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The Albino Menace!
In the pod chambers, there is a late release, a hideous creature that crawls its way out of the slime and gasps for air, confused. A horrible monster, its species known for its barbarity, spreading disease, and occasionally, for being cannibalistic.
It's a pestiferous beast, a hideous--and intelligent--monster and after getting a suit and its tangled fur cleaned up by Stacy, it quickly goes on the hunt.
There are smells all over, some of them very strange, and the overall smell of this...thing, the creature is in, but there is one it zeroes in on.
One scent.
Its prey.
It moves, running along the ground on all fours, jumping and clinging to outcroppings on the walls. It finds its prey in a large room full of people, looking at the little square in his hand, but despite the people present, the strangers there, it will not be denied.
It zeroes in...and then LEAPS!
It's a pestiferous beast, a hideous--and intelligent--monster and after getting a suit and its tangled fur cleaned up by Stacy, it quickly goes on the hunt.
There are smells all over, some of them very strange, and the overall smell of this...thing, the creature is in, but there is one it zeroes in on.
One scent.
Its prey.
It moves, running along the ground on all fours, jumping and clinging to outcroppings on the walls. It finds its prey in a large room full of people, looking at the little square in his hand, but despite the people present, the strangers there, it will not be denied.
It zeroes in...and then LEAPS!
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Kara looked between Jor-El and Kon, mystified. It was so weird seeing her past and her present mixed up like that.
She lowers herself onto the ground with a nearby wall, and she watches quietly, wiping away at her tears.
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"Such concern touches me. Your family has always stood by the first House of El in times of trouble."
"The planet's going to explode soon, isn't it?" Kon asks sadly, briefly glancing at Kara.
"I only just confirmed it recently. The Council will not believe me. Due to a radical plot a group known as Black Zero had a thousand centuries ago, events were set in motion that made the core of Krypton unstable -- even deadly to Kryptonians." Jor-El voice is grave. "The planet will indeed explode... within days." He casts his gaze downward. "Perhaps hours."
Jor-El puts his arm on Kon's shoulder. "Return home, Kon-El. I have matters I must attend to. If you dare to hope, my brother Zor-El is attempting to find a way to preserve lives from the death of our world, but I fear his attempts may be in vain. Now is the time to be with your house. I am proud that you have always carried the name El, cousin, and have wished that my own son would grow up to be like you."
"He'll grow up to be better," Kon promised the holographic specter.
"I will never know. I only hope that he goes to a place far better than this. But then...that's all that any of us can hope for now..." Jor-El says, turning away, looking almost numb. Tired. He looks as if only the faint hope that he can save his son's life is what sustains him in the wake of what it to come. "Fare you well, Kon-El."
Jor-El walks away, down the hall, to where his wife, Kara's aunt, waits. She's weeping as they prepare the pod, and he embraces her, as the death tremors of the planet start again.
Kara and Kon hear his voice, as he speaks his last recorded words, meant to be heard later by his son.
"You will travel far, my little Kal-El, but we will never leave you--even in the face of our deaths. You will make my strength your own. You will see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father. And the father, the son."
He goes on:
"The planet I am sending you to is called Earth, and it's people are not so different from our own. Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where you are needed. Always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way."
His last words to him are:
"For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son."
As the world fades, as Jor-El stops recording the archive of his last days to put it on the rocket, Kon, now crouching near Kara, sighs quietly, "Think he was trying to make Kal a dictator now? 'Cause it looks to me your uncle was just trying to save him."
He plops back on his butt to sit near her in the now-empty room.
"And that Kon-El guy was a real guy. Since he was a friend to your uncle, and he was family, Kal thought his name would be a good name for me--for being the same. When I saw all this, it was the day Kal gave me my name."
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"I...I can't accept this as truth, Kon. Even if it is, I can't. I just...we were so advanced. So smart. So strong. We couldn't have been this barbaric. It...it goes against everything about us."
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He looks up. "Stacy, show 31st century Earth. Like it was when I was with the Legion."
There it blinks around them, shining, ecologically-friendly, full of multi-colored people walking along, flying cars all around and tall spires of buildings not that different from Krypton's.
They're now sitting on a park bench.
"This is what Earth's going to be like someday."
A melting pot.
"Look at it. Not that different from Krypton, right?"
All shiny and brand-new, with people provided everything they need. There's crises, but good guys to stop them. In fact, the Legion goes flying overhead, just as diverse as some of the people on Earth, with Brainy--at least a hologram of him--among them. The people cheer.
"With some things Krypton didn't have." He looks over at her. "If Earth can turn out the same way, doesn't it make sense both worlds could've started the same way? Maybe that's what happens everywhere, on every planet. Bad things happen, and then it gets better until everything's all bright and new--just, for some worlds it's faster than others. Earth is slower than Krypton."
He gestures with a hand. "But it'll be lucky enough to last longer. Maybe the reason it's that lucky is because of us--because of Kal, and the League, and the Titans, and everyone fighting to make it that way."
Another pause. "But even with how hard we all fight, you have to figure it gets this good because humanity wants it to."
He shakes his head. "Nobody's better or worse than anybody. I kinda think everyone's capable of the bad--and everyone's also capable of this."
And that's the point he's trying to make, Kara.
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She then looks at the rest of what Kon and Stacy are showing her.
Metropolis in the 31st century. Clean. Beautiful. Pristine. So much like the Krypton that Kara vaguely remembered, and yet advanced and beautiful in it's own way.
She looks at her cousin. "You see things differently, Kon, because you are, kind of, one of them. You were raised with them, all things considered. Kal too. You guys are acclimated to these Earthlings." There's a small, sorry look on her face as she says her next few words. "But it's different for me. I'm not one of them. I don't understand a lot of them. And frankly, they smell." That's not meant as an insult. It's really not. It's just...yes, okay, Krypton smelled too, it had it's own smell. So does Earth. And for Kara, the smells of Earth are new to her. Foreign. Unyielding. Always attacking her enhanced sense of smell. There's just...so much to get used to.
So much that she's having difficulty getting used to. And she's trying to do her best, really, she is. But it's not easy. It's not being the new girl in town. It's being the new girl on the planet.
Kara sighs and she reaches out to Kon for a hug. "I'm sorry. I know what I must sound like. I'm trying, Kon. I'm trying to not be this mega-bitch, I am, but..." she shakes her head. "It's going to take time, Kon."
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"Yeeah, I know it'll take a while. But I figured I could help you start somewhere. And give you stuff to think about."
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He looks up, closes his eyes, and relishes the fake beams of sunlight on his face. "We don't really run with a well-adjusted crowd--everyone's got their own stuff to adjust to, their own reasons to wonder where they're supposed to be and what they're supposed to be doing and why everything happens the way it does."
Looking at her again, he shrugs. "It just takes a while to figure it all out. People roll in and out of your life, and you roll along to new places, and you figure out who your friends are, and where home and family is, and it's all good in the hood."
A pause.
"...Pretend I didn't just say 'it's all good in the hood.' That's lame."
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He did used to say "slammin,'" after all, and oh God, the fade...
He misses Linda. In the beginning, when he'd been young...er, and stupid, she'd been the type to kick his butt into shape whenever he needed a wakeup call. Like when he'd been protecting Knockout despite everyone saying she'd killed that cop (and it had turned out she DID) and torn the S from his chest, telling him that doing the right thing wasn't optional just because you had the hots for somebody. It had been a hard lesson to learn, opening his eyes and thinking with the right head--and sometimes just thinking, when it was more fun for him not to.
But he doesn't tell Kara that. The last thing she needs to hear is how great her predecessor was--he knows how the comparisons feel. He tells her what he really thinks.
"Linda told me one time... that, yeah, the S is something you earn, not something you're just given. Kal cut me some slack when he first met me, on account of the clone thing probably, and the fact that I needed...something, when it turned out the whole reason I was supposed to be there--to replace him--was null and void because he was still kicking. He knew I'd need direction, I guess. Maybe he thought I was earning it, with some of the stuff I'd done to help him and Steel."
He makes a waffling 50/50 gesture with his hand.
"At the same time, don't ever think you have to follow up on the people that came before you and live in their shadow. You can be your own Supergirl. You can earn it your own way. That's the rub with wearing this mark."
He jerks his thumb towards the back of his jacket (he really needs to get the patch on the chest of the plant-suit somehow).
"We have to walk that line between being as good as the people who've worn it before us, and still being us. But we can. I think."
They're flawed and...well, human (even if they aren't actually human or fully human). But he's starting to make peace with the idea of being Luthor's clone and still being a good guy, reconciling the two. He can have that ugliness inside him, but like he already told her--he can take what good he can from it, from that connection to the human race, just like the good he takes from his connection to Krypton.
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"I'm glad I have so much family now."
The Kents, the Titans, her and Kal. And Dubbilex and Roxy are still out there, and he keeps in touch with them occasionally, though he hasn't heard from Dubs in a while.
"I used to kinda have to cobble together family."
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"And, okay. Robin's like your best friend. I get it, I do. And I'll try to be nice to him. But if he takes one wrong turn, or if he tries to betray me in any way, all bets are off."
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