Superman Movieverse Forum

Title: Family Reunion
Author: Mr. Beeto
Rating: PG-13
Beta: htbthomas and Shado Librarian
Summary: AU Twist on Donner/Singer Movieverse: Tie the three films together into a cohesive whole, and provide a more credible and interesting reason for Superman to have returned to Krypton.

[  (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)  ]     [  (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)  ]     [  (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)  ]     [  (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)  ]

Author’s Notes:
Thanks again to the beta team of htbthomas and Shado Librarian, a.k.a. dandello.

Chapter 39 – Birthright

Thursday, October 5, 2006 2:55PM EDT
Kara rocketed up from the yacht and through the clouds, slowing to a stop high above while her vision sought out the coastal cities, searching for the “tall building with a big globe on top”, as Lois had instructed her.  Jason fidgeted in her arms, his body tingling with energy as the Kryptonian organelles in his cells, now active for the first time, hungrily lapped up the sun’s solar energy.  They had been rousted from their slumber by a combination of Jason’s severe immune system reaction to Luthor’s kryptonite and the adrenaline surge provoked by his fear for his mother’s life.

The adrenaline that had provided the necessary power boost allowing Jason to throw the piano had also stimulated his Kryptonian organelles as thoroughly as pubescent hormones would have done.  While that adrenaline energy had quickly dissipated, the organelles remained active and now recharged in the unfiltered sunlight several thousand feet above the sea.  The cellular changes surging through his body left him invigorated, and he was beginning to realize that something was different.  After a minute in the sun, he turned to Kara and said, “The sunlight feels funny.”

“What do you mean?” Kara asked curiously, momentarily forgetting her search for the Daily Planet.

“I dunno.  It kind of tingles.”

“That’s how’s it’s supposed to feel,” Kara declared assuredly.  “Dad says it’s because we get our power from the sun, and that’s what it feels like when it charges us up.”

“But it never felt that way before,” Jason insisted.

“It didn’t?”

Jason shook his head and added, “Not even when we were really high up, like when we flew down from the Fortress with Mommy and Daddy Clark earlier.”

“Oh,” Kara replied thoughtfully.  After a moment, she asked, “But it’s tingling now?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kara smiled widely, and excitedly suggested, “Maybe it means the sun is finally charging you up, and you’ll be able to do powers!”

“Really?” Jason asked eagerly.

Kara shrugged her shoulders and said quietly, “I don’t know, but maybe…”

“Do you think this means I’ll be able to fly if I find my happy thought?” Jason asked happily.

“Happy thought?”

“Like Peter Pan,” Jason said plainly.  “He just needs fairy dust and a happy thought, and then he can fly.”

“Oh.  It works different for us,” Kara explained.  She stretched out as much as her burden would allow and added, “We just lie back, and let the sunlight soak in and feel the energy run through us and lift us up…  Try it.  Lie back, and stretch out your arms and let the sun charge you up.”

Jason stretched out his arms and closed his eyes and as he felt the tingle of the sunlight coursing through him, he imagined himself flying.  He recalled their flight from the North earlier that afternoon and the flying games Kara and his Daddy Clark had described, and he fantasized that he could play those games, too.

A couple minutes later, Kara interrupted Jason’s daydream as she excitedly told him, “You’re doing it, Jason.”

Jason opened his eyes to find his sister floating several feet in front of him.  His brow wrinkled in confusion and he asked, “Doing what?”

“Flying!  You’re flying, Jason!” Kara told him excitedly.

Jason looked down past his feet and realized he was floating alone high above the clouds, confirming Kara’s declaration that he was indeed flying.  His face broke into a wide grin, but only for a moment.  He then panicked and began to fall towards the clouds.  “It stopped working!” Jason exclaimed tearfully.

Kara was immediately beside him and as soon as she pulled him to her, Jason wrapped his arms tightly around her.  Kara eased him back up above the clouds and informed him.  “You forgot to concentrate.  You’ve got to keep concentrating on flying or you’ll fall…  It takes a little practice.  I fell a few times, too, when Dad was teaching me to fly.”

“What do you mean, ‘concentrate’?” Jason asked.

“Imagine how you want to move through the air, then feel the energy move you there,” Kara explained.  “You’ve got to concentrate on the energy moving through your body.  Go ahead, try it – this time keep your eyes open…  I won’t let you fall.”

Jason hesitated for a moment before finally trying to imagine himself flying again, though he kept a firm grip around his sister.  Gradually, he relaxed and found himself floating slowly away from her.

“Keep concentrating,” Kara instructed him.  She tipped forward in a horizontal position, with one arm extended, and the other at her waist, tightly gripping the recovered crystals.  “Now lean forward into a flying position like this,” she added.

Jason slowly tipped forward and imitated his sister’s posture, his confidence growing and fear receding with every passing second.  “I’m doing it!” he exclaimed.

“Told ‘ya,” Kara said smugly.  “Now try moving forward.”

Jason slowly drifted forward, though moving more like a balloon caught in a light wind than controlled flight.

“Faster than that,” Kara instructed him, and she slowly pulled ahead of him.

“I’m trying!” Jason complained, as he increased his forward advancement at an intolerably slow rate.

“Faster!” Kara commanded.  “Don’t worry about how to stop - I’ll help you with that when we get to Metropolis.  Just try to go faster.”

After a moment, Jason was finally able to propel himself beyond a walking pace, and he flew ahead of Kara at a moderate speed of thirty miles an hour.

“That’s better, but the Planet office is this way,” Kara informed her brother as she caught up with him.  She banked to the left, urging Jason to follow her and continuing to encourage him to fly faster.



“Perry, we can’t get a hold of anyone at the Gazette,” Sam Foswell complained as he walked into his editor’s office.  “We’re getting an ‘All circuits are busy’ message on every number we try.”

“I know,” Perry acknowledged.  “Fortunately, Bruce Wayne left us with a satellite number and I was able to get through to him just now.  He says that the EMP seems to be just as devastating to Gotham this time around as it was here last time.  He’s still trying to get a handle on the scope of the problem.”  Perry turned to the other assistant editor in his office, George Taylor, and asked, “George, is your brother still working at that paper in Detroit?”

“Yeah, he’s at the Detroit News.  Why?”

“Call him,” Perry commanded.  “Find out if they’re getting any more information on this blackout that we are.  Sam, check if Mike was able to get a hold of his superiors and get the Coast Guard out there to help Lois.”

“Oh, crap.  I almost forgot about that,” Sam admitted.

“Well, we can’t forget about that.  Lois and Richard are depending on us,” Perry scolded.

“I’ll check.  We’ll get help out there somehow,” Sam promised.

As the two assistant editors headed to the door, Perry called after them, “Have someone check Lois’ desk and see if she has her dad’s number at the Pentagon written down somewhere.  If we can’t send the Coast Guard, maybe we can send in the Marines!”

No sooner had the George and Sam left than Jimmy Olsen burst into Perry office, and he breathlessly informed the older man, “I just spoke… to Tim downstairs…  He has onsite spares… this time… and he thinks… he can have… the fried boards swapped out… in a couple hours…  Plenty of time… for the morning edition.”

“Geez, Olsen, did you run all the way up here from the print room?”

“The elevator’s… out,” Jimmy replied.

“Well, sit down and catch your breath – I don’t need you passing out on me,” Perry commanded.  After a moment, he added, “At least we have some good news this afternoon.  Who knows, with Gotham hit, too, this time, we might be printing their morning edition here tonight.”



Superman finally felt the temperature drop at the Pleasant Acres inferno, indicating that the last of the high temperature accelerant had finally been consumed, and he abruptly changed his tactic.  Instead of using his freezing superbreath to insulate the structural steel and human survivors from the intense heat, he now directed the gale on the flames, quickly smothering them.  A final pass through the stairwells cleared the heat and smoke to make them passable, and he rocketed into the sky, skipping his usual custom of briefing the firefighters at the scene.

He closed in on the three heartbeats he’d been monitoring, shifting his gaze upward towards the recent change in position of two of those heartbeats.  His eyes shot wide in shock when his quarry came into view and he found the children flying in his direction – with Jason flying independently.  That wasn’t supposed to happen until puberty, he recalled.  He accelerated towards them and extended his hearing in their direction, smiling when their conversation reached his ears.

“Here, let me help you,” Kara insisted.

“I can do it myself!” Jason protested.

“But you’re going too slow,” Kara complained.  “It’s going to take forever to get back to Metropolis.”

Superman suppressed a chuckle as he approached them, and he looped around behind them, flying inverted as he pulled beneath them.  “So this is where you two have been hiding,” he said in false sternness.

His presence surprised both children and brought them all to an abrupt stop.  Kara quickly recovered from the shock and launched herself into her father’s arms.  She wrapped her free arm tightly around him as she squealed, “Dad!”

Superman turned to Jason and commented proudly, “So you’re flying now?”

Jason’s face lit up and he smiled widely, eagerly informing Superman, “Kara taught me.  Isn’t this cool?”

“It sure is,” Superman agreed.  After a beat, he added seriously, “Are you two okay?”

  “Uh-huh, but a mean old bald man tried to take us away,” Jason said sadly.  “An’ Mommy’s still stuck there.”

Superman focused his vision towards Lois’ heartbeat, looking through the ship’s hull to find her sneaking around in the lower levels of the ship while two of Luthor’s men searched for her.  “I see her,” he informed his children.  “She’s still okay.  Now, what happened?”

“We stopped at a huge house to meet a friend of Mommy’s, but three mean men were there and made us go with them,” Jason said tearfully.  “They said they’d shoot Mommy if we didn’t keep quiet and go with them.”

“The bald man had your crystals,” Kara informed him, holding up the bundle wrapped in black fabric.  “Miss Lois said to give them back to you.  She gave me a note to give you, too.”

Superman focused his vision through the felt, immediately inventorying the stolen crystals and confirming that all were accounted for.  He took the bundle from Kara, and carefully stowed it in his cape pocket.  He then returned his attention to his daughter and asked, “You said she gave you a note, too?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kara replied and she pulled the note from the back pocket of her jeans, handing it over to her father.

Superman quickly read the note and his eyes widened in alarm.  He focused his vision beyond the yacht, towards the coordinates that Jor-El had provided, and he found the crystal mass rooted in the ocean floor where it was rapidly expanding, splitting the seabed and sending the aquatic fauna in desperate flight ahead of it.

It looks like I’m going to have my hands full here –I don’t have time to take them back to Smallville, so I’m going to need to find a local babysitter, Superman thought, and he shifted his vision back to Metropolis.  He first scanned the Daily Planet building, frowning at Richard’s absence.  He then sought out the Troupe home where Lucy was putting away groceries.  After the briefest hesitation, he rejected that alternative.  Lucy would freak out if Superman dropped off the kids, especially if she finds out that Luthor kidnapped her sister.  He reluctantly shifted his gaze back to the Planet, I hate to do this, but it looks like it’s going to have to be Perry.

Superman returned his attention to the two children, handing the note back to Kara as he told them both seriously, “I’m going to take you two back to the Planet to stay with Perry for a while.”

“I want to stay and help you,” Kara whined.

“Not this time,” Superman said firmly.  “I need you two to stay with Perry where I’ll know that you’re safe, at least until one of us can come get you.  And no using superpowers while I’m away, okay?”

“But I need to practice!” Jason complained.

“There will be time for that later, son,” Superman assured him.  “For now, please be patient.”

After Jason reluctantly agreed, Superman pulled both children tightly to him, and zoomed across the sky towards Metropolis, leaving a faint sonic boom behind him.  A moment later, he descended gently to the roof of the Daily Planet building, where reporters Susan Evans and Cindy Anderson were still waiting to flag him down for an interview.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” Superman greeted them formally as he set the children on their feet.  “Would you be kind enough to escort these two downstairs to Perry White?  He’ll know what to do.”

“What happened?” Susan asked in surprise.

“Lex Luthor kidnapped Lois Lane,” Superman explained.  “The children were with her, but they got away.  I found them a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, dear God,” Cindy said breathlessly.

“Please don’t worry.  I know where Lois is, and I’m going after her now,” Superman said seriously.  He then launched himself into the sky, zooming over the rooftops on an intercept course with Luthor’s yacht.

Superman was nearly halfway to the ship when the ungodly cracking sound from the ocean floor reached his ears.  He stopped abruptly and stared through the water in horror at the expanding fissure in the ocean floor.  A quick visual check confirmed that it had been caused by the rapidly growing crystal continent, and had unleashed a powerful shockwave.  He looked behind him and focused his vision on the city just as the shockwave hit, shaking the residents and buildings with the force of a major earthquake.  The construction here wasn’t designed for seismic stress, Superman thought.  But Lois is still trapped out there…

He turned back towards the open sea, again focusing his vision through the sides of Luthor’s yacht.  He located Lois just in time to witness her swinging a fire extinguisher into the face of Reilly Dixon.  The felon went down hard, dropping his gun, which Lois quickly recovered before scampering off.  Ouch! Superman thought.  Remind me never to get on her bad side.  But she’s still outnumbered and outgunned, and Luthor will be out for blood once he discovers the crystals are gone.  She’s not safe there, but I can’t assume that I can just swoop in and out – not when he has kryptonite and has had time to set a trap.  He indulged in his covert observation a moment longer, before again turning his scrutiny back to the city.  He discovered that many of the skyscraper windows had shaken loose and were raining down over the crowded sidewalks below as lethal glass shards and that decided him.  He immediately reversed course and sped back towards the city.



Perry White was interrupted by a knock on the door, and looked up in surprise at the sight of Cindy Anderson and Susan Evans standing there with Jason and Kara corralled in front of them.  “Chief, we just got a special delivery from Superman,” Susan informed him.  “He says Luthor kidnapped Lois, but the kids got away.  He asked us to bring them down to you.”

“To me?” Perry asked incredulously.   He looked over at the fearful expressions on the children’s faces, and he softened his tone, gently asking, “Are you two all right?”

“A bad man tried to take us away,” Jason said sadly and he ran over to Perry, with Kara following him after a moment’s hesitation.

Perry wrapped his arms around them and kindly reminded them, “Well, you’re safe now.  And Superman will have your mother back here before you know it.”

Susan couldn’t resist a snicker at Perry’s transformation from the irascible old curmudgeon into the kindhearted, kid-friendly Uncle Perry.  It earned her a glare from the old man, and the two women quickly retreated from his office.

Perry relaxed the hug around the children and pulled back slightly, asked them seriously, “Do you think you can tell me what happened?”

“We went to this big house to meet a friend of Miss Lois’ but there were three mean men there,” Kara said quietly.

“They said they’d shoot Mommy if we didn’t stay quiet and go with them,” Jason added.

“Superman went back to get her,” Kara reminded him.

“That means not to worry,” Perry clarified.  “This type of thing used to happen all the time, and Superman always brought her back safe and sound.”  After a moment’s pause, he noticed that Kara had something clenched in her hand and asked, “Kara, what’s that in your hand?”

“Um, it’s the note that Miss Lois wrote for Superman,” Kara told him meekly.

“Let me see it.”

“But it’s for Superman,” Kara protested.

“I know, but I need to see it, too.” Perry insisted gently.

Kara meekly handed him the note and Perry unfolded it, his face paling and his eyes shooting wide as he read it.  Finally, he set the note down and quietly muttered, “Great Caesar’s Ghost.”

He picked the note back up and was about to reread it when Polly Harper rushed into his office waving a business card triumphantly and announcing, “Found it!”

“Found what?” Perry inquired.

“General Lane’s Pentagon number,” Polly explained, handing him the card.  “His card was loose in one of her desk drawers.”

Perry took the card and briefly inspected it, afterwards looking through the glass wall into the bullpen to quickly identify who was left in the office when he spotted Ron Troupe pulling his coat on.  He gently pulled away from the children, and rushed to the door, sending Polly scrambling out of his way.  “Troupe!” he hollered.  “My office, now!”

As Perry turned back towards his desk, he felt the floor rock beneath him.  He reached out and grabbed the door frame to steady himself and thought, An earthquake?  In Metropolis?  Has Luthor already unleashed his horror on us?

His thoughts were interrupted by Kara’s screams.  She was hysterical and urgently saying something in a language he didn’t recognize.  Her episode was also frightening Jason, and his lip had started to quiver.

Perry rushed over them, crawling on his hands and knees as the tremor continued to shake the building and knocked him off balance.  He wrapped his arms around the children, and told them both, “It’s all right.  Just wait for it to pass.”

  “Etek ki’ zaprah na’ hali!  Las’hark Rao dungau thorshau!” Kara told him frantically⁽¹⁾.

“In English, Kara,” Perry pleaded.  “I can’t understand you.”

“Etek ki’ zaprah na’ hali!  Las’hark Rao dungau thorshau!” Kara repeated urgently.

The shaking finally stopped and Perry pulled back from the children.  “It’s okay now,” he assured them.  “It was just an earthquake.”

The words failed to console the little girl, and she continued to cry, her shoulders shaking from the strength of the sobs.  Perry wrapped his arms around her, and picked her up.  As he attempted to calm her, he noticed Ron Troupe entering his office.

“Is she okay?” Ron asked.

“This earthquake absolutely terrified her,” Perry informed him.

“Maybe it reminded her of the tsunami,” Ron suggested.  “Here, I’ll take her.”

Perry nodded absently as he remembered hearing that the little girl had lost her mother in a tsunami a month or so earlier.  He then reluctantly transferred his burden to the younger man and informed him, “You’re on munchkin detail.  Use Richard’s office if you need to.  He should have something there that can keep them occupied.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Ron told him confidently.  “Come on, Jason.  Let’s get out of your Uncle Perry’s way.”

As Ron and the children left his office, Perry heard Sam Foswell shouting out over the bullpen, “It was just an earthquake, people!  It’s over and guess what?  The building’s still standing.  Folks, this is news and we’re a newspaper.  So let’s everybody relax and try to get the story in.”
 
Perry hardly noticed the staff in the bullpen returning to action as he surveyed the damage in his office.  Everything had been knocked off the desk and credenza, the plaques had fallen off the wall, and one of the windows was cracked, but everything seemed intact otherwise.  He dug through the pile on the floor and retrieved General Lane’s business card and Lois’ note, setting them on top of his desk.  He then picked up the satellite phone from the floor and climbed to his feet, settling in his office chair and punching in the number.  He prayed it would go through.

After three rings, and male voice answered, “General Lane’s office.”

Perry released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and adamantly said, “This is Perry White from the Daily Planet.  I need to talk to General Lane immediately.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but all press inquiries need to go through the Public Information Office,” the man insisted.

“This isn’t a press inquiry!” Perry yelled.  He paused a moment and then calmly explained, “The general’s daughter works for me, and some things have happened here that he needs to know about.  It’s urgent.”

“Please hold,” the man told him.

A moment later, a gruff voice announced, “This is Lieutenant General Lane.  Now what’s all this you were saying about something happening to Lois?”



Luthor stared intently at the radar display tracking the growth of his magnificent new continent, which had already located the first plateau emerging from the depths before he had even reached the bridge.  Luthor was giddy as he watched the new plateaus rise from the sea and expand around the crystal seed’s immersion point just over eighteen miles away.

Luthor was suddenly distracted by a faint pop and he tried to identify the source of the sound.  Sonic boom? he wondered.  But not from the freak.  He’d have set off the proximity alarm…  Luthor’s gaze drifted over to the opposite side of the bridge, his brow furrowing in concern at the sight of the still-blank display attached to the alpha detector.  It had not yet occurred to him that the battery backup he’d recently installed to insure continuous data on the alien had also guaranteed its failure during the EMP.  He rushed across the bridge, tapping the screen in a futile effort to reactivate the sensor.  He then pulled out his handheld unit, fuming at the words ridiculing him from the small display:  “No Signal.”

“No, Damnit!” Luthor bellowed, pounding his fist on the console.  “Not now!”

Kitty wisely remained silent while Stanford tentatively asked, “Boss?”

Luthor glared back at him momentarily and then commanded, “Bring me the tool box from that cabinet.”

Stanford obliged and when the tool kit was brought over, Luthor extracted a power screwdriver, removing the mounting screws that held in the alpha scanner display, and lifting the flat panel to expose his custom circuitry.  The coppery smell of burnt electronics immediately struck his nostrils and Luthor spun around towards Stanford, angrily glaring at him.  “You idiot!” Luthor screamed.  “I gave you detailed instructions for shutting everything down before the EMP hit.”

“And we shut everything down,” Stanford insisted defensively.

“Then how do you explain this?” Luthor demanded as he pointed accusingly at the fried electronics.  “How’d my masterpiece get fried?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe they shipped us some defective parts,” Stanford suggested.  “After all, none of the other systems were damaged.”

“This shouldn’t have been damaged either!” Luthor insisted.  “Somebody screwed up!”

“It wasn’t me,” Stanford declared.

Luthor glared at the other man for moment before turning his attention back to the electronics.  The idiots have sabotaged me again, Luthor thought.  This is not good.  If the freak finds me here, he might still be able to manage a surprise, despite the kryptonite.  We have to get to the plateau.  He pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket and hollered into it, “Grant, Reilly.  Get up here now, and bring my things…  And let Brutus know it’s time for our guests to leave.”

After a short delay, Grant’s nervous voice came across the speaker.  “Um, Boss?” he stammered.  “We, um…  we have a few complications down here.”

“I don’t want to hear any of your excuses!” Luthor replied impatiently.  “Just get up here.”

“But, boss,” Grant said insistently.

“I said, get up here!” Luthor shouted.  “Now!”   He returned the walkie-talkie to his pocket, and again stared at his defunct alpha detector.  After fuming over it for another minute, he grabbed the power screwdriver from the counter and tossed it over to Stanford.  “Close it back up, and make it quick,” he commanded.  Luthor then walked over to the radar station and resumed his observations, though without his previous delight.

  A few minutes later, his studious observation was interrupted by Kitty’s chortle.  “Looks like someone got their ass kicked again,” she commented mirthfully

“Shut up,” Reilly demanded angrily.

Luthor looked up from his screen, his expression betraying his surprise at the sight of Reilly’s black eyes, freshly broken and bloodied nose, swollen lips and bruised cheek.  “What the devil happened to you?” he inquired incredulously.

“That bitch hit me with a fire extinguisher,” Reilly explained, irate.  “When I find her, she is so dead…”

Luthor’s eyes widened even further at the startling information.  “Lois Lane beat you up?” he asked derisively.  “And you’re just now telling me that our prisoners are loose?  How’d they get away from Brutus?”

“Um, Brutus is dead,” Grant informed him somberly.  “They, um… they killed him.”

“They killed him?” Luthor repeated incredulously.  “The incompetent imbecile.”  He looked back over at Grant, finally registering the fact that his minion had brought the spear with him.  It was his variation of Hagan’s spear from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung – a six foot wooden staff with an eight inch kryptonite shiv fixed to the end.  He grabbed the spear from Grant, angrily telling him, “Give me that!”  After a moment’s pause he asked critically, “Now, where are my crystals?”

“Um, sorry, boss.  We forget to grab them from the desk,” Grant replied apologetically.

“You forgot?” Luthor said mockingly.  He sighed irritably and added tersely, “Let’s go.”   He angrily marched off the bridge, with his minions quickly falling into step behind him.