Chapter Eight

Clark awoke on a bed in the Triskelion's sick bay, surrounded by Nick Fury, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clay Quartermain and Doctor Garner. He blinked a few times, unable to immediately process the faces he was seeing.

"He's awake," Nick said. "Thank God, I wasn't sure that would work."

Clark sat up. "Where am I?"

"You're at the Triskelion, Clark," Tony said. "It's the Ultimates' base of operations. Sorry to drag you here like this, but you inhaled some dust from one of those meteor rocks, and we weren't sure you'd-"

"What's HE doing here?" Clark asked, noticing Doctor Garner.

"Relax kid," Fury said. "This guy just saved your life."

"We used radiation to burn the invading substance out of your system," Garner explained. "Like chemotherapy."

"Well, considering you almost killed me before, I guess that makes us about even," Clark said gruffly. The memory regression experiments that Garner had done on Clark at Summerholt involved immersing him in a tank of what was essentially liquid kryptonite. The experiment had caused Clark to go into super-powered seizures, triggering a series of explosions in the lab that had left Garner in a coma.

Just then, something caught Steve Rogers' eye. In a flash, he grabbed Clay Quartermain's gun from the holster on his hip, spun around and aimed it at a dark corner of the ceiling.

"Show yourself!" Steve yelled. Everyone looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

Slowly, something moved toward them from the darkness. It quickly became apparent that it was the figure of a man, crawling along the ceiling. The man dropped down onto the floor in front of them and into the light. It was Peter Parker.

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to hurt Clark," Peter said, holding his hands up. Steve lowered the gun, then handed it back to Clay.

"Anything else you guys wanna tell me about this mission today?" Nick said with a sigh.

"Nick, this is Peter Parker," Tony said. "He's-"

"Spider-Man. I know," Nick finished.

Peter was surprised. "How do you know who I am?"

"Kid, we knew who you were within 24 hours of your first public appearance as Spider-Man," Nick explained. "We have a whole team of guys whose sole job is to keep tabs on all the costumed super-powered weirdos who pop up. That way we can determine who is a threat, and who isn't."

"Oh, yeah?" Clark said, getting up off the bed. "Well, I know who you are too, Director Fury." He walked right up to Nick. "Don't think I don't remember you. You were there that day the Green Goblin was flying around New York, dragging Lex Luthor behind him. You were the one who gave the orders to kill him, even if it meant killing Lex and Spider-Man along with him."

"Two of my best field agents, Hawkeye and Black Widow, both had clear opportunities to take the Goblin out," Fury said. "Then, lo and behold, you show up and catch an exploding arrow in your bare hands, and melt Widow's laser cannon just by looking at it."

"I wasn't about to let you hurt innocent people," Clark said, glaring at Fury.

"When a threat like the Green Goblin shows up, we make it our job to take that threat out quickly, efficiently, and without civilian casualty," Fury said. "Sometimes we have to go for two out of three. We'd seen before what the Goblin could do to this city, we were not about to give him a second chance."

"Well that's not acceptable," Clark said. "You call yourselves heroes. A real hero wouldn't let anyone get hurt. You have to hold yourself to a higher moral standard than that. You have to be better than the enemies you fight."

"Well that's real nice if you live in fairy tale land, kid," Fury said. "Why don't you spend a few minutes alone with Captain America and let him tell you about some of the things he saw in World War II. Or let Tony tell you about the time he spent as a P.O.W. There are evils in this world you've never had to face. Sooner or later you'll learn that sometimes you have to be just as ruthless as your enemies in order to win, and ensure the greater good for the rest of the world."

"And sooner or later you'll learn a lesson that a good friend of mine once told me." Clark glanced back at Peter for a moment, then turned and looked Fury in the eye. "And that is that with great power, comes great responsibility." Clark turned and headed for the door. "C'mon, Pete. Let's get out of here."

"Clark," Fury called after him. "There is one more thing we'd like to ask you, as long as you're here."

Clark stopped. "What's that?" he asked, not bothering to turn around.

"We found an artifact in Addis Ababa some time ago. It has some writing on it that we've never been able to decipher. We've consulted everything from ancient hieroglyphics to the Rambaldi notebooks, but it doesn't match up with anything we've ever seen," Fury said. "That is, nothing except the writing in the caves beneath Smallville."

Clark slowly turned and faced General Fury.

"Clark," Tony spoke up. "Can you really read that language?"

"Even if I could," Clark said. "Why would I tell you what the artifact says?"

"Because I won't show it to you unless you agree to tell us," Fury said. "And I have a feeling you want to know just as bad as we do."

"How do you know I won't just grab it and run off, or give you a fake translation?" Clark asked.

"Yeah, I suppose you could do that," Fury said. "But after that great speech you just gave me about having a higher moral standard, that would make you something of a hypocrite, now wouldn't it?"

Clark looked at Peter, then back at Fury. He paused for a long moment as he thought it over. Fury had him. If he really did have an artifact with Kryptonian writing on it, then Clark needed to see it. Maybe it could tell him something more about his home world, and what his purpose on Earth was.

"Okay," Clark said, reluctantly. "Let me see it. I'll tell you what it says."

Nick Fury nodded to Quartermain, who stepped out of the room for moment. He returned a minute later, carrying a metallic cylinder. It was roughly a foot long and about six inches in diameter. Carved into the side of the cylinder was a series of Kryptonian symbols.

Quartermain handed the cylinder to Nick, who held it out in front of Clark.

"Can you read this?" Nick asked.

"Yes," Clark said. He read the symbols over and over, understanding what they said but not entirely what they meant.

"Well? What does it say?"

Clark reached out and took the artifact from Nick's hands. He read the message aloud, slowly. "It says, 'This is The Eradicator, the creation of Jor-El. Its purpose is to preserve the glory of Krypton.'"

"Do you know how it works?" Tony asked.

Clark turned the cylinder over in his hands. On the end of the cylinder was a recession in the shape of an octagon, like a keyhole.

"Yeah," Clark said, quietly. "I think I may have an idea."