FROM THE FIRST FATHER TO THE LAST SON
"Three," Jason held up 3 fingers and put on a mournful expression. "Can Uncle Clark come with me to the dentist?"
"Three!" Clark exclaimed. "Ouch. Uncle Clark would love to come with you. I'll talk… he'll talk with your mother tomorrow. But right now," He shooed Jason onto the bed. "You need to get in bed."
Clark silently watched his seven-year-old son climb into bed. So many emotions welled up inside of him: love, joy, pride, gratitude, amazement. He still couldn't believe this amazing kid was his. He couldn't believe he had a kid at all.
"Awe! Tell me a little bit more," Jason pleaded. He wiggled under the covers and into a comfortable position. "Tell me about the First Father's spaceship."
Clark smiled and settled himself on the edge of Jason's bed. He could still hear Lois and Richard conversing in the kitchen on the floor below. They still had a few minutes. "The First Father didn't have just a regular kind of spaceship. Remember I explained to you about the different types of spaceships?"
"Interplanetary, inter…" Jason paused for a moment. "…interstellar, and … intergalactic."
"Awesome, gimme five!" They shared a high five. "So Argo City was like a … ginormous intergalactic spaceship. But it was more than that. It was actually an entire city… with homes, stores, factories, parks, schools…"
Jason scrunched his nose.
"Yes, it even had schools," Clark chuckled. "Come on, you like school. Anyway, Argo City was the First Father's spaceship. He flew it all over the universe hunting down the Apokai. After he defeated them, he brought all the children that he rescued… well, just the Krpytonian children I guess, with him on Argo City back to Krypton. He landed the city on the ground and it became just like any other regular city. Most of our family came from there. We had a strong connection to the city for over a thousand generations. Although some, like my father, moved away."
Jason was more interested to hear about tales of war, daring acts of bravery, and cunning intrigue than about regular cities and families. He tried to steer the subject back to the exciting stuff. "What were the weapons like that he used to fight the Apokai? Were they like bombs and stuff like that?"
"It's funny you should ask that. I mean, there are all sorts of weapons. Some of them explode like bombs people use on Earth. Some weapons would shoot projectiles like guns, and some shot lasers like you see in movies sometimes. But there's a tradition that the First Father didn't have those normal kinds of weapons."
"What do you mean, tradition?" Jason asked.
"It's just…" Clark searched for the right words. "…. things that were passed down from one generation to another. No one ever chronicled… uh… wrote down or recorded anything about that period in our history. There were no historians… no official historical records of any kind. So everything we know was just passed down mostly by word of mouth. We don't really know if any of it actually happened, but it was an important part of our culture and our lore – for all Kryptonians, but especially for our family."
"Our family cuz the First Father was your great great great great gre gre gre gre gr gr grrrrrreat grandfather."
"Right."
"And you're the Last Son."
"Yeh," Clark replied a bit unenthusiastically.
"But what about the weapons? How did he defeat the Apokai?"
"There's a tradition that the First Father had a secret weapon."
"What was it?
"I don't know," Clark chuckled. "It was a secret."
"But how…"
Clark held up his hand. "Hush," he whispered. "She's coming. I don't want to get in trouble again." He grinned at Jason, kissed him on the head, and wooshed out the window.
Lois walked in a few moment later to find Jason "sleeping" peacefully. She walked over to the window and closed it, shaking her head in exasperation. She was going to have to give Superman another lecture about children and open second-story windows.
