DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon Characters and Situations created and owned by Siegal and Schuster, DC Comics, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Warner Bros, Richard Donner. I'm not making any money from it. Yet.
It was late Sunday night in Metropolis. Lois Lane sat behind the antique Louis XIV desk in her room at the Amazon Consulate. She had finally taken Crown Princess Diana up on the spa weekend she had offered to Lois quite a while ago. But despite relaxing steam baths and luxurious massages, Lois's anger at Superman had gotten the best of her. He had hypnotically hidden her memories of their romance nearly seven years ago at Niagra Falls and the Fortress. When she had recalled them after the Pulitzer Ceremony on Thursday, she'd taken an emotional rollercoaster ride into denial and anger. Here at the Consulate the last day or so, she'd spent as much time in the martial arts dojo practicing her aikido and working out her anger as she had in any of the spa treatments.
After dinner, she'd sat in this room seething at Superman wondering why he had stolen the memories of their romance and why he had left the Earth. Finally, she had found some perspective realizing that with Clark/ Superman gone for five years, she was better off able to start fresh with Richard, without the missing memories.
She remembered that before Zod had arrived on Earth, Superman had argued with his father, Jor-El, and given up his powers with the intent of living out the rest of his life as her mortal husband.
Maybe the spaceship pilgrimage to Krypton had been to restore his powers? No, that didn't track. He'd fought that huge battle with Zod and his acolytes in the skies above Metropolis before he left for Krypton. How did he get his powers back during that missing four days? What had it cost, besides a walk back across the frozen tundra? And who had paid that cost?
Now there was a story!
There indeed was a story! one that Kal-El and Jor-El would discuss in just a few moments. When Jason had been attacked in Smallville, Jor-El had awakened within the mind of Lionel Luthor and temporarily invested Lionel's body with Kryptonian powers. Jor-El had called for the help of the sector's Green Lantern Corps Officer: Abin Sur the last he'd known for sure, but that had been a long time ago. Assistance had instead arrived in the form of a beautiful and capable Amazon. The Amazon, Cassiopeia (a.k.a. Chloe Sullivan), had held off the attacker long enough for Jor-El to get Jason and Martha through the portal in the Kowatchee caves and up to the Fortress.
The exercise of jumping and lifting during the escape from the Bizarro's attack on the Kent farmhouse caught up with Jason soon after the group had arrived at the Fortress, and he fell asleep. Jor-El and Martha took advantage of the opportunity to talk. Suddenly Kal-El and Cassiopeia emerged through the portal.
Kal-El saw his mother standing there with Lionel Luthor. Then he was that Lionel wore the same silvery robe with the same black Crest of the House of El that Jor-El had worn in the final images from the Fortress, when he his father had restored his powers before he'd flown off to confront Zod and the Acolytes in the skies over Metropolis about six years before. Kal recognized subtle cues in the way the man wearing the Kryptonian robes stood: his calm, determined, regal bearing, his countenance of love, wisdom, patience and kindness. Kal-El knew that he was looking at his father, Jor-El, in Lionel Luthor's body as he had over a decade ago when Jor-El had brought him back from death's doorstep a few months after the second meteor shower. "Kal-El, my son, it is very pleasing to see you again with my own eyes." Lionel's voice spoke in Jor-El's tone and Kal snapped back into the present moment. "Why do you wear a black trench coat and black sunglasses instead of your Kryptonian uniform?"
"A problem with trust." Kal removed the sunglasses and looked into Jor-El's face. "Or a betrayal of trust." He looked down."
"Ah, yes." Jor-El sounded more like Lionel this time, "The very large, very strong person made in a distorted version of your image, his actions caused the people to fear you. And, so you took on the guise of another hero known as Neo or The One."
"Just so." Kal-El replied looking up and away. Then he turned faced Jor-El again, "Father, is it you?"
"It feels like me, my son." Jor-El paused for breath. "You did it then?"
"I followed the instructions in the prime crystal." Kal answered. "I made the pilgrimage across the stars. I journeyed back to Krypton, to Temple of the Elders in the Valley of the Ancestors, yes Father. I offered the prayers and made the atonement.
"I climbed 10,000 meters up an airless husk of rock and dirt. That airless husk, was all that remained of the once majestic Valley of the Ancestors after the nova of our sun shattered our homeworld. I climbed hand by hand and foot by foot under the dwarf star remnants of our red sun, fighting vertigo the whole way. I could feel the red dwarf starlight draining my powers slowly, but I didn't need them for what I was doing just then. Weight wasn't an issue on that tiny, airless remnant of a world; neither was flight or any of my enhanced senses.
"Finally, I reached the Temple. I offered the prayers in the silence of vacuum, in the harsh light and razor sharp shadows of that once magnificent globe. I made the atonement. It was not easy Father, but I did it gladly, and I would do it for you again."
"Thank you, my son." Jor-El gave a slight bow and recovered rather more slowly than he had planned. "Even as I saved you in this very place, investing in you the final energies left to me, so now you have saved me by offering the atonement to redeem my sacrifice and enabling me to continue my journey in this mortal realm."
And then Kal-El and Jor-El spoke of past and future, of women and choices and decisions, of a partnership made and broken and transformed and of another partnership renewed. And when the relative frailty of Lionel's body caught up with Jor-El, he called for the transference crystal.
"Father, what are you planning?" Kal-El looked rather sheepish and Clark-like as he posed that question. "What on Earth and Krypton do you propose to do with the transference crystal?"
"My son, my precious Kal-El," Jor-El reached out with his left hand and touched Kal's cheek, then he placed it firmly on Kal's right shoulder and took his right hand in a firm handshake, like Lionel used to do years ago. "I have not much time left to me in this mortal coil. Lionel's memories and mine are already bleeding over into each other." Jor-El paused to breathe.
"Father! We'll find you a transfer." Kal-El spun around desperation on his face. "Father I didn't traverse over 120 light years, make the atonement, and get you back-- only to lose you again in less than a day."
"Where will you transfer me?" Jor-El smiled serenely. "Will you transfer me into one of the clones that tried to take Jason away?"
Kal-El looked lost for a moment. Then an idea struck him and his face lit up. "Father, the Fortress created a clone of Mother some years ago, from a sample that came from Zor-El. Surely the methods for doing that are recorded in the systems. The clone of Mother was created literally before my eyes in minutes, not months or years. We could use the same method to create a clone of me. You could transfer yourself there."
Jor-El explained patiently, "Zor-El's sample also contained recording of your mother's mind, a holographic photo of her consciousness, if you will. This record of her mind assisted in forming the clone. This is why the clone grew so quickly. This is why it possessed all of her memories and most of her personality. We could not use a recording of your mind in such a fashion, else I would have to displace you from your clone.
"We are out of time, son." Jor-El explained patiently. "If I stay in this body too much longer, I will be trimming his life by years instead of hours, and Lionel Luthor does not have that many years left. I have to move now."
"The Fortress AI," both men said together.
"It possesses all of my knowledge." Jor-El confirmed
"And hundreds of hours of recordings you made for me, trying to anticipate all my questions and needs." Kal-El added. "That knowledge and those recordings could stabilize your personality and hold you together."
"It would also get your systems back up and running." Chloe spoke up for the first time. "Come on we have to move quickly."
After talking to Chloe, Lois's next call was to Richard. She had blown off six or seven calls from him over the last day and a half, but he was Jason's daddy and he loved them both. She apologized for taking her "Superman: Murderer" article to the Inquisitor. Richard had been right to uphold the journalistic integrity of the Planet, insisting on checking alibis and digging deeper. Now that Jason had told her about the "Bizarro" Clark look-a-like with superpowers, she felt doubtful about her article. The same thing, whatever it was, that had chased Jason in Smallville could have hurt those police officers and that poor, young mother here in Metropolis.
Before she even asked, Richard insisted on flying them both to Smallville. They'd have to land in Crater Lake and get a ride. Lois felt sure she remembered enough contacts from her own time there during her days working for Kansas State Senator Martha Kent that she could get a discrete ride out to the Kent farmhouse. Of course this flight would take longer than Chloe's had in the Amazon invisible jet that flew more than four times faster than sound.
During the flight Richard told Lois about getting mobilized in the US Air Force Reserve. He'd been recalled to active duty through Special Operations, his father's agency. Lois asked when he'd be going and where. Richard was vague on both. He had about a month before he had to report, but he couldn't say definitely where he'd be going. He didn't tell Lois that had tried to call Kyle Rayner, his former wingman from the first Persian Gulf War. Richard see if Kyle could get his orders changed. Kyle wasn't answering his phone either.