The Last Son of Krypton... or Maybe Not? (Vash x SHARPii)

[X-Vash00]

Home. By definition home is the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. According to Ma Kent's plaque though, home is where the heart is. Clark Kent did fit into the first part of the literal definition, though Earth didn't have the feeling of home or where his heart was. Clark, or rather Kal-El, was (emphasis on the was) from the planet of Krypton. He was sent to Earth by his biological parents to escape the destruction of his home planet when he was only a baby. Clark could not recall any of those memories, but he wished he could; any sort of fragment of actual memory of his mothers face or his fathers voice would do. The only thing left was recordings of the image and the voice of his father, Jor-El, and pictures of his mother. Nothing real, or real to him at least. He didn't even know about all of this until three years ago when Ma and Pa showed him the rocket they found him in as a baby.

The rocket was nothing like he had ever seen before, sleek and aerodynamic that looked nothing from Earth. Inside the rocket was a red blanket and a crystal that began speaking to him as soon as he touched it. Compelled to follow the voices instructions he packed up everything he could fit into a duffle bag and left home. It took about six months for him to work his way up to the point where the voice stopped. He now found it useless and tossed it into the icy tundra of the North Pole, the spot where the voice stopped. The crystal sunk into the ice and then the ice shook. Clark stood his ground until the crystal he threw in rose from the ice as a crystalline fortress. He stepped inside and was sealed within. After that the room darkened and a holographic image of a stoic man appeared in the center of the room, he introduced himself as Jor-El...his Kryptonian father.With Clark still questioning this, Jor-El proceeded to teach Clark everything about his Kryptonina heritage and abilities, he even taught him about Earth. By the time Jor-El finished, two Earth years had already passed. Clark didn't know what to make of what his father told him, he had nowhere left to go. Nowhere except home to Smallville. Before Clark left his father had given him a mission to use these powers for the greater good, to help these primitive people advance forward for the better. Jor-El's final words were, "You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble... They will fall... But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." After that, Clark took his leave.

Using the powers that Jor-El described Clark flew home to see his adoptive parents, but he only flew home to receive grief. Pa Kent had passed away two weeks before Clark returned. He didn't know how to handle it, both of his fathers were now dead, he was the last of his kind, and now he was supposed to become some ideal person for humanity to follow. How could one twenty-two year old man could handle that?! Clark fell into a depression that seemed to have no end, there was no one who could understand this pain he was feeling. Ma tried her best but even her solace could not help the grieving Kryptonian. It wasn't until Ma gave Clark his red blanket that they found him in as a baby, now fashioned like a cape, and a letter addressed to him from Pa. She found it amongst Pa's things and thought it was something he should have. When Clark opened it he didn't know what kind of letter to expect, but as he read it he couldn't have imagined it any other way. The letter was Pa telling Clark about how he loved Clark, alien or not, and that he knew he would become a good man. The last lines stuck with him, "You're not just anyone, Clark. One day you're gonna have to make a choice. You have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be. Whoever that man is, good character or bad, is going to change the world." It had reduced him to tears. After he cried he felt better, and knew that Pa would want Clark to do what Jor-El asked of him. He said goodbye to his mother once again and flew back to the fortress, surprised to see that no one had found it, and entered.

When he stepped in the holographic Jor-El appeared again. Clark asked him how to complete his task and Jor-El gave him a gift. A suit made of Kryptonian silk, normal cloth on his destroyed home world, but near indestructible here on Earth. Another special quality of the suit was the biotechnology behind it. On a mental command the suit will become a short sleeved shirt that he could wear underneath normal clothing. On another command the suit would expand into the full suit, something that he thought would come in handy. The suit itself was mainly blue and red, in the center of it was a shield with a stylized red S. His father described it as their family crest. This would be the symbol people would follow, not mild mannered Clark Kent, but a hero of some sorts, someone to bring justice to those who need it, some sort of super man to do just that. Clark knew that the place to do this wasn't some small town like Smallville, no that would do the impact needed. He needed to go to a place where he could do the greatest good, and he narrowed it down to Metropolis.

He went back to Smallville to gather his things and tell his mother his plans. She approved and even helped Clark find an apartment in Metropolis. That's where he was now. He had to scrounge around to find a job in the city and wound up at an entry level journalism position at a local newspaper, The Daily Planet, shadowing one of their other writers named Lois Lane. He got the idea from thinking back about how he was a writer for the Smallville High School newspaper and yearbook. At work he wore glasses and kept his hair messy to go along with his timid and shy persona, the perfect guise to hide his true nature which came out when he was Superman. The name was something Ma helped him decide, Clark was actually partial to Ultraman or maybe even Kryptoman, but his mother talked him into Superman. He had to admit though, it rolled off the tongue nicely.

His work as Superman had been small, there were some photos of him circling around various mediums of media and their own explanations as to who he is. The stories themselves were of a mixed type. Some papers and news stations called him a hero, The Daily Planet being one of them, who thought he was there to help. Unfortunately those were few and far between. The majority of them, owned by a business mogul named Lex Luthor, smeared him by calling him an alien or a mutant who didn't belong. Some even said that he was trying to gain the people's trust before he unleashed an invasion of some type. After those stories ran any attempt to help would be met with screaming and threats from both civilians and police officers. It frustrated Clark so much! Why did his father give him this task if the only thing it would create would be fear and panic?! It had him wanting to quit, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it remembering both Jor-El's and Pa's words. So he went on!...

Today was no different than any other day. He woke up bright and early around six, eat breakfast, and go to work... alone. That was something that had been bothering Clark for the past few months. He had been in Metropolis for over six months and had yet to go out on a date with a woman. The job of a hero/ journalist was certainly a taxing one, it didn't allow for much downtime since he was constantly on alert for someone or something in trouble. Sure there may have been an occasional woman for Clark to meet, but they never really connected and it just made Clark feel even more distant from humans. So he felt alone most of the time, but it worked more for his Clark Kent persona so he couldn't look at it to be all bad.

At work it was constantly skimming through different leads for stories and checking for accuracy, Clark secretly wrote his own story for it, but it wasn't part of his job description so they just went right into a folder he kept at his desk. Once the lead checked out to be legitimate he would hand it off to one of the staff writers, mainly Lois, for them to do their own story on it and give it to Mr. White for approval. Perry White was a good reporter, a number of Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and a well respected member of the whole journalism community. He was middle aged, the white sideburns showing as much, and a bit portly to boot. He was reluctant to hire Clark due to his inexperience but hired him anyway since he was willing to work for the meager salary they were offering.

Clark was busy working during the afternoon shift, mindlessly running through leads, looking at backgrounds and getting on the phone to check on them, while the rest of the office was typing away at their computers or running around to talk to someone else about stories. It was quite the exciting job. The exciting part didn't come until Clark looked up at the TV in the room to see a report about a burning building with people trapped inside. Firefighters were doing their best to control it, but the blaze was getting out of hand and it was projected that the building would fall soon. Clark needed to act fast. He jumped up from his desk and briskly walked to Mr. Whites office to tell him he was taking his lunch break. Mr. White questioned why he was going off so late and Clark came up with a quick excuse and left.

He ducked into an empty office and took off his clothes as he gave the command to the suit and the Kryptonian silk began to form around him the feeling was still hard to get used to but he was sure that in time the feeling would grow on him. When the process was complete he stashed his clothes away and slipped out a window. He dropped from the top story of The Daily Planet and just let gravity do the work. It was a fantastic feeling to know that you can just fall and let yourself go only to pull up at the last second and fly while achieving break neck speeds. Oh how he felt sorry for humans, they could only fly in a large and bulky machine that took forever to get them to their destination. This was unhindered, pure, flight. There were no joysticks, nor controls, no throttle, just you and the air and your ability to control where you're going and how fast you get there. Clark could just take his sweet time and practically glide, but there was no time for that, he needed to get there fast so it was almost super sonic speeds. He was still getting used to the super sonic stuff and so he broke a few windows on the way down to the fire. He arrived in a timely manner and pulled to a stop right in front of the blaze. He looked down to see the firefighters hard at work while a growing crowd formed behind them. He could already hear the screams of horror like they were right next to him thanks to his super hearing. There were even remarks about how he was there to make it worse. He ignored it and went to work. He flew into the building head first, the over bearing smell of smoke and ash filled his nostrils, and quickly searched for anyone still inside using his x-ray vision. While he was searching he could see structural damage in the building, he didn't have much time left before it came down on top of him. Luckily he didn't see anyone left, that was until he came across a little girl huddled in a corner. He looked further in and saw her little heart wasn't beating very much, she was getting very little oxygen and her body was compensating by slowing her heart down and in turn her body was shutting down. He moved quickly and found the girl. He moved to her side quickly knelt down his words were calm and cool, "Hey, everything's ok, it's all going to be ok. Come on, I'll get you out of here." His words did not sooth her at all and she scooted away saying, "No! The people on TV say your bad for us! My mommy says to stay away from you!" Another scared one, this was really starting to hurt his work. He struggled to not get mad and took a deep breath. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to get you out of this fire." Clark needed to think of something to get her on his side. The lightbulb went off in his head and he took the cape off of his back and wrapped her in it. "There, you see that? This used to be the blanket I had when I was a baby. It always kept me safe and no one ever hurt me while I was in it. I promise that while your wearing this cape nothing will hurt you. It made me this strong, so it can help you be strong now too." The girl seemed to feel better with his cape around her and she scooted back toward him. That was when he heard a loud groan and he knew the worst was about to happen. The ceiling above them came down and Clark stood up to meet the rubble and caught it. It would seem like a success but when he caught it the rubble broke apart and some fell towards the girl, Clark thought the worse. The girl huddled with the cape covering her and the rubble broke apart around her. The cape did do its job, thank god. The girl was amazed to see that he didn't lie. He chuckled a little, "See, I told you it makes you strong!" He then tossed the rubble aside and picked her up, "Now let's get out of here ok?" The girl nodded eagerly and they made there way out of the building. The windows were blocked so Clark had to ram his way out, the building couldn't handle the ramming and came down behind them. He was lucky she was the last one left or there would be hell to pay. By the looks of the crowd below, there was still some to pay. He brought the girl safely back down to the floor and paramedics rushed to her side to check her vitals. When she was ok they handed her to her parents. The looked at him in disgust and tore the cape off of her and tossed it to the ground before taking her away, she looked sad as the cape that protected her was now getting dirty on the ground. Clark picked it up and reattached it to the suit, the biotech doing that job. Soon he was confronted by the police, firefighters, and even the crowd. First it was the police, "You gonna pay for that building?" Clark looked confused, "Excuse me?" He asked. Then a firefighter came, "You brought it down going in there like that!" Clark the got mad, "It was coming down anyway, I saw structural damage while I was in there!" Then the crowd joined in. "Yeah, probably damage you caused!!" Now they were out of line, "I saved that little girls life! Without me she would be dead!" Clark set himself up for the next part. "Oh, so you're getting a God complex now huh?!" Shouted a bystander. He couldn't stand the criticism anymore and flew away.

He returned to work to finish out his day, only to be greeted by the sound of another slandered report about him causing the destruction of a building when firefighters had it under control. He quickly finished his work and went home to his empty apartment. Sometimes this city really made you feel truly alone in this world.

 

[Malicious Lullaby]

It had always been about knowing. Having a pretty good idea of her part, of her worth, her capability and her existence and how to survive in this world that seemed so foreign. It was unlike her own home, her home that took her a while to figure out was no more. Upon this realization, it was made clear that Earth was her new home and while the people were of lesser character and lesser mortals for the most part, to coexist harmoniously and undetected would be a great feat. If she could survive and be able to live, that would be better than always living in fear or stress. It meant compromising. Giving up what was necessary and staying quiet, in a life that should prove mundane at first, taking a long while to really adjust but in the end, it became a life that she would find rather peaceful, especially with the way she led it. That in the end, it was better than being studied to no ends, injected with until she served no valuable purpose and living a life under a microscope where she could be here, in Metropolis, in the life she had actually grown to love, actually growing to love the people around her, in Sal’s Diner. It had been more than a job but like a home, a real family. It was a family diner, started by Sal Escobar and currently being run by his only beloved son, Sal Escobar Jr. No one was related to each other by blood in this diner, but this family bond went deeper than blood. They didn’t need blood relation to feel familial. Just the time spent together that became familiar because familial. Sal Jr. would take a bullet for any one of these members, just as she would, in a heartbeat. This was love. It didn’t matter who the people were, where they were from or what they possessed. This was love and this was family. Not a day went by that she didn’t wonder, but not a day was spent in regret.

It seemed almost like fate the day someone new had finally moved into the same apartment building she lived in, on the same floor as well, just a few doors down. She didn’t know much of him, except that he seemed to keep himself most of the time, at least that’s how she gathered it. Just being the kind of person she is, she often wanted to go to him and at least inquire if he was alright because he didn’t seem…happy. Sure, even she had her days when she wasn’t happy but it wasn’t everyday. For him, unfortunately, it seemed like it was at least often, if not everyday. Like stated previously, she didn’t know the guy but she’s seen him around, passing him by and the like.

The emergence of Metropolis’ most controversial superhero took for a whirlwind one day. It left her envious enough and also curious. Who was this cape-costume-clad hero and where was he from? They exhibited similar abilities, similar capabilities but he had been ostracized so much in the public eye, defamed and debunked terribly because there were people like Lex Luthor who wouldn’t let this man be in peace and save the world, a world that could use a hero like him. It was saddening, frustrating but what could she do? She was just as much a normal citizen as everyone else, despite her own secret. That secret prevented her from doing much of anything but acquiring a family within her job. Other than that, she had remained solo, ever since the day she arrived to Earth.

Her ship touched down on Earth, just before Krypton faced its unfortunate demise, much without her knowing. When she did find out only much shortly after that her home planet was no longer, she believed for the longest time she was the sole survivor. It took her a very long time to adjust. She learned immediately that apparently humans don’t exactly take well to foreign objects like her spaceship. It was then she learned she had to stash it quite immediately, well as fast as she could at that age. That’s how it went. The first thing she did after she left was acquire what humans call a storage unit to keep her ship hidden and it worked, as it wasn’t a large one anyways, just one that held a single passenger of the strongest materials that even after entering into Earth’s atmosphere, very little was done to its physical appearance. That storage unit was in a small town of Beaumont, Texas and that’s where she lived until she was eighteen. It’s not that she was ever found out but people became suspicious of her and it was safe just to leave, especially when the adults that looked over her at the orphanage had grown especially suspicious. She kept on moving until coming to a bustling city called Metropolis in Kansas. The entire city was so busy that people seemed to hardly see a thing or even care to. It gave her a good edge, allowing her to slip in without much of a detection and allow her to live in peace for the last nineteen years.

Samaire was 11 when her ship landed on Earth. She had been exposed to the yellow sun of course but she kept that part of her life a secret. If she had a scrape, it went away. If she would have an accident, there was no injury. It’s like nothing bad could happen to her and she knew why but the actual reality of it was very astonishing. It meant that the findings and truth about the yellow sun were true and that was more bewildering than she thought. The worst thing about it however, was she was meant to hide it, keep it a secret and continue living as a human would. The first seven years were incredibly difficult. After she left Texas, things fell into place, the way she could handle. It was at that time she met Sal Escobar Jr. His father had just passed away and he was looking for some new employees. She quite often frequented Sal’s Diner because it was close by and she came to love the food a lot. In a place that still seemed so foreign and she was drawn to cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, pancakes and French toast—all the delicious American foods that she never heard of but definitely enjoyed. This entire world was so peculiar to her but slowly, she was learning. Slowly, she was learning that it was not a scary place and unless given a reason, humans weren’t what she first thought them to be. Besides, it was like a common trait that perhaps all species possessed. It didn’t mean she could go broadcasting who she really was; that to them, she’d be considered an alien. It just meant that there was more to humans than she first thought and not everything could be left up to scientific data. It made a difference to really experience.

About ten years later, when she had really gotten used to being there, after having made a family among the workers at Sal’s and having made a home for herself in an apartment not too far, that to this day, she still lived in, one day she met a certain customer that charmed her and beguiled her. They dated briefly. When briefly, for not even six months. It wasn’t so much a major heartbreak but just kind of a reality check. She wasn’t human, she wasn’t a normal girl and this experience taught her that she couldn’t be with a human even if she really wanted to. She’d never be able to be with one because it was impossible to work out. So many secrets, so many lies, so many things left unexplained until the day he left. He couldn’t take it anymore and to be quite honest, neither could she. It killed her to not be honest with a man she wanted so badly to be with like that, and intimately too, but the ugly truth was, they were incompatible for reasons only she could know and he never to figure out. It was heartbreaking but like a human would, a strong one, she got over it and moved on, continuing her life. Even though it happened, she had a great support system. Sal Jr. and his wife and two kids, the other waiters and waitresses, the back of the house cooks and staff, as well as some regulars who weren’t terribly rude and had their own way of being loveable enough.

That day had been like no other. Simple routine. Get up, get ready, get to the diner and work all day long. Superman frequented the news in ways that made her feel actually sorry for him. It’s not his fault. He’s only out to do good, not harm. She envied him but everyday since his appearance, she wondered if he was possibly…? If he could be…? But like clockwork, she told herself it was impossible. There was no way. She was the last one of her world and the sooner she realized that as well, the easier life on this planet would be. Not that it wasn’t already easy enough but hey, it was only natural and understanding to wonder and keep hope.

Samaire was a stunning brunette with emerald green eyes and a smile that could light up a dark tunnel. When she did smile, dimples appeared on her cheeks, giving such a youthful look to a woman who looked a lot younger than she actually was. She was a healthy woman with a slim but curvy figure, clad in the blue and white waitress uniform that every waitress at Sal’s was required to wear. It had threaded into the right breast Sal’s Diner and underneath it was her name tag which read Sam. It’s what she went by often but truly, she hated that name and preferred Samaire but even a name like that could be a mouthful. Her hair was tied up in a messy ponytail as she bussed down her last table of the evening. It was almost midnight and she had finished her over twelve hour shift, allowing her to be able to go home now. It’s what she wanted. She never realized how tired she actually was until her shift ended and it was almost like she could barely keep her eyes open. Even she needed to sleep. She may not be human but she wasn’t invincible either.

After saying goodnight to everyone, she left, walking the small distance it took from the diner to the apartment building. It was like everything was just around the corner. That’s an exaggeration of course. Once inside the building, she pulled her keys out and went to her mail box and unlocked it, pulling the mail out. Shutting it, she went up the stairs onto her floor and over to her apartment door, checking over her mail in the process. Her door was three doors down from her new and mysterious—in her opinion—neighbor. Her green eyes glanced at his door and she pursed her lips before unlocking her door and walked in, shutting it behind her. It was probably too late as it is. To officially and fully welcome him to the building. No, that’d just be weird since no one did that, right?

Twenty-one years later and it still felt like she couldn’t even adapt to a simple human custom. To knock or not to knock? That was the important question.