-1Authors Note: OK, this chapter is all about the Teen of Teak! I'm going to give a VERY BREIF explanation here, because some people reading this might not be familiar with current DC Comics storylines. Kon-El is the clone of Superman who operated under the codename Superboy. He was a founding member of Young Justice along with Tim Drake's Robin, Impulse, and Cassie Sandsmark's Wondergirl. When that team disbanded he went along with his friends in joining the Teen Titans.Kon discovered, after joining the Titans, that the other genetic donor during his cloning process (Needed to stabelize Superman's alien DNA and keep the clone from becoming a Bizzaro) was none other than Lex Luthor. That's right, Clex fans: Superboy is the canon offspring of Clark and Lex. Kon quit heroing for a while after Luthor turned him into a weapon against the Titans. He retreated to the identity Superman had dumped on him: Conner Kent, cousin to Clark, student at Smallville High. Kon hated it. When the world went into Crisis as a version of young Clark from a parallel universe, called Superboy-Prime, went insane killing what he saw to be unworthy heroes, Kon found himself first unwillingly, then willingly back into hero business.

Kon-El died in battle against the insane Superboy-Prime. Or did he? Well, this fan girl refuses to believe The Metropolis Kid would ever die with the words "Yeah… isn't it cool?"

Multiverse

3: Kon-El

Oh, this wasn't good. This was so not good. Whole books and libraries could be filled on how not good this whole situation was.

First: Kon-El strongly disliked waking up in strange places. Especially strange hospital like places while wired up to monitors.

Second: Kon-El hated that extra-dimensional jerk Superboy-Prime. Hay-Ted. A lot of people say you shouldn't hate people, but a lot of people had never had half their team killed in one day.

Third: Kon-El absolutely despised not knowing where his friends were or if they were ok. The last thing he could remember was being on an ice field in the artic with his girlfriend Cassie, best friend's sort-of-brother Nightwing, and a half dozen magic powered heroes fighting aforementioned Superdork-Prime.

He remembered plowing SuperJerk into Alex Luthor's multiverse machine thingy. He remembered pushing his tactile telekinesis field out with all his might to blow the thing up, himself and Prime included.

He remembered that should, by all rights, be dead.

And yet, he'd woken up in Smallville Freaking Medical with Prime standing over him acting innocent of all things. Kon's face felt like it had been run it through a meat grinder and Prime was acting innocent.

Kon pelted north as fast as he could. He had to get back to the fight… or to at least where the fight was. He had to see what had happened. Then he'd go to San Francisco to find the Titans. Yeah, that was the plan: The North Pole then San Fran.

He repeated the plan like a mantra. He felt weak and sluggish. His fight with Prime had taken so much out of him. Luckily, it didn't feel like his insides were eating themselves like when he'd worn him self out before. Maybe he'd done enough damage to Prime and the Tower that Cassie and Nightwing and Power Girl and the others were able to finish it up. After all, the world was still here and he didn't see any multiple earths crowding the night sky.

The first rays of sunlight were cresting the horizon by the time Kon reached the Artic Circle. He paused a moment when he felt the warmth and flew upwards, into the upper stratosphere. From there he could get a better charge and would have a larger view to scan. Before Prime appeared and everything went to hell in a ribbon adorned hand basket, Kon had been working on perfecting his telescopic vision. Sure, he hadn't been doing the whole hero-gig at the time, but being able to see miles off would come in handy even if you weren't trying to save the world.

He remembered something Robin had tried to teach him eons ago about doing grid searches. He started with as far north west as he could see and began working his way east and south, scanning for... Well anything. What he found was a whole lot of nothing. Some polar bears, some oil drilling rigs, Superman's Fortress of Solitude, some more polar bears, an igloo…

Wait a cotton pickin' minute… Fortress of Solitude?! Kon flew down fast toward the crystalline mass. He wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, he knew that, but he certainly knew the difference between Antartica, where Supes had taken him when he gave him his Kryptonian name and they had that bonding moment, and the Artic: One had penguins and scientific research stations, the other had polar bears and Santa's workshop.

"Superman?! You home? Cl--er-- Kal-El?" Kon floated down through a gap in the crystals in the ceiling. It certainly didn't look like the Fortress in any state Kon had ever seen it. Maybe Superman was growing a new one?

"AI, You there?" No response from the computer system intelligence. Kon floated down to the crystal control panel and stared at it, "Like I know how to work this thing…" It looked like someone had set it on fire. The whole place looked like that, but there was new growth. If Supes had been making a new fortress up here, wouldn't he have told Kon? No, probably not. Clark had always kind of treated Kon like a red-headed step child.

And that thought made Kon wince, especially since… he kind of was. Well he didn't have red hair but genetics gave him a 50 chance on that…

"Ok, Superboy, don't start thinking about that now, you've got a mystery to solve…" He said to himself, out loud. He hadn't seen any thing that looked remotely like the smoldering wreckage of a giant, world creating tower. Instead, all he found was a creepy Kryptonian bit of ruin. That meant phase two of plan: the city by the bay.

The sun was out in full, chasing him west. It felt good on his back, and he could feel his face and chest heal up. He flew higher than he normally would have, so it took him less time to get to California. Once he spotted the Golden Gate he angled downward, descending toward San Francisco Bay.

But something was missing. Something important and T shaped. Titans Tower was gone, vanished, ka-poofed. Kon frowned and swooped down to the island where the tower should have been. It wasn't like it had been destroyed, it was like it had never existed.

Not. Fucking. Good.

If the Tower wasn't here, that meant that something was seriously wrong with the universe. Big shiny metal buildings don't just blink out of existence. Maybe it was a victim of the appearing and disappearing multiverse. No, he didn't want to think about that.

He shot up and east, catching the jet stream. He had to find someone, anyone. Preferably Superman. He headed for Metropolis. He had a general idea of where Clark and Lois lived. Somewhere on Sullivan St, near the Planet Building. He couldn't remember the building or apartment number, but he knew it had a good sized balcony and he could recognize it from sight.

But, once he got to Metropolis, he couldn't find it. No apartment. He flew past the Planet building and scanned inside. No Clark desk, no Lois. Even more disturbingly, he flew over Siegel Park to find no statue to Superman.

"Fuck!" He said a little louder than intended. Someone stuck their head out a window to yell at the cursing person and Kon realized for the first time that he was flying around Metropolis in a hospital gown with his ass hanging out. It was a perfectly good ass, mind.; one could call it Super. But embarrassment still hit none the less. What the hell was wrong with the world today?

And where were his pants?

They must have been at the medical center in Smallville. Prime had been holding his tee-shirt, hadn't he? Damn. How stupid was he, to go flying out bare ass naked. No wonder the sun was so warm on his back before. It was a good thing Tim and Bart weren't here, or else Kon would never live it down.

Ok, new plan. Go back to Smallville and see about getting clothes. Check up on the Kent's and see if they have any idea what is going on. See if he can find his Titans communicator and call Cassie and Tim and Bart.

It was a short flight from Metropolis to Smallville, a fact Kon was eternally grateful for, as he was sure he was as red as Superman's external underwear and his stomach was reminding him that he was fifteen kinds of hungry. He added grabbing something to eat at the Kent's to his list of things. He could do that while calling the Titans.

Clothes were first, though. He flew to the Medical Center, but kept his distance. He didn't want or need some doctor fussing over him. His clothes weren't in the room he escaped from. Oh, well. He didn't think they would be anyways. He could just get clean stuff at the farm.

He never thought he would be so glad to see Kent Farm. He'd spent the whole day flying, and he wasn't in top shape to begin with. It was almost dinner time, Uncle John was probably just coming in off the tractor, Aunt Martha probably had a pie going. God… pie sounded great right now.

Kon snuck into his room through the window. He landed softly and slumped over to the old battered dresser. He dug through the drawers and dug out boxers and a clean pair of jeans. Laundry service was certainly one of the perks to living with the Kents. He opened the closet and made a face at all the plaid and flannel that had made it's way into his closet since he'd moved to Kansas. It was unnatural. He found a plain tee-shirt and dressed quickly. The clothes didn't quite fit right. Kon chalked it up to the fact that he never felt comfortable being "Conner Kent".

He'd had his moment of crisis and doubt. He'd done the emo thing over Luthor and stuff, but that was over. He was done pretending to be stuff he wasn't. He had a soul, he knew that now. That soul wasn't a Luthor ('cause, you know, they don't have them) and it wasn't some kid name Conner. He was Kon-El.

He was the God Damned Superboy.

He'd have to sit down with Clark and the Kents… explain to them that he wasn't going to do the high school student thing anymore. He wasn't a normal kid, he'd never be a normal kid, and he had no desire to ever be a normal kid. He had friends, good ones. He knew how to behave in society, he'd learned that stuff before he even came out of his test tube. He could take lessons at the Fortress or something to learn stuff. Maybe Aunt Martha could home school him. But he wasn't going to lie about who he was.

Kon stared at the door a moment, wondering where his Shakira poster was. He heard voices downstairs, Aunt Martha and Lois and Clark and a woman he didn't recognize. Good, he could find out what was going on. His exhaustion and hunger lead to him half stumble down the stairs, but he somehow managed to make it graceful. He hoped. "Hey, what's up? Where's Cassie? Did everyone make it out of the fight? Did Nightwing? Cause it was pretty hairy there and he's pretty bad ass but he doesn't have superpowers…"

He hit the bottom of the stairs and was suddenly in Bizzaro-World. It wasn't Clark… but it wasn't Superboy Prime either… Prime looked more or less Kon's age, but this Clark was older… twenties. Lois and the cute blonde were in their twenties too and… Aunt Martha was young!

"Uhm… Don't think I'm in Kansas anymore…" And the room went dark.