the pills and then to go pick up Lara. I can only pray nothing goes wrong…" Jor thinks to himself as his watch starts beeping.

"Ah, he's done! I'll finish this later…" Jor thinks to himself as he grabs his jacket and heads out of his apartment complex.

Just a few minutes later, and Jor re-enters the pawnshop to see the shopkeeper back in the front.

"Ah, you've arrived! I've got your shrimp and mushroom Egg-Fu Young here for you…" the man says as he puts a pouch on the table.

"Thank you for your services. Hopefully we'll never have to meet again."

"Same here!" The man said as he wipes sweat off of his brow.

And as Jor-El walks out of the shop, he notices a group of people around a TV shop, were all the TV's in the window were tuned in on the local news…

"Such a shame, now the only true Kal-El's left are the secondary cousins…" an older woman said as she left the group allowing Jor-El to squeeze his way in.

"I bet one of dem louzy Kon-El's did her in, no way that was natural, not for someone her age…" A brown haired homeless man sitting next to the door remarked.

Jor heard that comment and began to fear the worst. It was confirmed when the reporter said…

"It is unknown what the cause of death is, but Lara Andver-El, of the Kal-El Clan, was found dead in her bed sometime earlier today. It is unknown what the cause of death was, but it's rumored by the source whose close to the El's that she took her life. This was supposed to be her wedding, so it is indeed a sad day for the Kal-El's, after they lost Kru-El yesterday. Her body has been transported to the Kal-El Crypt, where tomorrow she and her brother Kru-El will be laid to rest." The reporter said as Jor-El's face turned pasty white.

"Oh Rao… her Mother must've made the date for marriage today! I took too much time to do all of these chores… so that instead of possibly getting married to him if I was late, she took her life! I… I have to visit her!"

Jor immediately broke from the crowd, headed into an alleyway, twisted the dial on his watch to change his suit, and flew into the air.

Back in Metropolis, Lara and J'onn(in a human guise) are waiting besides the water fountain where Jor-El and Lara got to 'know' each other better.

As she waits, Lara can't help but be nervous. She didn't expect Jor to take this long to get here… and she couldn't help but wonder what was holding him up. Or worse yet, something happened to the letter, so he didn't know to come here.

J'onn too was worried. J'onn knew that Jor would go back there to pick up some of his stuff since he didn't have money to possibly buy everything he needed… so why had he not come, or even initiated contact telepathically?

"Lara, I'm heading back to Jor's house. I want to make sure that he either got the letter or if it's still there. I want you to stay here, understand? Just in case Jor-El does come along."

"I'll stay here J'onn." Lara said as J'onn ducked into an alleyway, morphs back into his Superhero form, and flies off into the horizon.

Lara was left standing there, wondering where Jor-El could be. And as she kept thinking about it, Lara couldn't help but get this sinking feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong. She couldn't explain it, but in her heart and soul she knew something terribly bad was going to happen.

Against J'onn's orders, Lara couldn't stand idly by any longer, she started flying towards the Jeruster Cemetery, where the Kal-El Crypt was at, the place she had this nagging feeling that everything would be going wrong at.

As Jor-El flies over Metropolis, he finds himself at the Jeruster Cemetery and begins to walk through the graveyard.

As he passes by many tombstones, he makes his way into the reserved plots belonging to the Kal-El's. Jor spies someone the names of the El's adorning the grounds. Finally, he makes his way to a stairway leading down into the ground, to the Kal-El Crypt.

Jor opens the door, to smell stagnant air, and to view stone walls with small moss growing over some of the stones.

Jor-El walks down the flight of stairs and takes two steps forward into the Crypt, when he hears footsteps behind him.

"I had a feeling you would come here. You Kon-El's are perverted, I see that now. And only a criminal would come back to visit those he murdered." Adam Luthor states as he walks through the door. Jor-El doesn't bother to turn around to face him.

"I will only say this once. Leave. I didn't mean to kill Kru-El. But you caused my wi… Lara… to take her own life because she didn't want to marry you. I can't forgive you for that, and if you take one more step towards me I won't be responsible for what happens."

"How dare you implicate that I drove my wife to be to death! It's your fault!" Adam says as he takes a step towards Jor-El.

Hearing Adam's foot move, Jor whips around and tries to punch Alex.

Adam gestures his hand up and Jor-El flies up, hitting the ceiling only to fall down to the ground, unable to get up.

"You shouldn't rush a man who can control gravity! I will kill you in the name of the El's in the hope that this gives peace to those you've hurt!" Adam says as he clamps his hand causing the gravity around Jor's person to collapse and get heavier.

Although in pain, Jor-El looks to his left to see a piece of debris that came off of the ceiling. Jor concentrates and the little shard of stone lifts up into the air and brushes against Adam's cheek, causing his cheek to bleed and to distract Adam's concentration which causes the gravity around Jor-El to return to normal.

Jor-El leaps up and before Adam can start manipulating gravity again, Jor-El hits Adam square on the chin with all of his strength, immediately causing his head to rock back, snapping his neck instantly.

Adam immediately falls to the floor, and Jor-El heads down the corridor to the main hall.

On the other side of Metropolis, J'onn enters Jor-El's room to find it Jor had come back home, due to it's disheveled look. At first J'onn is relieved, because this means that Jor probably got the letter and was already on his way. But then his eyes wander and he sees something flat resting underneath the desk.

Fearing that it is what he thinks it is, J'onn walks over, bends down and grabs the paper.

It is the letter. Now J'onn was wondering whether something caused the letter to drift down there, or if Jor-El read it and it got flung down there… but regardless, it filled him with a sense of dread. Now instead of knowing the possible outcome of his actions, it was now filled with a line of tangents, which could have this ordeal end joyously or tearfully.

Now uncertain of the outcome, J'onn quickly left the Kon-El household and zooming back to the Metropolis Opera House.

Jor meanwhile was still walking down the catacombs, with 'S' symbols inscribed on the walls, when he reached the main area, where he sees five rows of stone slabs, with 10 slabs within each row.

That's when he spies the clone of Lara, laying on the third slab in the second row.

Jor tries to take a step towards the second row, but finds himself unable to move. Seeing the clone lying there, lifeless, sends chills down Jor's spine. His beloved wife, the woman he cares about more than anyone else in the world, is dead.

Jor finally is able to take the steps necessary to walk up to her, and he sees her stiff body, her unmoving face, and her hands resting on top of one another on her chest.

Jor wants to touch her, but he's afraid too. Jor wants to believe that this is nothing more than a dream, a fantasy. Some type of cruel and sick joke someone has perpetrated on him, that the body that's lying down in front of him isn't the real Lara. That if he does touch her, it'll be proven that Lara did die… and Jor wasn't sure if he could truly handle that fact.

But Jor couldn't keep standing there. So, softly… tentatively… Jor-El touched her hand.

It was cold… but her skin felt like it always did. Jor then let his TK flow throughout her, to see any sign of mechanical parts, if she was some type of robot.

Nothing of the sort, all it showed him were all the anatomical parts of a human and that just confirmed for him that the clone was really Lara.

Trying to keep his emotions in check, Jor-El finally thought to himself…

"I remember a legend of Superman, which I think was the first, who kissed his deceased beloved and somehow it brought her back to life. It was said that his love for her was so pure that it transcended time and space, allowing them to be together once more. I may not be of his line, but I pray my love for you will bring you back…" Jor-El thought as he fought the urge to let his tears flow. Jor-El fell to his knees, to bring his face closer to the clone's.

So softly, Jor-El grabbed the clone's head and softly kissed her, awaiting some magical moment that would bring her back to him. But all the while, her lips remained unmoving and finally, Jor-El's face started to tremble. He broke off the kiss to see that nothing had changed.

Tears began to freely flow from his face, which started to fall upon the face of the clone.

Jor-El brought up the clone's face and laid her head on his shoulders.

Sniffling, Jor could only cry,

"It's not fair… it's simply not fair… why did this have to happen? Why can't I bring her back? Why can't my love do the impossible? Why? Without her, life isn't worth living! I don't want to live out you! Lara… LARA!" Jor-El screams as he finally accepts the truth.

Lara Andver-El is dead.

"No… No… Noooooo! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Jor finally screamed as he clinched onto the clone's body, beginning to crunch it.

And as Jor-El continued to scream his sorrow, it was echoed out through the chamber, into the main hall and out to the courtyard, where miles away, Lara was still able to hear it.

"Oh no… this… this wasn't supposed to happen!" Lara frantically thought as she poured on the speed to the Cemetery.

J'onn also heard the scream, via the empathic nature of his powers and the raw emotion coming from Jor-El. He too changed his course towards the Cemetery.

At this time, Jor-El had stopped screaming but only through his voice. In his mind, the screaming wasn't able to stop, and it continued on and on, as he thought about having to live by himself for the rest of his life.

Still sobbing, Jor-El reached into the fold of his cape and brought out the little pouch with the two Kryptonite pills within.

As he held it out in front of him, Jor-El was thinking about what Lara had done, taken her own life, rather than be married to someone else. Jor-El kept thinking about that… the fact that she took her life, her life just because she could possibly be separated from Jor forever. And Jor thought about what he thought earlier, that he would rather be dead than live without her. And it was true. Without her, he wouldn't be able to stand living in Gotham, or anywhere else in the world. Also, he couldn't stand the idea of never being able to experience love again, or worse, find love with someone else, since he only wants to be with Lara. Finally, Jor concluded, if Lara could do it for him, he could do it for Lara.

Slowly, with his hand shaking unsteadily, Jor-El opened the pouch. He brought out one pill, and stared at it.

Lara meanwhile had just landed in front of the Crypt. She made her way down the stairs to see Adam's dead body lying on the floor. Lara shed no tears for him, rather moving on towards the main hall.

Jor-El turned around sitting against the slab. He took a deep breath and then put the pill into his mouth. After quickly swallowing, his internal body heat melted the lead-lined cover, letting the Kryptonite dust to flow through his body.

At first, Jor-El began to cough from the dust trickling down his throat. But then, his throat began to burn… and when the Kryptonite began to infiltrate his bloodstream, he started to convulse. So much so that he dropped the pouch from his left hand and the other Kryptonite pill rolled out from it.

And as Jor-El convulsions got worse and his skin began to turn green, that's when Lara entered the room.

Her eyes opened wide in shock to see her husband, the man she loves, dying. As she runs up to him, Jor-El's eyes open wide from seeing the woman he thought was dead, coming up to him.

Jor wasn't sure if it was a delusion caused by the Kryptonite or if she was greeting him at the doors of heaven, but when Lara came up to him to him and put her hands on his shoulders, it confirmed the worst. She was alive.

"L…Lara…" Jor said weakly as he raised up his right hand to try to touch her left cheek… which she then grabbed and put on her face.

"Oh Jor, I'm sorry, it was never supposed to happen like this! It's all my fault!" Lara said as tears began to flow down her face. Jor's hand softly brushed away a tear that came near his hand.

"Lara… I… I loooooo…." Jor said as eyes rolled back and his body slumped. Lara's eyes opened up from shock when his hand that was gripping her face slackened and then slipped from her hand to the floor.

Lara couldn't form any words in her throat. She was in a state of shock. All that ran through her mind, all that she could think of was that she killed him. She killed Jor-El. This whole plan, which was only to give them a chance to start anew in peace, backfired horribly. She killed him.

"No… it can't be true… I didn't mean to… I DIDN'T!" Lara babbles to herself as she brings up her left hand to cover her eyes, to keep the tears at bay as well as keep her from looking at Jor-El's deceased body.

"He's dead. He's really dead. And it's all my fault…" Lara thought as she looked up from him towards her clone.

When she saw her, saw the tears that were still on her face, Lara was consumed with anger.

"It's not fair, he shouldn't have seen you… shouldn't have felt the pain he did because of you… I shouldn't have created you!" Lara yells as she grabs the body and flings it to the other side of the room.

Truth is, she was envious of the clone… it got to hear Jor's last words to Lara… his most heartfelt feelings… something she'll never get to hear.

When she looks back down at Jor-El, she sees the empty pouch and the little pill only a few feet away.

Lara bends down and grabs the pill. Noticing that it's encased in lead, she realizes that it's filled with Kryptonite, which is what Jor-El used to kill himself.

Lara turns back to face Jor-El, whose eyes are just staring out into space. Lara takes her hand and closes his eyes. She then sits down beside him, wondering what to do.

Lara could run away, try to start a new life elsewhere, but how could she? She's not even sure where to start on something like that, and after what happened tonight, surely her mother and the police will find out it's a clone and come after her anyway. And if she does stay here, soon enough her mother will find another person for her to marry… someone Lara will probably never love or if she does, won't love as much as she did Jor-El. That's something Lara doesn't want to know. Someone who'll try to replace Jor in her heart, a cruel and devious act in her mind.

Lara takes a quick look at Jor-El, whose entire face is green, and thinks about the fact that he killed himself to be with her. That's how much he cared… that he would rather join her in death than in life.

Lara knew that she loved Jor, and that Jor loved her, but she never imagined that he would go to this length.

She now was wondering if she could do the same. Did she truly love Jor to the extent that death would be the better alternative than to live life alone without him?

She looked at the pill and then at Jor once more, coming to a decision.

"I'd rather be dead than alive. I just pray that when I die, I'll be joined alongside you Jor… whether you're in heaven or in hell. I just want to be with you." Lara said, as she brought her face close to his and kissed his lips one last time… and then swallowed the pill.

Lara grabbed Jor-El's right hand with her left, awaiting the effects of the pill.

It soon came, when her body began to convulse and burn. Lara's face flushed with pain as a spasm within her left hand crushed Jor-El's hand.

Finally, Lara looked up at the ceiling one last time, and then passed on from this world.

J'onn finally lands at the opening at the Crypt. He briefly scans around to find any brain patterns, but senses no one.

J'onn heads down into the Crypt, he comes upon the body of Adam Luthor. J'onn frowns, quickly picking up the body and putting it above ground.

J'onn heads back down the stairs and down the hall into the main Crypt. He sees Jor and Lara sitting next to each other, dead. He also sees the Lara clone lying on the floor on the right side of the room.

J'onn becomes saddened by the sight. Quietly, he lays their bodies down on the ground, side by side. J'onn shape-shifts into his natural Martian form, performing last rites for those who feel like children to him.

After transforming himself back into his 'common' form, J'onn lifts both Jor-El and Lara up, carrying them out of the Crypt.

He lay's them beside Adam Luthor, and then sends out a Telepathic message to both Seyg-El and Funaho-El.

"This is J'onn J'onnz, I command both of you to journey to the Jeruster Cemetery, to reap what you have sown!" J'onn telepathically yells, that rocks both Seyg-El and Funaho-El who are in their respective homes.

About 15 minutes later, both Seyg-El and Funaho-El arrive, both wearing their Superman and Superwoman costumes respectively.

They naturally aren't happy to see each other.

"What the hell are you doing at my Family's Cemetery? This is no place for a Kon-El!"

"I was asked to come here by the Martian. I'm not happy to be here either, as I feel soiled by the presence of so many Kal-El's!" Seyg said in retort as they gave each other dirty looks.

"Enough of your bickering! I'm tired of this grandstanding game both of your families play, since they have caused this!" J'onn says as he points to Jor-El and Lara lying on the ground.

"JOR! Martian scum, what have you done to my boy?"

"What has happened to my daughter, she's green! This is some kind of trick on both of your parts!"

"SILENCE!" J'onn telepathically screams that causes both of them to fall to the ground. J'onn then continued,

"The two you see here are the legacy of your feud. Despite all the hatred you've spewed upon them about how the other clan is horrible, malicious, or cruel, despite the fact that they may at one time hated the other, they found something more powerful than hate. Love. Love for each other. They got married and try to make their love blossom among the hate. But because of forces on both sides, their love was battered, bruised, and pushed to its limits. Even through all of that, through the hate, it survived. Until finally, they died for each other because they didn't want to live in a world filled with a hate the both of you are unwilling to drop!"

"Impossible! Lara wouldn't do such a thing and she died of natural causes!"

"As much as I loathe to agree with her, she's right. I don't see how you can blame us for anything!"

"Then I will make you see why you are to blame!" J'onn roared as he forcefully opened up their minds and transplanted images he experienced from both Jor-El and Lara-El into their minds.

Seyg-El sees Jor-El distraught at the fact that his father wants him to be a certain type of Superman that Jor knows he could never be, nor does he want to be. Distraught at the fact that if he told his father that Lara was now his wife, what could possibly happen to him. The pain of retaliation from his father, of isolation from Lara.

Funaho sees her daughter, battling the feeling of entrapment that Funaho and Kru-El made her feel. The idea that her feelings were unimportant, that she was nothing more than an object, to be used by others. The feeling that she could never truly talk to her mother, whether it be about money, politics or love. That if Funaho found out about her marriage to Jor, that it would be nulled and she would forever be married to someone she didn't love.

Then they both see how Jor-El and Lara Andver-El truly loved one another, and how they hoped their love would bridge the gap between families and make the estranged El families whole once more.

When J'onn came out of their minds, both Seyg and Funaho felt ashamed of themselves, that their children were better people than they were, that they truly didn't understand their children and had they taken the time to, all of this could've been avoided.

"That's what you have caused. Now, I'm going to help the both of you set it right." J'onn said as they both nod their heads in agreement.

The first thing the El Families set out to do was create a Memorial Statue for Jor and Lara, in which they would be laid to rest underneath, in a plot set in a different cemetery rather then in the Kon-El's or the Kal-El's cemetery's.

The Statue has Jor-El standing on the left with Lara on the right, with both of them standing on only one foot, holding hands, with their other arms stretching out into the sky, as if they're flying.

It has a plaque that reads,

"Dedicated to Jor and Lara-El, although their lives were cut short, proved that love never dies, not even in death."

When the actual burial was held, both sides of the El's were finally joined in one place. J'onn gave a speech first, then Seyg-El as well as Funaho-El, speaking on the fact that the hatred must stop and the families must reunite to never have another tragedy like what happened to Jor-El and Lara-El.

As J'onn put it,

"If you will not do it because it's the right thing to do, then at least do it for Jor-El and Lara, who wanted this feud to end. It was their wish that it would happen, and it's the least any of you could do."

As their bodies are laid to rest under their memorial statue, J'onn goes out to fulfill the last wish of Lara, knowing that Jor-El would want it this way also.

Within the deserted halls of Cadmus, after so much life had been taken… a new life is being born.

As the cell divide and multiply, as it turns into a fetus and the fetus turns into a baby, the baby is proclaimed as a boy.

His name will be Kal-El. The combined El families with the last living Martian will raise him to be to be strong, wise and tolerant.

He will first become Superboy and after he matures, he will then become Superman.

And hopefully… somewhere… somewhere that's so close yet so far away, the sight of their only son will give peace to the souls of Jor-El and his beloved wife Lara Andver-El.

The End