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Phantom-15
🕑 Added 2022-06-14 17:07:46 +0000 UTCHe was Lex Luthor, the smartest, richest man on Earth…and he didn’t make mistakes. But yet, as he looked at the various ‘super-powered’ individuals fighting the aliens who had invaded the Earth, he admitted that he had made a very big mistake.
Or more specifically, it was that single punch Superman had landed upon the large specimen—the leader of the species, most probably—which had changed the whole landscape around for miles. It had been visible much over the surface, what with the already broken landscape due to the Imperium erecting factory and laying out metalwork beneath the ground…but when he had performed detailed scans after the heroes of the day had left the place, his jaw had actually dropped.
The North American tectonic plate had developed a crack that was at least forty miles long, and there were several dozens of locations from where the magma had almost spewed forth on the surface…Comparing the data from the scans to those of previous Earthquakes, Lex had felt nothing but complete and utter shock for a few moments.
He had known Superman was powerful. Lifting rockets, airplanes, and breaking bullets against his eyeballs certainly didn’t leave any doubts about it. But he never could have imagined that he carried that kind of power in his body, especially when he was sure that the alien wasn’t operating at his full strength.
Without the yellow radiation, I am not as strong as usual, and the more I use my powers, the more my cells will use the stored energy.
Then there was Phantom. The elusive figure who had honestly became nothing but a tale, his last appearance more than a decade ago when he had busted a bank robbery. Not much was known of his powers. Telekinesis, teleportation, Umbrakinesis, and now as he watched the recording of their fight against the Imperium once more, Lex added Pyrokinesis to the list too. There were others too amongst the lot, the two green men and the sword-wielding woman interesting him the most after Superman and Phantom. But in the end, they were inconsequential.
However, the reality of Superman’s physical might wasn’t the only displeasing thing that had happened in the last few days. It had been pure luck that he had caught an unidentified thing flying through the airspace into Metropolis, where his satellites had caught an almost invisible blur—and that was after slowing down the recording by over two hundred times.
Another lifeform like Superman.
Comparing the speed and the approximate size of the body flying through the air, Lex had been sure that the being was much younger than Superman, and with the reveal of Superman’s weakness…it had taken barely five minutes to contact a mercenary group, and Deathstroke the Terminator himself.
It had cost him millions to get almost a meter cube of the luminescent space rock, and another few to get the mercenaries to attack someone who could potentially possess each and every power Superman had shown. Barely hours after that, he had also found the place from where the Kryptonian had first taken off into the sky, and from there it was laughably easy to find her.
New York, his satellites had shown, zooming in upon a distant home away from the skyscrapers of the city. A blond, blue-eyed teenager named Kara Potter. She was living with a food-truck owner Harry Potter. For a moment he had wondered if this man was an alien too, but a quick check of his past records had quickly changed that. He had been living in New York for a long time, a decade and a half to be exact.
Of course, the fact that Harry Potter had adopted Kara as his sister was also surprising for him, but enough for him to leave the man and his quaint little home untouched. He only needed the Kryptonian after all. He had watched with fourteen screens in front of him, thirteen of them showing the mercenaries’ POV, and another showing a focused viewpoint from one of his satellites.
They had tailed the girl quietly as she had walked through the streets, Kryptonite bullets in their magazines and manacles laced with the space rock on each of them. In the silence of his office, the silent sound of the green bullet leaving the pistol’s barrel had been unnaturally loud, and Lex had watched with a bated breath as the Kryptonian girl fell to her knees, her blood soaking her shirt.
But then…then it had all gone to shit as the confirmation had just reached his ears. The lead mercenary’s body had just…burst apart like a water balloon, revealing the fist that had done the job.
Six Seconds.
That is what took the newcomer to kil-no, manhandle every mercenary he had sent. Kick that fucking completely destroyed the body, electric output strong to turn someone to ashes in an eyeblink, and teleportation or superspeed fast enough outpace even his upgraded computer’s abilities. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his face was completely blurred in that single split second he had been still enough for the camera to capture him.
“Mr. Luthor,” the voice of Mercy Graves, his personal assistant came through the speaker set on his table, “The Government has accepted your offer at the prices listed. I have already sent the order to the teams across the country to start the reconstruction.”
“Good, very good Mercy,” he smiled, looking out at the smoke rising from several points in Metropolis, the city looking like it had been through war despite the relatively low Imperium presence it had suffered, “Also, send the F-08 to the spot where the superheroes fought the aliens. See if they can get any blood from that place.”
“Yes Mr. Luthor,” she answered, and the line went silent for a few moments before her voice came back, “Also…the delivery of Krypton tanks you ordered has been made, approval to forward the payment?”
“Send the money,” he nodded, tapping his desk and viewing the designated delivery spot through his cameras, Deathstroke’s masked face greeting him immediately. Behind him, a large van was parked, a soft green glow coming from the windows. “And send the cargo down to F-09 level. I will be down shortly.”
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Apparating in the sky above Kansas, Harry pulled up the Cloak’s magic upon himself and Kal-El both, the familiar sensation of a silky, cool liquid flowing over his skin making him sigh in nostalgia. Forcing the memories of the times he and his friends had shared under it, Harry looked down at the town below him.
“Now, if he grew up in this place, his house is bound to have a photo of him,” he muttered to himself, his vision shifting to X-ray as he looked through the walls of each and every house in quick succession—and removed the blood on Kal’s body at the same time.
Kara appeared beside him a moment later, and Harry placed a hand on her shoulder to cover her in the Cloak’s spell too. He looked through the walls for any hint of Kal-El, trying to find a photograph with him hanging on one of the walls. “No, no, they are too young to raise Kal-El…huh? I didn’t know humans were flexible enough for that…”
“Found it!” his sister whooped, before giving him a stink eye that he resolutely ignored, trying to see where she had been looking, “I suppose we are not going to remove our cloaks when we meet the humans who raised him?”
“Why not?” he snorted, ”you need to have a talk with your cousin after I heal him up, and I don’t think him smart enough o keep your identity from his parents. We will drop in on their door and change into civilian garb…also, do try to keep them engaged while I heal your blockhead, idiot cousin.”
“You call him that one more time and I am going to punch you,” she warned, floating down to the doorstep of ‘Jonathan Kent’, and Harry removed the disillusionment from both of them as soon as his feet touched the door. Creating a notice-me-not around the house, he changed their clothes into something more suitable for meeting a couple of humans, while Kara rang the doorbell.
“Coming!” a voice, most probably Jonathan Kent shouted from inside the house, and the sound of rushed footsteps came to their ears before the door was opened by a man well into his fifties, “Yes? What do yo-”
“Good afternoon Mr. Kent,” he said, and walked by the smiling man into his home, pausing for a moment as he saw an auburn-haired woman standing beside the dining table, “Greetings to you too, Mrs. Kent.”
“Hey! What are you doing intruding into my home young man?!” Jonathan shouted as he walked and inside nad grabbed his shoulder, turning him around forcefully. “Who in the hell are you and this woman?”
“I am Kal-El’s cousin,” Kara responded, making both the humans gasp and stumble back in shock, “and this is my brother Harry.”
“We don’t know what you are talking about,” Kent immediately said back, seemingly regaining some of his wits, “We don’t know any Kal-El, and you both are on private property. Now get off my home and farm before I call the police.”
Snorting at the threat, Harry revealed Kal-El’s frozen form in his arms and simultaneously transfigured the couch into a bed big enough to hold the Kryptonian. Ignoring the gasps and the scream of fright that came from the woman, he laid out his charge—unfortunately—on it and sat down on a conjured chair.
“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Clark injured and unconscious!” Kent screamed loudly and grabbed his shoulder, trying to once again turn him around, while his wife ran towards her son. “Answer me dammit!”
“I thought you said you didn’t know Kal-El,” he raised an eyebrow, making Jonathan freeze in shock for a moment before his face once again twisted into a snarl. Before the clearly upset human decided to do something foolish like punch a half-Kryptonian’s face, Harry conjured two chairs beside the bed, and pushed the humans into them.”Your son requires immediate treatment, and I need to focus fully on the said treatment, so kindly shut up and let me work in peace…otherwise, I will forget that you are his adoptive parents...and”
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“And you will do nothing,” she interrupted him, striding forwards to stand beside the Kents, “You get to healing him…I will explain things to his parents.”
“What the hell do you mean you will explain things to us?” Jonathan snarled from his seat, his hands gripping the armrests tightly, while his wife sobbed quietly as she stared at Kal-El, “You intrude into our home, you bring the unconscious body of our son and then claim to be his cousin?!”
“I am his cousin,” she said softly as she summoned one of the dining chairs and sat down on it, “My name is Kara Zor-El. My father and Kal-El’s father were brothers.”
“Stop these lies,” he snapped out harshly and glared at her, “We realize we are powerless in front of you both, but at least don’t spew filthy lies such as these! It is clear that you know about Clark’s origins, then you must know that he is the last of his species!”
Heat burst forth from Kara’s eyes, and she burned a hole through the floor beneath them for a few moments before cutting off the energy. Blinking away the red spots in her vision, she looked up at the Kents, and sighed at the shocked and pale faces she saw.
“Believe me now?” she asked, and both the humans nodded slowly, their eyes flicking from her to her prone cousin on the bed. “He is fine…he just got hurt, and we brought him here so that when he wakes up, I can finally talk with him.”
“Kal doesn’t get hurt,” the woman shook her head, wiping her eyes on the sleeves of her shirt before she looked at her, “At least, not unless you came with the specific intention of hurting him with that green stone.”
“I can hurt him,” Harry said, and Kara felt a wave of magic emanate out of him, “but your son’s durability is not the point of discussion here. My sister and I teamed together with a bunch of other people today to defeat the alien invasion. During the fight with the leader, he managed to invade your son’s body and brain both…and you can imagine how dangerous an uncontrolled Kryptonian would be. Taking him out of the Imperium’s hold required a powerful stimulus, and thus, I used the most painful spell I know.”
“Wait…I recognize you now,” Kal-El’s mother, Martha Kent—she looked really young in that photograph—said, “You are that person from New York all those years ago…who foiled that robbery and broke the bones of every robber, even the woman. And you also fought that Metallo along with Clark!”
“Isn’t he too young to be that guy?” Jonathan frowned, looking at Harry with squinted eyes, “You are what? Twenty to Twenty five?”
“Thirty-nine, if I go by the time I can actually count,” he responded, raising his hands above Kal-El, “Although…it could be forty to forty-one.”
“Ignore him,” Kara interrupted as she saw the slack-jawed expressions of the Kents, “Kal-El is going to be fine within minutes. Harry just needs to remove the magic hindering his own natural healing, and when that happens, Kal-El will be back on his feet in no time. Meanwhile…can you tell me about Kal? How he grew up? How his childhood was?”
“You are asking a lot of us for being the sister of the man who has almost our son in a coma,” he frowned, looking at the bloody furrows in Kal’s palms as well as the bit lips, “How do we know you speak true…your brother knows magic, and maybe you do too. How do we know that the heat vision was actually that instead of some magic? We are unable to do anything about this situation, but that doesn’t mean we will blindly believe anything you say. Krypton exploded according to the recording Kal-El showed us. Therefore, if you are really his cousin, you should have been here with him twenty-two years ago, or soon after that instead of coming when he has revealed himself as a powerful alien.”
“It would probably astound you, but the Universe doesn’t revolve around the needs of this stupid, naive idiot you have raised,” Harry snorted, and Kara sent him a glare, while the Kents gasped at the words, “The Universe is a big place Jonathan, and Kara herself was facing struggles before her parents decided to send her to Earth in the hopes of finding her cousin and raising him. So, kindly hear her story before you judge her.”
“His unneeded causticity aside,” Kara interrupted, sending a look at Harry that went unseen, “He speaks true. My city on Krypton was blasted away into space when the planet exploded. The land beneath our feet had turned into Kryptonite, the green stone that harmed Kal-El, and thus my parents sealed me and the other children into stasis. Years later, when we had begun to run out of power and the radiation of the Kryptonite had begun to kill the people in the city, my parents sent me towards the last broadcasted location of Kal-El’s pod, in the hopes of uniting us two last Kryptonians. I reached the planet last year, and since then I have been living with Harry. We came to Kansas some time ago, but other than finding a piece of metal burnt by his optic beams, we didn’t find any clue of his presence.”
“Then you saw him on the news,” Jonathan murmured, running a hand through his hair as he looked at the shielded S on Kal’s chest, “You recognized his powers and the crest of his family.”
“I did,” she nodded,” and today, I finally got the chance to meet him for the first time since he was a baby.”
“Won’t have to wait for much longer,” Harry said, standing up from the chair as several balls of soft yellow light appeared above them. She instantly felt re-energized, and Kara watched with fascination as Kal’s injuries started to heal. The flesh on his palms and lips regenerated, and the sickly paleness of his body went away, replaced by a much more healthy skin tone as the magically created sunlight went to work. “He will wake within seconds, but I would recommend that you first let his parents talk to him.”
Nodding at his words, Kara joined him as he walked away from the bed and they stood by the window, watching as Kal-El clenched his eyes shut. His fists opened slowly and a low groan came out of his mouth as he sat himself up. Tilting his neck to one side, a series of cracks rang out throughout the room as he stretched his body, and finally opened his eyes fully.
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The first thing Clark noticed when his mind woke up from his sleep was the comforting feeling of being inside his home—the smell of dust, crop, and Ma’s pancakes ever-present inside the Kent household. The next thing he noticed was the rush of strength his body was experiencing, his muscles and bones growing stronger and stronger by the moment as he felt the rejuvenating embrace of sunlight all over his body.
Groaning as he sat up, Clark stretched out his cramped body, feeling the stiffness and lingering pain in his joints melt away. Opening his eyes, he blinked at the sight of his parents sitting besides him in the living room…while he was on a bed?
“Oh Clark!” his mother cried out as she launched herself at him, and hugged him tightly, “You are fine! These two people brought you here and you were unconscious an-”
“Let the boy breathe Martha,” his dad interrupted, standing up and placing a hand on her shoulder, before he trend towards him and gave him a small smile, “It is good to see you awake, Son. You had us worried for a while there…though, it certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that the man who healed you was the same one to put you in that state.”
“Not my fault your son didn’t bother to learn the psychic defence skills of his race,” a voice commented from the side, and Clark jumped in his place as he suddenly realised that there were two more people inside his parent’s home, “You think Kara also needed a shock to her brain and body to take her out from the Imperium’s hold?”
His eyes snapped towards the strangers, and he frowned at the crimson-blond haired girl, as well as the black haired young man standing at the window. The girl was obviously younger than him, her features suggesting a familial relationship with the man besides her. Dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans, her wide blue eyes looking at him as if she barely retraining herself from jumping his bones.
Deciding to ignore the decidedly non-human girl for now—her heart was beating way too fast for a human to be alive—Clark turned his eyes to the man beside her. Raven-black hair, emerald green eyes, and regal features that he shared with the girl, but why and how a man of age with him brought him to his house…Clark didn’t know.
Last he remembered, he had punched the grotesque Imperium after a vision of his parents’ and Lois’ death had been shown to him, and then nothing but blackness. He didn’t know why had woken up in his home, and moreover, why Pa had said that the man—who didn’t seem like that Metallo guy in any way—had hurt him, before healing him.
“Hello, Kal-El,” the girl spoke, taking a step forwards with a hesitant smile on her face, and alarm bells went off in Clark's head at the name that only three people in the world knew, “It is nice to finally meet you…cousin.”
Comments
Russell Taylor
Well written and easily followed though. Also appologies for my writing like an asshole, i'm not good at filtering my personality from my constructive critisisms... i think that's how it's spelled... oh well Please continue to do amazing work😁😁😁😁😁
Russell Taylor
It was also a good way to introduce lex into the story, though he seemed a bit... creepier than normal
Russell Taylor
Honestly kinda felt like a rushed filler episode of naruto, nothing happened and the cliff hanger doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you compare it to the eventfulness of the others. Probably would be better if their full meeting was this chapter then the themiscara arc started next chapter
