Superman: New Heights
Chapter Two
Clark picked up his bags and walked out of the house with a big smile, while Martha waited at the gate of the farm.
"I can't believe this is happening," chuckled Clark, as a tear came to Martha's eyes. She hugged Clark tightly, as if she would never let him go. Clark grinned as he pulled away, Martha wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Are you sure the place you found is a good place to stay?" asked Martha.
"It is. The rent is low, and the neighborhood is good too. Plus, it's near the Daily Planet," replied Clark, noticing that his mother was holding a picture.
"Oh, it's a picture of us. Well, us and John," said Martha, handing Clark the photo. It was a photograph of Clark, Martha, and his father, Jonathan, standing in front of their field.
Clark uncontrollably smiled as he held the image, putting it carefully in his backpack that was slung across his shoulder.
"Guess I should take off then?" asked Clark, lifting his bags with ease.
"See you around," replied Martha, wiping another tear. Clark smiled as he took off into the sky, holding onto the bags as well as the backpack on his shoulder. Staying above the clouds, he flew away from Smallville and in the direction of Metropolis.
Clark looked back and saw the town of Smallville slowly fade away, as he heard the train down below. He smiled to himself as the massive city of Metropolis came closer and closer.
Clark quickly zoomed into an alleyway, pulled out his old phone, and checked where he was.
"Holt Avenue…okay so the apartment should be right-HEY!"
As soon as Clark walked out of the alleyway, a man bumped into him. Clark didn't fall, however, and instead, the man tumbled down.
"Watch where you're going, jackass!" exclaimed the man, scrambling to his feet and walking off. Before Clark could even react, someone else bumped into his travel bag and almost tripped.
"What are you, a statue?!" exclaimed the second man. Clark adjusted his glasses and quickly got off the sidewalk, only to almost get himself hit by a car.
"Jesus, are you blind?!" yelled the driver, flipping off Clark. He stifled a laugh and quickly ran across the street. People were walking up and down the sidewalk like currents of electricity.
Clark walked in the direction of his apartment according to his phone and walked up to a grey building on the side of the street. It seemed relatively old, but at the same time was about 20 stories high.
He walked inside the building, which looked relatively stable. Clark walked up to the elevator and to the 9th floor, into the hallway, and to his door.
"You must be Clark Kent?" asked a voice. Clark turned around to see an older man with an Irish accent.
"That's me. I assume you're the landlord?" asked Clark.
"Yep. Name's Ivan," he said, shaking Clark's hand. "Rent is due at the end of each month," he continued, getting right to the point as he gave Clark a pair of keys. Clark nodded and opened the door to his apartment.
The apartment seemed quite small, with a shelf right next to the door and a bed at the end of the room. In front of the foot of the bed was a desk and a kitchen, and a large window. Next to the desk was the bathroom.
Clark placed his bags under the desk, before taking out the photo and putting it on the desk. He looked out the window, with the view obscured by a larger building. The globe on top of the Daily Planet was visible from the window, however.
He smiled as he looked back at the bags. In an instant, he had set up the whole apartment, which seemed to get even more cramped after he had unpacked.
"Great, now time to get ready," said Clark, as he quickly threw on a suit and tie, quickly flying out of the window and to the Daily Planet.
"Lombardo, you're on sports today! Jack, headline: "Mysterious Tremors Hit City, Lexcorp To Blame?". Speaking of which, Lane, give me an update on the situation!" commanded a man, walking through the cubicles on the top floor of the Daily Planet.
"C'mon Perry, sports again? Metropolis Bulls wipe the floor with Gotham Knights, what else is new?" protested Lombardo, but it fell on deaf ears.
"Lexcorp was seen trucking away from the Smallville Canyon. From the looks of it, they had found something," said Lane, to Perry.
"I want you to follow up on that. And you, where's my coffee?" asked Perry, pointing at Clark.
"Uh, I'm Clark. Clark Kent. I'm the intern," bumbled Clark, taken aback by Perry's sudden order.
"Did I ask? Lois, show him the ropes. Come to my office once you're done!" ordered Perry, before speed-walking to his office space on the other end of the room.
Clark turned to Lois, who was busy clacking away on a keyboard.
"Ahem, hi. Perry said you would sh-show me around?" stuttered Clark. 'Get it together, Kent!' he scolded himself.
"Yeah hi, I'm Lois Lane, that's Lombardo, that's Jack, and Jimmy is gone... somewhere. This is the Daily Planet where we sit and work, like I'm doing right now," replied Lois sarcastically, in a robotic, flat voice, without taking her eyes off of her keyboard.
Clark nodded and sat down at a cubicle, unsure of what to do. Lois sighed and looked back at him.
"I handle investigative journalism. Jack works on media affairs. Lombardo, unfortunately, does sports," explained Lois. "You're the intern, right? I imagined you taller," she joked.
"Right, I just graduated from Smallville University. I've read your by-line a couple of times," said Clark, trying his best to not sound like a stalk. Lois chuckled a little.
"Yeah, I was just like you a year back. Feeling like a fish out of water, unsure of what to do. Being an intern kinda sucked for me," said Lois, patting Clark sarcastically on the back.
"So what'd you do then?" asked Clark.
"Eh, snuck into Lexcorp, found evidence of illegal- sorry, "off the books" activity, and published it," said Lois, matter-of-factly.
"Just like that? Despite Lex Luthor?" inquired Clark. Lois scoffed.
"Lex Luthor is nothing but a dude who has all the money and brains in the world but lacks the common sense to get a toupee. He's like Bruce Wayne if Bruce Wayne wasn't like, insanely hot," joked Lois.
"Lex could've sued you, he didn't?" asked Clark.
"Oh no, he did. Sued the whole Planet, in fact. Luckily, they settled out of court. Lex basically said that beefing with a newspaper company was beneath him and a waste of his time," replied Lois.
"Right," replied Clark. He was stunned at how brave Lois seemed to be.
"Hey, you're from Smallville, right? Did you ever hear of Lexcorp hanging around Smallville Canyon? I know it's like a historical place, but did you notice anything….odd there?" asked Lois.
Clark hesitated. 'Should I tell her about the scientist? What if it's nothing big, or what if it is something big and she gets into trouble?' asked Clark, to himself.
"There was a scientist there when a part of the canyon caved in. He said Lexcorp had gotten some artifact, but I don't know what it was," replied Clark, against his better judgment.
"Well, that's a start. Thanks, Smallville," replied Lois. Clark lightly chuckled as he began to walk to Perry's office.
"Uh, Mr. White?" asked Clark, knocking on the door.
"Come in!" said Perry, less authoritative than he sounded before. Clark gingerly stepped into his office, closing the door while Perry cleared his throat.
"Kent, it's good to have you here," said Perry, extending a handshake.
"Good to be here," smiled Clark, making sure to not keep his handshake too firm.
"I wanted to tell you that for the first few weeks now, you'll be working with Lane. Getting a hang of the ropes, essentially. Make sure to keep a close eye, she can move really fast with stuff," explained Perry.
"Got it. When do I start?" asked Clark.
"Tomorrow. I'll inform Ms. Lane too," said Perry. Clark nodded and walked out of the door, back to his cubicle.
"What the hell is going on?" asked the man who walked into the laboratory. He wore a black and white suit, and his voice seemed to boom despite it not being as loud. What was most striking was his bald head, which made him seem much more intimidating.
"Mr. Luthor, sir! The crystal gave off some sort of signal, so we decided that it was best to cordon off the place until we can make sure it's safe," explained a scientist in a hazmat suit. He was on the other side of a bulletproof plexiglass wall. The only way to access the other side was via an airlock chamber.
"Show me," replied Lex. One of his men handed him a green hazmat suit. Lex put it on, before walking through the airlock chamber. He entered the other side of the room and completely ignored the scientists, instead walking up to the crystal.
"It sent a signal, sir. Some sort of radio wave, we believe," explained Rudy, one of the scientists there.
Lex carefully held the crystal in its hand, observing its structure. He could still feel it pulsating in his hand, giving off some kind of energy. His eyes were enamored by the sheer complexity of it, how it seemed to have hundreds of faces and yet was almost indistinguishable from a large purple diamond.
"This isn't of terrestrial origin," said Lex, looking back at Rudy. "Run more tests, I want to know its exact chemical composition. Macromolecular or not, I want to know the fundamental elements that it's composed of," said Lex, walking through the airlock and taking off the hazmat suit.
"Sir, isn't that a little dangerous?" asked the scientist next to Rudy. Lex gave him a cold hard stare.
"Discovery doesn't stop in the face of danger. It's the bravery of men before us that got us where we are. And it's our duty to take the people coming after us to new heights," said Lex.
Rudy swallowed hard as he stared back at the crystal, unsure of what to do about it.
"Somebody stop that dude!" shouted a man, running out of a store. He was chasing a man wearing a ski mask, and carrying a bag of cash and a holstered gun.
All of a sudden, the man saw a red-blue blur rushing toward him. And before he knew it, he found himself unconscious on the ground, with his gun broken in two and the bag of money in the manager's hands.
"What the hell?" asked the manager.
In a different district, a car was speeding down the road, with the driver yelling at the top of his lungs.
"It's not stopping!" he screamed, slamming the brakes with what looked like Herculean strength. That's when his worst fear came true: A little boy and his mom were crossing the street, and he was barrelling right toward them.
"NO!" he shouted, swerving the car. The car hit a manhole and flipped in the sky, the hood about to land directly on the boy and his mother.
Just then, Superman dashed at what looked like the speed of light, holding the car in mid-air, right above the mother and child.
"Woah, how'd you do that?!" exclaimed the boy, while his mom looked shocked.
"Uh…eat your green vegetables?" suggested Superman, putting the car down. The man crawled out, both in shock and awe.
"Y-You're Superman! From Smallville!" he exclaimed, as bystanders whipped their phones out to record him. Superman chuckled as he humbly held his arms up, zooming off into the atmosphere.
Superman flew through his apartment window and into his cramped home. Exhaustion seemed to have overcome him for the first time.
"Just need to rest…I start work…tomorrow…"
Before he could even finish his thought, he was out like a lamp.
"Where am I?" asked Clark, opening his eyes and finding himself staring into the moon. The ground smelled earthy and felt much rougher than the bed he was last sleeping on.
In an instant, Clark jumped to his feet, realizing that he was in some sort of cave. Or rather, once he looked up to the sky, he felt as if he had fallen through a crack in the Earth.
"I'm in Smallville Canyon? How did I get here?" asked Clark, looking around. Just then, he heard something from behind one of the walls next to him. It was almost like a heartbeat, pulsating rhythmically.
A light purple glow seemed to emanate through the wall. Clark inched closer and closer, the pulsating faster and louder. He punched his hand through the wall and broke it down.
In front of him was a purple floating crystal. Clark was enraptured by it, his eyes seemed to dance along with the crystal's many rotating faces. Instinctively, he put out a hand to touch it.
"What is this- WOAH!"
Before Clark could even think, a vision seemed to hit him in the head like a hammer. For only about a split-second, he saw the crystal in a laboratory in the Lexcorp building, then what looked like a large purple creature destroying a building, and what looked like an all-black humanoid, standing over the flames of Metropolis.
"AAH!" shouted Clark, as he jumped out of bed. He was sweating from every part of his body.
"What the hell?" he asked, completely disoriented. His clock read 3:26 am.
"It was all a…a dream? It can't be…" thought Clark. The dream felt so surreal; he was able to feel everything single aspect of the dream, especially the sheer power of the crystal.
"Lexcorp. I might as well go check," said Clark to himself, quickly getting into his outfit and flying out of the window. Even though it was the middle of the night, Metropolis still looked like people were heading to work. Cars still populated the late streets and lights still illuminated the windows of large buildings.
Superman smiled as he flew over Metropolis. "I'm not in Smallville anymore, am I?" he asked himself, flying to the large tower in the center of Metropolis. He began to hear the pulsating again.
"It's here…" he thought, using his X-Ray vision to scan the whole building. However, floor 52 seemed to be a blind spot for his X-ray vision.
"The room is lead lined. To contain radiation?" asked Superman to himself. He drifted closer, and the pulsating grew faster and faster. It was definitely in Floor 52.
5 MINUTES EARLIER
Rudy sipped on his coffee as he walked inside the laboratory, groaning as he once again sat behind the desk in the observation room.
"And as always… the crystal is just sitting there. Doing nothing. Heh, even Alex decided to skip today," thought Rudy, as he decided to go through the reports on the spectroscopic analysis of the crystal he was conducting.
"Hope this makes Luthor happy. Hell, maybe he'll finally grow some hair on that bald head of his," grunted Rudy, gritting his teeth. He flipped through the report produced by the mass spectrometer. Thanks to Lexcorp's technology, Rudy could carry out the analysis without even touching the crystal or loading it into the machine.
As soon as he read through the report, his eyes seemed to bulge out of his skull.
"The properties that the crystal is made of…match nothing on the Periodic Table! This would be beyond Element 118, hell beyond Element 130!" exclaimed Rudy out loud, holding his head.
He looked back at the crystal, only to see it…vibrate? It wasn't just sending out one signal now, it seemed to be sending a constant stream of radio waves every second.
"WOAH!" exclaimed Rudy, quickly putting on his hazmat suit and running through the airlock chamber, into the laboratory. The energy emanating from the crystal seemed to be pushing him away, almost like an invisible, protective force.
All of a sudden, the window behind the laboratory shattered, and Rudy saw a familiar face floating in front of it.
"Superman! What are you doing here?" asked Rudy, both surprised and worried.
Superman looked even more worried. He could tell the energy the crystal was emitting was too dangerous for any human.
"Dr. Jones, I need you to step back!" exclaimed Superman, setting foot in the laboratory.
"W-What are you doing? N-NO! DON'T!" shouted Rudy, trying to push Superman away. But Clark didn't budge. Somehow, the crystal seemed to be calling to him, and he was being pulled toward it like the opposite end of a magnet.
"DON'T!-"
Before Rudy could finish, Superman touched the crystal. As soon as his first skin cell made contact with the brilliant surface of the crystal, a massive explosion of fire and radiation occurred from it. Rudy was sent flying through the plexiglass of the observation room, and the last thing Superman saw was a radiant, white-hot light, before everything around him went black.
Superman opened his eyes, only to find himself freezing and shivering. His hair, and his suit, seemed to be covered in snow.
"The hell?" asked Superman, realizing he was lying on a soft bed of snow. The sky above him was pitch black, but lit by the beautiful Aurora Borealis dancing amongst the stars.
"The Arctic Circle? Why am I here?" he asked himself, ruffling the snow out of his hair.
Superman groggily got to his feet and turned around, only to have his jaw drop to the floor.
In the middle of the Arctic Circle, right in front of him, stood a massive structure made entirely of ice crystals, as sharp as knives which were arranged diagonally and pointed to the sky. It looked like a fortress, and Superman heard the same pulsating from the crystal coming from the heart of the majestic structure.