Disclaimer: I do not own either Young Justice or its related characters. Such are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.
Signals
Chapter Sixteen: Canon Reprise
Metropolis
April 2 – 2:00 pm
An object roughly the size of a basketball, when falling from space, can cause waves as high as forty feet when dropped in the ocean. An object roughly the size of a sixteen-year-old boy, when falling from space, causes waves dramatically larger.
Seawater washed over the bay area, flooding into the city. Boats were lodged into buildings. Smaller, lighter structures were washed away. People were dragged down by the surf.
Lois Lane's tires screeched on the pavement as she slammed her foot down on the break, pushing the pedal to the floor and throwing herself and Jimmy hard against their seatbelts. She kicked the car into reverse and drove backwards as fast as possible until she turned into a large parking structure. She did not stop until they had reached the roof-level of the solid concrete structure and the tidal wave was not-quite-harmlessly beneath them. The structure rocked slightly with the force, but remained otherwise undamaged. Lois heaved a sigh and took several calming breaths.
Never a dull day in Superman's town (whether he was actually in-town or not).
She took one more deep breath just to make sure she actually was calm before turning to Jimmy to ask, "What do ya think, mad scientist's under water base, aquatic alien visitor, marauding space bounty hunters, or Aquaman on his man-period?"
Jimmy took a bit longer to get his own nerves under control. He was a veteran side-liner to super-events but he lacked Lois' background, coming from a military home, and her under-developed sense of self-preservation. When he could finally get his voice under control enough to answer, he said, "I think it's amazing I don't have a nervous condition from living here, Ms. Lane."
She patted him on the shoulder. "Good man, Jimmy. Now get that camera out. We've got us another front page story that's just landed in our lap and Perry's gonna want photos of the whole thing."
The intrepid photographer unbuckled his seatbelt and reached behind his seat to retrieve his camera bag. They had been on their way to cover a union strike at the docks and so the camera was equipped with a short range, low aperture lends. But Jimmy switched it out for a telephoto easily enough and soon had climbed out of the car and was standing (at a conservative distance) from the parking roof's concrete railing, shooting three-hundred and sixty degrees of views of the disaster.
"Jee, Ms. Lane," he commented, "think of all the people that might've gotten caught in that."
"Camera on the action, Jimmy." She snapped quickly. But her cell phone was already to her ear –already ringing. "Lucy, its Lois, just checking to see if you're okay. I'm fine. Got other calls to make. Bye." She ended the call and pressed another speed-dial. "Clark! Just wanted to see if you're alive. Don't drown or I'll never be able to get you back for stealing that first Superman story! Bye." Hang up. A third speed-dial. "Perry, I'm already on in. Jimmy's with me. Stopping the presses is advised."
That done she returned her attention to the general chaos around her. She leaned over the concrete railing of the parking roof to get a better look at what had once been Hobs Bay and the surrounding area.
"And me without my swimsuit…"
…
Metropolis
April 2 – 2:15 pm
Mud was thick and heavy around him. Not because it was actually heavy, but because the force of his fall combined with the wet muck created a suction that pulled him down –his under-water crater filling in and burying him only seconds after impact. Superboy-Dark struggled to free himself from the bottom of the bay and when he was free up to his waist, he pushed up off the floor and propelled himself upwards.
He broke the surface with a gasp. Gulping in air greedily. Even kryptonians needed to breath.
Floating there, laying on the surface, he took a few moments to just breath. Gazing up at the slightly gray-blue overcast sky. He had landed in Delaware, he was sure of that. He had over-shot his target, landing just north of it instead. Superboy-Dark turned his gaze to the coastline to get his bearings and gauge just how far he'd have to go jumping before he got to Virginia.
The Metropolis skyline glinted back at him, its sparkling spires of steel and glass reflecting the dim afternoon sun.
Metropolis. That wasn't so bad.
Striking out with long strokes, Superboy-Dark swam to shore. What he found there was not what he had expected. The City of Tomorrow was completely flooded. Well, the bay area was flooded. It would take a tsunami far larger than anything he could have created to water-log the whole city (it was just to big), but all of Hobs Bay and much of the surrounding area was water-logged.
A moment of decision passed. His mind and body torn on the edge of a cusp.
Serve Darksied… Protect Earth…Leave Metropolis as it was and find Kal… Stay and do what he could to help… Kill Kal… Help Kal… Be the weapon he had been created to be… Be a hero like he wanted to be…
He stood, frozen in the chest-deep waters of Harbor Rd. Indecisive. And then… he heard a gurgle, sputter, cough… then just bubbles. Another gurgle, sputter cough, bubbles. Someone was near by, trapped by the sound of it, under the water and struggling to breath!
Superboy reacted instantly. He didn't think, he just acted. Following the sound, he found an over-turned boat-trailer –the kind people used to hitch smaller privately owned boats to their cars (the boat itself was nowhere to be found). With one hand he lifted the trailer, flinging it out to sea, and lifted a middle-aged man from beneath it. He coughed and heaved and wheezed, but he was breathing –he was alright.
"Thank you, Superman!" He gasped out when he could. If he noticed that Superboy-Dark was far younger than the older man in his prime that the city was used to seeing or that Superboy wore black rather than blue and red, he did not comment. His life had been saved and that made his rescuer super.
That was it. That was what did it.
Superboy-Dark made his decision. He would do what he could to help Metropolis, to save the city from this disaster (of his own making, though he was oblivious to that fact), and then he would track down and face Kal… and kill him. Once Kal was gone, then he could be the Superman, and in so doing he could fulfill both of his imperatives. Serve Darksied… Protect Earth…
…
Potomac
April 2 – 2:15 pm
Clark shot off the moment Bruce told him the object that had touched down in Hobs Bay might be Kon. He didn't pause to hear any other details the Dark Knight might have thought to share. If there was anything else important that he needed to know, his comm was on and the League could call him at any time. His main focus now was getting to his wayward son before anything else happened, shoving the headphones over his ears and wiping the enemy's mind-control from his brain. That was his priority, everything else came secondary.
The Batman, for his part, didn't even try to tell Clark to wait, slow down, lets think for a moment. As he had said in the Basement of the Pentagon building, he could rush off without pausing to think of a plan or even giving anyone else on his team a heads-up that he was taking off –in classic Superman fashion. If the Caped Crusader did react in any way, it was to grunt slightly. Of course, that might also have been the result of the Ribbon Warrior's most recent attack. Really, it was sometimes hard to tell with him.
…
Metropolis
April 2 – 2:20 pm
It was Lois' job to report the news, not make the news or be the news. However, this was a distinction she had come to ignore more and more over the years since Superman first appeared in Metropolis. She and Jimmy had descended from their parking structure haven down to street-level and were making their way through the (currently) knee-deep water of Harbor Rd. Towards the considerably deeper water of the bay area. It was slow goings, not only because they had to navigate through murky waters, dodging debris of every possible variety, but also because every time they found another person, the pair of them had to stop and help.
It was impossible to be friends with Superman and not develop the instinct to help others (and it was an instinct, not a habit or a tendency –it was like a drive).
Lois used a broken segment of… something to break the glass of a car's back windshield. She hammered at the tough safety glass a few more times until the hole was large enough for the woman and her two children trapped in the car to climb out. Youngest first, followed by her older sister, then the mother –all the while cautioning them against the broken glass. They were relatively calm considering all three of them had just been liberated from a half-submerged car. They must be locals. This theory was confirmed only moments later when the kids excitedly asked if Superman was fighting anyone and if they were gonna be on the news.
Jimmy, meanwhile, had his hands full with a man that was most decidedly an out-of-towner. It was not the small luggage case he was holding with a white knuckled death-grip that gave it away, nor was it the tourist map in his water-logged chest-pocket (although, these were indicators). No, the thing that convinced Jimmy he was not from around here was that he was utterly and completely and witlessly hysterical. Jimmy tried to get him up and to higher ground, but all he did was sit there and shiver, clutching his luggage case and muttering gibberish. Eventually, Lois and the family she had just rescued had to come over to help him.
This was the fashion in which the intrepid reports made their way into deeper waters, heading towards the bay to get their story.
While they were doing that, Superboy-Dark was wading his way farther inland, silently helping people as he went –already trying to fulfill his role as the new Superman for after he killed Kal.
Inevitably, they met in the middle.
An over-turned bus was blocking their path, preventing Lois and Jimmy from traveling any further down Harbor Rd. Jimmy suggested backtracking to find another rout to the bay that detoured around the blockade, but Lois insisted they find a way through. She soldiered on, climbing from a parked car that had been pushed up onto the sidewalk, then onto the bus –doing all of this in her heels and a skirt, I might add. Her heel caught in one of the bus' windows and she went tumbling over the other side, and would have been impaled on the broken remains of a Stop sign jutting up out of the water had she not been caught in two strong and very familiar feeling arms.
Lois instantly relaxed. Everything would be fine now. He was here.
Brushing her dark hair back out of her face and fluttering her long lashes, she gazed up at her rescuer and said, "Thank you, Supe- You're not Superman!"
"Nazgen khap." –I will be.
Lois blinked. She had no idea what he'd said, but she recognized the language as the same thing the robots at Superman's Fortress of Solitude spoke. It was Kryptonese. Had this been ten years ago, that knowlage would have comforted her, but she'd been captured, kidnapped, threatened, played and used by to many kryptonians, copies and imposters over the years to instantly trust a new kryptonian that just showed up out of the blue –especially one that spoke Kryptonese instead of English. No matter how much like Superman he looked.
Lois struggled in his arms.
He put her down.
"You didn't come from the Phantom Zone, did you?"
He gave her a blank stare. Either he didn't understand English or had no idea what the Phantom Zone was.
"Okay, different question: What's your opinion of Zod?"
Another blank look. Even if he didn't understand English, if he did come from the Phantom Zone, he should have definitely recognized the name 'Zod'. Okay, so he wasn't a kryptonian criminal. That was something… right?
"Ms. Lane? Are you okay?" Jimmy called from the other side of the bus.
"I'm fine, Jimmy!" She answered. Then, turning back to the young kryptonian whom looked so much like her own Superman she asked directly, "Who are you?"
Before the boy could answer, a very familiar and very welcome red and blue figure landed (rather abruptly) on his other side.
"Kon!" Superman all but barked.
Lois watched as the boy turned to face the Man of Steel. "Ukr-kah."
They obviously knew each other. But how they knew each other or what their real relationship exactly was could be anyone's guess. Lois' reporter's instinct practically hummed with excitement at this newest of Superman stories that had dropped into her lap. Really, sometimes she couldn't decide which she loved more, Superman –the man himself, or Superman –the stories she (almost exclusively) got to write about him. If only Clark hadn't beaten her to that very first Superman story a little over twelve years ago, she'd be the singular expert on all things Super (discounting Superman himself, of course).
"Lois, please move back." Superman called to her. He had long since given up asking her to get out of the area when things looked to be heading for a fight. Lois Lane never ran from a story. So, instead of saying 'get out of here', his standard warning became 'move back' or 'get back' depending on his level of agitation or how much of a threat he felt the opponent was. In this case, he did not feel very threatened, but was aware that the boy still presented a real danger.
Lois had to wonder just who the boy was. He really did look a lot like Superman. It was uncanny. They could almost be twins… except that the boy was so much younger than him.
"I don't want to fight you, Kon." He continued. "But I will if I have to. So please come quietly."
'Kon', so that must be his name. Lois pursed her lips as she climbed back onto the bus, found a semi-comfortable sitting position and pulled her notepad and a pen out of her purse. She made a note of the young stranger's name and noted that while most kryptonian names came in two parts separated by a hyphen, 'Kon' could not have been a complete name. That meant that Superman was either calling him by his surname or 'dynasty' (as he had done with Zod), which would imply they were not friends. Or, he was calling the boy by his given name without the dynasty attached, which would imply that they were intimately acquainted. As Lois understood it, only close friends and family referred to one another by their given names without their dynasty.
Just who was this boy? An estranged cousin whom had by some miracle also escaped the destruction of krypton and just so happened to fall to Earth? That sounded silly. What were the chances of that?
Well, Superman may not want to fight, but it looked like Kon certainly did. The two squared off against one another, just as Jimmy managed to climb up onto the bus next to her.
"Who's that?"
"I think his name's 'Kon'."
"He looks like Superman."
"I know."
"I mean really."
"I noticed."
"You think they could be related?"
"Camera on the action, Jimmy."
Lois watched as Kon lunged for the Man of Steel. But her Superman was far to fast for him and swerved to the side, smacking the boy down into the waist-deep waters of Harbor Rd. Well, he might be kryptonian, but he certainly wasn't as fast as her Superman was, or Zod had been. Maybe because he was so much younger? Or had he not been on Earth long enough to absorb enough yellow sunlight? She made a note of his lack of abilities on her pad along with the two possible explanations, reminding herself to look into it more indepthly later.
The kid knelt down, reaching deep under the water and pulled out a hubcap. He flung the disembodied car part at the Man of Steel like a frisbee, or an over-sized ninja star. Superman caught it effortlessly, tossing the disk aside like a used sock without a mate. But Kon didn't seem perturbed, in the half-second that the Man of Tomorrow was distracted he leapt into the air, coming back down on the older man's shoulders and slamming them both into the flooded street. The kid held him down, keeping his face under the surface –trying to drown him.
Lois anxiously bit her bottom lip. She knew her Superman had fought and endured much worse than this little punk, but that didn't mean that the sight of him in any kind of trouble didn't worry her. Her anxiety was unfounded, however, as the Man of Steel rolled over in the water, tangling his feet in the younger man's legs and sending him tumbling down into the water next to him. Superman regained his footing with a gasp.
He grabbed the kid by the back of his black costume and pulled his head above the water.
"Kon, I don't want to go through this with you a second time." Superman was saying. "I wasn't serious about fighting you the first time because I didn't want to hurt you, but if we continue like this you will get hurt."
So, Superman had fought the kid already. She made a note of that on her pad. Lois considered also noting that he was concerned about hurting the boy, but then again, her Superman was always so kind and caring that he worried about everyone and never wanted to hurt anyone –not even the enemies he fought.
The boy responded in Kryptonese, but Lois couldn't understand what was said. Her Superman had never deigned to share his language with her. But she did note that the kid kept calling Superman one word in particular. 'Ukr-kah.' She didn't know what it meant. If it was a derogatory term or meant something else, but she jotted it down all the same. One never truly knows what is and isn't important until it becomes important or is rendered irrelevant.
"Hey," Jimmy nudges her slightly, "remember last year in August? There was some incident at the Bay Bridge."
"Kinda." She admitted. "Something about the cables snapping or the support pillars breaking or something like that. Superman saved the bridge and everyone on it though."
Kon tried elbowing Superman in the face, but the Man of Steel caught the raised arm before the blow could connect and gave the boy a stern, reprimanding look of disapproval. Why was he even bothering being disciplinary and reprimanding with an enemy? Just who was this kid?
"Yeah, well, Perry sent me to cover it –kinda after the fact- and witnesses said there was a second meta there. A boy wearing the S-shield on his T-shirt who was almost as strong as Superman. Strong enough to lift sedans at least."
Lois returned her attention to the new kid. He was not wearing a T-shirt at all. In fact, his clothing did not resemble anything found on Earth. Skeptically, she asked, "You think he could be the same kid?"
Jimmy shrugged. "Maybe."
The kid, meanwhile, was currently being held by Superman in a position known as the 'bucket-handle', pinned against a surface (usually a wall) in this case the wind-barrier of a bus stop, his arm twisted painfully behind his back. Well, that hadn't taken long for her Superman to overpower him. But, then again, he was Superman. The kid didn't stay pinned for long though.
He kicked one foot backwards, the heel of his boot connecting with that most sensitive of places between the legs and –if Superman's sudden and pained "oof!" of alarm was any indication- connected rather hard. This Kon certainly didn't seem to have any qualms about fighting dirty. Superman let go of the kid and staggered a few paces backwards, cursing a string of kryptonian swears in a voice that was an octave or two higher than usual.
Kon took full advantage of the older man's stagger. He followed up his cheap crotch-shot with a punch to the gut, a left hook to the side of the face and an upper-cut to the jaw. Lois gasped as she watched her Superman get knocked off his feet by this punk kid in his red and black emo-goth Tron suit. The Man of Steel fell to the ground with a splash, but before he could recover, Kon was on his again.
Straddling the Superman, the kid held him down, closing his hands around the older man's throat. Trying to strangle the life out of his while forcing his head back under the water at the same time. It was then that Lois realized, he might look like a punk kid, but he was intent on killing the Man of Steel. Upon realizing that, our girl-reporter didn't think, she just reacted.
Seizing the closest thing to her (which happened to be a broken piece of brick), she lobbed it at the boy's head. He air was good and the projectile connected with the boy's ear. Kon turned to glare at her, but it was the glare one gave to a moth they were to lazy to squash –she wasn't worth his trouble, he'd probably forgotten all about her until her brick so eloquently reminded him that he had an audience.
But the distraction had helped her Superman. With the brief shift in attention, the kid's grip had loosened and his the last breath of air that had been left in his lungs before being forced under, the Man of Tomorrow let out a strong gust of his cold breath. The water directly over his face spraying upwards and freezing into solid ice. The result was a shaft of dry frozen water through which he could take a breath or two before Kon smashed it in frustration.
The kid grabbed one of the ice shards and tried to stab the Superman with it, but it just shattered uselessly on his chest. He was the Man of Steel, after all, and it was just ice. The Superman grabbed Kon's now empty hand by the wrist and rolled them both over, shoving the kid's face into the flooded street. He didn't hold him under the water long, just long enough to get a solid grip on both the boy's hands with only one of his own.
With the other hand, the Man of Steel reached behind himself to pull something from his belt that had been hidden by his cape. This piqued Lois' interest because Superman almost never carried things on his belt. That was a Batman thing, and while they did hangout a lot, she had never known either of them to swap habits. He withdrew what looked like ordinary noise canceling headphones. Well, that was an odd thing to carry. What did he plan to do with those?
"This is gonna hurt and I'm sorry about that, Kon." He said before jamming the headphones over the boy's ears and flicking a switch that Lois couldn't see. She knew there must have been one, however, because she saw his finger motion.
Kon let out a yelp of pain, his body suddenly jerking violently. Superman held him, hugging the boy to his chest in what might possibly have been intended to be comforting. Kon screamed and thrashed. Superman kept one arm wrapped firmly around the boy's shoulders while the other readjusted the headphones every now and again to make sure they stayed on and the boy's jerking didn't throw them off.
She climbed down from the bus, back into the water and waded over to them.
"Lois, I need you to stay back right now!" He snapped at her, voice laced with concern, though she didn't know if it was concern for her, the boy or both of them. Probably both of them considering that it was Superman.
…And then, the boy stilled. His cries ceased, his thrashing stopped, his body going still in Superman's arms. Unconscious.
Superman sagged with relief. "Thank Rao."
It was then that Lois resumed her approach. Coming up beside the Man of Steel she said, "He looks… like you." And then mentally kicked herself in the head for stating something so glaringly obvious. Great job, Lois! You'll really win a Pulitzer for that one. Then she asked, "Who is he?"
Superman was a long time in answering. He gathered the boy in his arms, expression shifting from hesitant, to guilty, to resigned. Finally he said, "He's… my son."
"What?"
He flew away.
"What!" Lois exclaimed a second time. "Come back here and say that again!"
…
(A/N: Disappointing anti-climactic fight is disappointing. But I'm getting a little tired of these long fights. I'm really more of a touchy-feely writer, I'm not so much with the action.)