1 A Disaster and a Freak Accident

Screams. Yells of pain and anguish.

That was all I heard as I watched the usually brim and lush landscape of Krypton light up in flames, volcanic eruptions occurring all around me.

I watched as the Great Library of Krypton, a place of learning for scholars - of people I was meant to protect - I watched as it went up in flames, the screams magnified by a dozen by my enhanced senses. I'd never thought I wouldn't want them, that I'd wished I couldn't hear minute sounds from dozens of meters away.

But right now I wanted nothing more than to have normal hearing like every other Kryptonian.

Though such a wish would never be granted. I was a soldier. An elite. I needed enhanced senses for my job. But such a need only felt like a curse as I heard the young ones calling for their parents from inside the library. As they clawed at the walls and cried.

I shook myself from my stupor and I tried to run to the library. I would put my life at stake for the young ones. So that they could live another day. I would have considered it a worthy sacrifice...

The explosion that rattled even my reinforced frame, sending me flying backward spoke of other ideas to me. Ideas that only involved the death of countless innocents.

Innocents I should have protected sooner.

Forcing myself to my feet, I felt an unnatural sting in my shoulder. Turning my gaze to it. I saw it hanging limply. Grabbing my arm, I pushed the joint back into alignment:

I didn't have time to dally around any longer.

I could already feel the combat healing kicking in, the technology in my body putting me back together in juncture with my own healing ability. Running to the nearest sounds of distress, I found a family huddled around a fallen pillar - a woman and what looked like her two children. Twin girls. Following their gaze, I saw a robust man held under the pillar.

Scrunching my brow, even under the helmet that covered my entire head, I walked toward them, "Move aside," I spoke as quickly and demanding as I needed to be and they turned to me, thankful lights in their eyes before moving aside.

I looked down at the man, activating my scanner via the neural link inside my head and a rapid scan took place of both the man and the pillar on top of him.

Crouching down, I jabbed my fingers under the pillar before bracing myself. Feeling my armor supporting my body, I gripped the pillar which must have weighed around 1500lbs* and it lifted off the ground. I groaned, not because it was too heavy but because I had to carefully move the pillar so I didn't aggravate the man's injuries. I had lifted this amount with no pressure back in training as I was naturally robust even when compared to other Kryptonian Soldiers.

(*A/N - I don't know what unit of measurement Kryptonian's use, so just imagine they use good ol' fashioned pounds, yeah?)

"Pull him out, now!" I said loud enough to be authoritive while also getting through to the family over the sounds of chaos around us.

The woman was the first to act, snaking her arms under her husband's armpits before pulling him. The twins soon came to help, each of them grabbing an arm and pulling alongside their mother. No matter the gender, Kryptonians were naturally strong because of their dense musculature, so even with their petite and small frames, the twins packed a sizable amount of strength.

Once the man was clear, I lowered the pillar before turning around and kneeling at his feet.

Holding a hand over the thigh area of my armor, a pack came out and into it from a compartment built into the armor. Opening the pack, I grabbed the hemostasis and bone-repair syringes before jabbing them into his legs.

The bones slowly crept back into the leg and once they were inside, the bleeding began to stop.

It was far from healed, and I didn't need the scan to tell me that from the intensive bruising around his legs which were clear even with the dim lighting.

"Thank you, thank you...!" the woman said but with my training kicking in, I simply stood up before running off to another location. It would be the polite thing to do to stay and accept her thanks but it would waste time I could be using to protect other citizens.

I tried my best to ignore and close myself off from the surrounding cries of pain. I couldn't save everyone. Only those who are immediately savable. I couldn't try and move tons of rubble and waste time when I could be spending it giving first aid to those who need it. It pained me to ignore the cries but thankfully, being born to the soldier caste meant I was naturally better at controlling and suppressing emotions.

In front of me I saw a young child, just standing there. He was in bloodied clothes but a quick scan showed that he wasn't injured himself - it was someone else's blood, obviously.

He just stood there, seemingly shellshocked and pale faced, his lips trembling as his eyes looked and bored into the air in front of him. What I would assume to be green eyes that are usually full of joy and happiness like all children of Krypton, were now lifeless and dull.

Looking above him, I saw some falling debris, "Child, MOVE!" I boomed, trying to get his attention but he just stood there.

Activating my armors support feature once again, I burst forward running with everything I had.

I had been bred to be the best. Physically, mentally, tactically brilliant. I could save this child.

But I was wrong. The ground underneath the boy was the problem, not the falling debris. It cracked all over, and from within the cracks, I saw a bright orange. My eyes widened as I looked to the boy one last time and heard something I'd no doubt be hearing in my nightmares for the rest of my life. If I survive, that is.

"...help me..." the child whispered, his eyes finally realizing I was there and hope was finally back in his eyes, no matter how small it was, and I had never cursed my enhanced senses more. Even before when I felt it was bad...hearing the desperation in the kids voice...the terror...it hurt.

I saw the ground look like it was about to burst at any second and I threw myself through the air, not caring for my own well-being. I'm a soldier - we die so the people don't have to. We die so the people can live their lives with the freedom they deserve. I would die if it meant this kid would live even a single second longer.

He was close. But still too far for my hand to reach. It would have only taken a single push and he would have been out of the way of the explosion.

...But I failed.

The explosion broke through the ground, blasting upward like a beam meant to skewer the skies.

It blew me back with enough heat and force to crack and warp my armor. But I didn't feel any pain. I just felt numb. Useless. Like a failure. I was made for one purpose and one purpose only: to fight for the people and to protect them.

Slamming into a wall who knows how far away from the explosion, I let out a groan on reflex as I looked at my HUD and checked my armor's report out.

Damaged. Life Support, damaged. Armor durability, damaged. Shielding, damaged.

Most of it was damaged. But my medical kits were stll functioning. Clenching my teeth so hard I felt like I was cracking my teeth and tearing at my gums, I slammed my hands down on the ground and pushed myself up.

What did I say about not feeling any pain? Yeah, well that was wearing off now. My muscles felt like torn paper and my bones felt like they were made of very loosely held together rocks. But I pushed through it and continued onward, using my now buzzing ears to find people to help. However, it all proved useless. More explosions, more death. All around me. Within earshot. Within my sight. So I could watch and hear my people and fellow Kryptonians die.

Then...after I felt Krypton shake so much any remaining structures just collapsed into piles of rubble, everything went black.

After a few seconds of this, I thought I was dead. That I hadn't reacted quickly enough to an explosion under myself. But if I were dead...then wouldn't this count as an afterlife? All those scholars wondering whether or not there's something after death...well, I have an answer for them. Because if I died, then I'm in some sort of afterlife.

But then things started to appear in my vision.

Stars. But not any of the stars that surrounded Krypton. Not any stars that could be seen from Krypton. I'd learnt about our sector of the Galaxy during my training...if what I'm seeing is right, I should be dozens of lightyears away from Krypton.

So...where am I?

I felt my back beginning to heat up and I turned to see a planet below me. It was...very blue. Unlike Krypton which was very rocky-looking from the atmosphere. The planet below me however...looked alive. And young.

And I also seemed to be falling toward it. But as I began to worry, I felt a burning yet soothing warmth hit my face through the visor of the helmet. Turning to it, I felt my troubles melt away.

A yellow sun.

Exhaling all the air in my lungs, I unlatched my helmet and let the rays of sunlight hit me. I felt my skin absorbing the radiation like the delicacy it was and I felt myself beginning to become empowered by it.

I felt brilliant.

But bringing myself from this euphoric feeling by remembering I was falling toward a planet, I began to unclip my armor, allowing more and more sunlight to hit my body. My under-armor would allow the passage of Yellow Star solar radiation. That's the way it is for all soldier's armor. We knew what the Yellow stars did to our bodies, so we knew that when in the presence of a Yellow star, there was no need for a Kryptonian to wear armor.

I already felt the need to breath leaving me and the power flooding my system was intoxicating. I hadn't experienced this phenomenon before but I'd read about it.

The changes to my senses were going to really hurt.

And that was when I hit the atmosphere of the planet and the introduction of air, a medium for sound to travel, proved what I though to be very correct. Every sound in within a few dozen miles was blaring in my ears. The air whipping passed my ears, mainly, but I was rapidly beginning to hear more and more sounds as my physiology was amplified by the Yellow star radiation flooding into me.

I quickly reached terminal velocity and I was rapidly searching for the mechinism that would allow me to fly. I knew I could do it. Many soldiers who were stationed on Yellow star planets during wars wrote about it and deposited their experiences in the military's data banks.

I'd grown up reading those data files.

So, I should be able to activate it. A feeling where you take control of your body and wrest control away from gravity. To stop your body from being dragged down and to push it up or wherever you want it to go.

I felt a certain weightlessness come over me...but it was interrupted by a pain I don't know how I'd forgotten about.

My eyes began to feel like they were burning at first. But that quickly grew in scale before it felt like someone had poured acid into my eyes. Flammable acid which they set on fire after pouring it into my eyes. I was knocked out of my searching for the power of flight and I quickly covered my rapidly watering eyes. Even through my hands, I could feel my eyes heating up before something just forced it's way out of my eyes.

A ray of raw heat and energy. Solar radiation given form and substance.

It burned it's way out of my eyes but I kept my control and instead of flailing about, I closed my eyelids before covering them with my hands. I tried to calm myself, to shut what felt like a second pair of eyelids at the back of my eyeball but it just kept going.

Luckily, it seemed to be like a muscle and soon grew tired after not being used or trained before.

Opening my eyes, I was assaulted by an all new pain. The sensory overload type.

I tried and succeeded in suppressing it. But I didn't have enough time to find out how to fly and I collided into what looked like a mountain though I could tell because as soon as I caught a glimpse of it, I was inside of it. I didn't feel hurt but I sure as hell felt disoriented. I soon stopped my descent into the mountain and the surround rock around me sizzled from contact with my body and the heat it had obviously gained through re-entry into an very thick atmosphere.

Closing my eyes, I took this brief period of actual silence and focused. I blanked my mind and just felt my body. Then I pulled upward. Opening my eyes, I found myself slowly but surely floating up. Re-adjusting my body so that it was like I were standing up straight, I felt a tinge in my heart, a tinge of pain at where I'd just come from...but I squashed it and willed myself upward and out of the hole I'd made.

One out of the hole, I saw someone flying to me. At first I thought it was a fellow Kryptonian and I smiled, getting ready to rush over to them...but the woman's clothes were too different. Too alien.

She was not of Krypton.

She seemed to be around 6 foot tall and was a fair-skinned woman with straight waist-length black hair, blue eyes, and broad shoulders. I could already tell she was a warrior or a soldier, like me, because despite having quite a voluptuous and curvy frame, she was well-toned and well-muscled. She was incredibly attractive, even a soldier like me could see that.

She wore a sleeveless top with a red section and with a blue section covering her sizable chest. She wore matching navy blue undersleeves with fingerless gloves with a five-pointed shape (star) on the back of her hand. She was wearing odd-looking briefs with three wide leather-like flaps; one on either side and one at the front. The side flaps have the same weird five-point shapes as the gloves on them; all the flaps have a white trim. Her were blue as well and extend above her knees, with golden kneepads.

Overall, despite the oddness of her outfit, it did strike me as an outift made for combat.

Floating toward her, I raised my arms in the universal way of 'I mean peace' because even if I was empowered by a Yellow star, I didn't want to start an unnecessary conflict. Not when there might be other, innocent Kryptonian civilians on this planet.

What I need now is to get help to find them. I can't be the only one to have gotten transported to this planet, right? I...I really hope not, at least.

As I thought this terrifying and depressive thought, the beautiful native of this world arrived and spoke in a language I did not understand.

...Well, that's unfortunate.