Fifteen years later-2172CE
"Ok we'll take John"
"We get Pete then, leaving you with Clark!" laughed the boy.
"No way, you can get Clark!" yelled back the other team leader.
"Guys, don't worry about it, I didn't want to play anyway" said the remaining boy in the lineup.
"Good, first team to the baseball field hits first!" said one of the teenagers as the rest of the group took off running the field.
Clark watched them run off, sighed and began walking in the other direction. He slid up his grandfather's glasses on his face and put his hands in his pockets. It was a nice summer day without a cloud in the sky. Clark walked over to the bike rack, unchained his bicycle and started peddling down the long road.
He had lived in Smallville his whole life and loved it. The rest of the world was being introduced to the ways of the galaxy, meeting aliens and learning a new way of life, but Smallville remained the same. New farming methods and more advanced technologies were brought to the farm town, but all in all, the realization that humans were not alone in the galaxy did not change Smallville.
Clark rode along the side of the road, admiring the houses and cornfields on his way home. He remembered being captivated as a child with the idea of real aliens existing. But as time went on, this idea began to intrigue Clark more and more.
At an early age, his parents had told him it would not be a good idea to play sports with other children after his father and him had played baseball for the first time. Clark just remembers his father looking for the baseball for hours in their neighbor's cornfield after he had done just as his father told him; hit the ball as hard as he could.
Clark realized a few years ago that he had never once been to the doctor, after many of his classmates talked of regular visits to the doctor. He asked his mother and she always said it was because he was perfectly healthy.
While Clark was thinking about the strange occurrences in his life, he noticed the corn stalks he was riding beside were turning into a green blur and so stopped pedaling to slow down. Going a normal speed again, Clark's thoughts drifted to seeing the rest of the galaxy and if he'll ever meet a real life alien one day. He smiled at the thought and then veered from the road into his family farm's road, which had a small sign out front of it reading: Kent Farm.
He rode up the dirt road towards the large red barn next to the house. Stopping the bike next to it and hopping off, he took off his glasses to clean the dirt off. Clark knew he didn't need them to see, but a few years ago he had been going through a trunk from his late grandfather and found them. He liked the way he looked in them and started wearing them around the house. His parents smiled at the idea and let him continue to wear them, saying he looked handsome in them.
"Dad?" Clark yelled out, putting the glasses back on.
"In the barn, son!" called back the stern voice. Clark followed the voice into the large red barn. He began looking around and heard his father's grunts from across the barn. "Give me and hand over here!" Clark came to where his father was and realized his dad was underneath the semi-new tractor they bought a while back.
"Is the tractor broke again?" asked Clark, kneeling next to where his father's legs were showing from underneath the dirty tractor.
"Yeah, eezo assisted tractor of the future they said, yeah right" the man scooted himself from under the tractor. Clark offered his hand and helped his father to his feet.
"Anything I can do to help?" asked Clark. His father looked at him wiping his hands with a cloth.
"Actually yes, you should get down there and fix it, instead of your old man doing it" he laughed, putting a hand on his son's shoulder. "I've been working on it all day; see if you have the magic touch. I'll see if I can get it started."
Clark smiled, unbuttoning his shirt revealing a white undershirt as he slid under the tractor. He started to tighten some of the bolts under the tractor and adjust other fuel lines. His father had hopped into the seat of the tractor, shifting the vehicle slightly on top of the stands.
"Okay, give it a try now" shouted Clark from the floor. Jonathon shifted the gear, putting some muscle behind it as the engine roared to life.
"There we go! Good work, son" Jonathan said as he sat upright putting his hands on his knees. The motion was just enough to shift the tractor off its stands and fall half a foot to the ground. The sudden impact caused the engine to make weird noises and stall out.
"Clark!" exclaimed Jonathan leaping off the seat to examine the bottom of the tractor. The fall had bent the Kevlar tires outwards, causing the bottom of the tractor to lie on the barn floor. "Clark!" yelled Jonathan again, trying to lift the massive piece of machinery up himself. He started to quickly look around the barn for anything he could use to jack up the tractor.
Jonathan was rummaging through steel rods when he heard the tractor shift. He stopped what he was doing and looked at the farm machine. To his surprise, the tractor started to rise slightly off the ground on the side where Jonathan couldn't see. The farmer slowly walked around the tractor and watched wide-eyed as he saw his son crawl from underneath the tractor while holding the tractor up with one hand.
"Son…Clark are you okay?" slowly said the shocked father. Clark was on his knees and carefully got up, with Jonathan helping him to stand.
"I think so," Clark said as he rubbed a bruise on the side of his head, "what happened?"
"The tractor fell…" Jonathan said choosing his words carefully. Clark looked at the bent out wheels of the tractor, realizing he should have been crushed by the one ton piece of machinery.
"Dad, how did I-?" Clark stopped himself halfway looking to his father. Jonathan looked back to his son with a face of despair.
"Son, I think we need to talk" the farmer said as the put a hand behind his head and slowly walked out of the barn.
Later Clark sat in the living room with his mother and father both standing in front of him. The bruise on Clark's head had disappeared, healing by the time him and his father had got the house. Jonathan put an arm around his wife, Martha, and looked sympathetically at his son.
"Clark, when you were younger, we told you that we had adopted you. The truth is that is not entirely accurate" started his father.
"We were coming back from picking up supplies in town, taking a detour home to drop off some tools we had borrowed" Martha said looking at her son. "There were no signs or warning when it happened, but out of nowhere something crashed in the abandoned field next to us." Clark was sitting upright in the couch, with eyes intent on listening to every word.
"We got out and looked for what it might have been and were amazed to hear something crying. As we got closer, we saw…something, and it opened up and we saw you laying there, crying."
Clark's eyebrows raised and a smile stretched across his face, "So, what, I'm an alien?" Jonathan was looking down at the floor and slowly panned up to his son's eyes, saying nothing. Clark saw that his parents were sincere and his smile faded. He looked down and started to breathe heavier.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"We didn't really know how to tell you, we're sorry Clark" explained his mother.
"I need to show you Clark" slowly said his father to his shocked son. Clark looked to his dad with curious eyes.
Martha stayed in the house, feeling this was between Jonathan and Clark. Jonathan led Clark far out into the back cornfield. Clark had been out in the backfield hundreds of times and had no idea where his father was leading him. Far from the house and barn, Jonathan stopped and stared at the ground.
"Bet you didn't know that your great-great grandfather was involved with Prohibition did you?" Jonathan said without taking his eyes off the ground. He continued, "He built a secret cellar way out here to hide his stash from neighbors and authorities. It was cleared out years ago and forgotten…help me find the door."
Jonathan and Clark sifted through the dirt, digging some with their hands until Jonathan found the handle. The handle had an old pad lock, but years of rust, dirt and decay had left it impossible to put the key in.
"Hey Clark, do you mind?" gestured Jonathan, giving up on the lock. His son was curious as to what was down in the makeshift cellar and so walked over and grasped the handle. In one swift motion he lifted up and tore the pad lock off its hinge, opening the wooden door.
Jonathan reached for the pen like flashlight on his belt and shined it into the darkness of the hole. He climbed down the ladder that stuck out and gestured his son to follow. Clark also had a flashlight and had reached the bottom of the damp cellar and began to look around. The cellar had empty shelves and cob webs everywhere. It was clear no one had been down there in years. Jonathan walked through two rows of empty shelves to the back of the cellar. He shined his light on a large blanketed object.
"This is it" stated Jonathan, "this is what brought you to us. Ready son?" Clark stared at the covered object with thoughts racing through his head. Clark grabbed the tarp covering the object, but before he could pull it off his father put a hand on his shoulder.
"Son, no matter what happens, your mother and I are your parents and you were raised by us" smiled the proud father to his son. Clark smiled and nodded back as both his father and him grabbed the tarp and lifted it off the object. Clark stared at the pod in front of them. It had smooth metallic edges that formed an almost cone around a crystalline center.
"I didn't know what to do with it when we found you, it's lighter than it looks and so I loaded it into the truck and brought it here." He saw his son walking around the ship, "The canopy closed as soon as you were taken out of it and it has just been here ever since."
"This can't be real" Clark uttered to himself under his breathe.
"I wish I had the answers son, but I don't" nodded Jonathan, looking at Clark. Clark had walked all the way around the ship, stopping when something caught his attention.
"There's something here" Clark said as he pointed to a part of the ship. Jonathan walked over to where his son was and noticed the small square imprint on the side of the ship.
"That wasn't there before" whispered Jonathan.
Clark was hesitant, but began to reach out to the imprint, which was no bigger than his palm. He looked to his father, who stood next to him and nodded in support. As Clark's hand got closer to the imprint, he started to hear a slight hum. His heart was racing now and his hand was inches from the smooth metal. Taking one last deep breathe, Clark touched the imprint with his hand, causing the hum to become louder.
Lights ignited down the edges of the cone shaped metal of the ship as it started to rise off the ground. The ship was now two feet off the ground as the canopy opened with more lights inside. The ship just hovered with the hum intensifying as Jonathan put a hard hand on Clark's shoulder.
"Amazing to think you were once that small" he smiled to his son as they watched the bright lights dance across the old cellar. Clark didn't take his eyes off the ship, when after a few seconds the humming stopped.
"My son" the voice seemed to come from the ship, but both Clark and Jonathan could hear it all around them and in their heads. The lights inside the canopy flickered when the voice spoke.
"My son, I am Jor-El, your father. If you are hearing this, I and the rest of our people are long dead. You are Kal-El, the last son of Krypton. You were sent away to so that you would be spared of our fate. I have sent you to Earth, home to a primitive yet endearing race. I hope you have found a good home there." There was a pause in the computers voice, "No doubt you have realized on Earth you will be different, my hope is that together we will learn and harness your talents for a greater good. When you are ready my son, place your hand on the indentation once more, and we will discover your destiny."
The voice then faded as the ship once more closed its canopy and started to lower to the ground. The lights faded as the ship returned to its cold, dark state in the middle of the cellar. Clark and Jonathan looked at each other and then slowly walked out of the cellar, back to the house.
Weeks past, Martha and Jonathan tried to let life continue as it was, but they knew everything was different now. Clark was quiet for days. He tried to go to school and spend time with friends, but the thought of his true father's voice was always with him.
A month had passed; the Kents were getting ready for dinner when Clark came from the barn, after spending time in there all day. Before dinner was served he made the announcement that he was going back to Jor-El, to understand who he is and why he was sent away. His parents understood and had what could be their last family meal together. That night he said his goodbyes, as his parents told him they will always love him.
Clark walked out of the barn in the dead of night. He slowly made his way to his great-great grandfather's old cellar, opening it and climbing down. He set the tiny flashlight on a shelf overlooking the ship. Clark stopped and stared at the ship. He knew this was it. He didn't know what would happen, but he did know that he had to find out. Realizing it was now or never, Clark placed his hand on the imprint.
This time the ship did not open, instead the crystal part of the ship started to glow white as the metallic sides were absorbed into the shining crystal. The light was so intense, Clark had to shield his eyes and squint into the light. The light began to shrink and fade as Clark gazed through the darkness.
The ship had molded and shifted itself into a small, hexagonal crystal rod with pointed ends. The crystal was about just over six inches long and was left hovering where the ship used to be. Clark reached for the crystal and realized that it was much heavier than the tiny crystal appeared. Clark assumed that the crystal was very dense, weighing as much as the ship did. As he held it, Jor-El's voice started inside Clark's head.
"Kal-El, there is much to learn and discover. In time we will unravel all there is to know about how Earth will shape your destiny"
Clark's eyes widened as the crystal started to glowed brightly again, engulfing the cellar in light. Then the light vanished, leaving only an empty cellar.