Blue Eyed Herald

Zod stood watch in front of the big window on the ship's bridge, motionless, staring at the big blue world that took most of the view. There was no discernable emotion on his face; inside his mind, however, the story was another. Longing, sadness, envy… Most people never realized what they had until they had lost it, but Zod was one of the few who knew precisely what Krypton meant and he gave everything he had to save it. Only to fail.

From before he was even born, Zod was already destined to be Krypton's military leader. The sword and the shield of his world. His genes carried all the traces to make him the most capable soldier of all his people; strength, speed and power, of course, but also the intelligence and the capability to lead and inspire. And he was trained, since he could remember, to excel at his role.

And he had exceled at being Krypton's highest commander. His home was safe under his protection and the protection of the army he had trained. But how do you protect a people who actively pursue its own destruction? Krypton didn't perish because of an unstable core; that was only the last blow. Krypton perished because it was led by a Council of cowardly fools, so blind, arrogant and scared that they chose to ignore a threat rather than do something. And by doing that, doomed their people to extinction.

Well, maybe not; not if Zod had anything to say about it, at least. Because even if they didn't have a planet anymore, even if they were the last Kryptonians alive, there was still a chance; as long as the Codex survived, there was the possibility to start over. A chance to make things better than they were before, to cleanse the corrupt bloodlines who destroyed their planet. And he would see to it.

Fate had led them to Earth, Zod could see it now. The Long Search ended when a beacon was lit, illuminating the path in the dark space. How else could he explain the fact that his ship had caught the energy signature of an Infinity Stone of all things and, soon after, the distress signal of one their lost ships? How else could he explain that, not long after they started to travel in that direction, the distress signal of the ship stopped, under the authority of a command key with the House of El signature?

There was only one member left from the House of El: Kal-El. The son of the man he once called his best friend; the man whose death was on his hands and his conscience. The one to whom Jor-El had entrusted his people's salvation, the Growth Codex, the genetic register of all Kryptonian people; the one thing he needed to save his race.

Kal-El would either stand by his side or stand under his boot. There was no alternative. It pained him to kill Jor-El; and he was sure it would pain him to kill his friend's son. But as always, Krypton came first. He hoped Kal-El could see it.

"General, they are amassing their forces as we wait," said Faora-Ul, his sub-commander, from behind him.

"Are they?" Zod asked, without turning.

"Yes, sir. It won't make a difference, of course, but I found something I think it might interest you."

He turned to look at her, knowing by now that if Faora had found something she considered worth his attention, it was because it was. She guided him to the monitor of liquid geo and played a footage. It was an attack against Earth, a battle in the middle of one of their cities.

"It appears the humans repelled an attack made not too long ago by an Asgardian. The youngest son of Odin: Loki Odinson," she explained, as Zod analyzed the battle.

He smiled.

"The Asgardians have fallen low indeed if they can't even defeat a primitive race," he said.

Faora shook her head.

"Apparently, Loki betrayed Asgard; he was the only Asgardian involved in this attack. He was leading an army of Chitauri."

She touched the metal particles and they reassembled themselves on a bigger image of a Chitauri. Zod raised an eyebrow.

"What would the Chitauri be doing on Earth?" he asked, curious.

Zod was no stranger to the reptilian race. Long ago, for unknown reasons, the Chitauri had deemed prudent to invade and try to take a portion of Kryptonian space; Zod had shown them what meant to challenge Krypton. His army had dealt a swift and brutal blow against them, dealing so much damage that he thought them extinct until now.

"It seems that after being defeated by us, the Chitauri crawled to Sanctuary, asking for power in exchange of servitude."

He shook his head; dealing with Thanos never ended well to anybody but Thanos.

"I presume Thanos is responsible for this change in them?" he asked, pointing to the cybernetic enhancements that covered their bodies. "Not much of an improvement if they couldn't defeat even the humans."

"The humans were overwhelmed, however," clarified Faora. "They would be no match to the Chitauri and the Asgardian if not for a single group."

She touched the metal again, making it reshape itself in the form of six people.

"They call themselves 'The Avengers'," she continued. "They are the only reason this world was not taken." She looked at him with her cold blue eyes. "I'd like to meet them."

Zod smiled. It didn't bode well for them if Faora had taken an interest.

"Keep an eye on them," he ordered. "We'll wait 24 hours for Kal-El; that's 24 hours for the humans to move. And if these Avengers are their champions, they will probably be at the center of it all."

"Yes, sir."

Clark looked down, studying the group of people under him. The huge weapons of the Helicarrier had moved to aim at him; the rifles of the soldiers and the agents were pointed at him as well. He could see the apprehension on their faces, as if they thought he would attack at any moment.

Standing together with them, but visibly separated from the soldiers and agents, were the Avengers. Captain America, clad in his blue suit and carrying his shield; Tony Stark, wearing his famous red armor, but without the helmet; Bruce Banner, standing close, with a normal shirt and pants, holding his glasses as if he were a complete harmless civilian; Clint Barton, with his bow on his hands, eyeing him with incredible focus; and finally, the only Avenger he had formally met, Natasha Romanoff, looking at him with a cool gaze.

For a whole minute, nobody said anything and nobody moved; the tension grew, as Clark expected someone to say something in response. That's when he saw someone approaching, a man with a long black coat and an eye patch. The group of people parted to allow passage and he stopped right under Clark.

"Alright, you have our attention," he said, finally, after staring at him for a few seconds. "You can come down. Slowly."

Following his instructions, Clark hovered down, very slowly to not startle them. The guns of the soldiers followed his every move until his feet touched the ground. Nobody approached him; it was if there was a force field around him, making impossible to anyone get closer. So he did.

As he stepped closer, everyone but Fury and the Avengers stepped back; the metallic noise of the guns was the only sound. He stopped, eyeing the people in front of him, trying to look as inoffensive as possible; it really wasn't working. Thinking of how to put them at ease, Clark looked around, until he found what he was looking for on the belt of a soldier: a handcuff.

He extended his arms, slowly, and put them together, offering his wrists.

"Go ahead, cuff me, I don't mind," he said.

The soldier with the cuffs took a second to realize he was talking to him; at which point he looked startled to the man with the eye patch. He nodded, giving permission. Very carefully, as if he was approaching an unrestrained lion, the soldier stepped closer, switching the rifle in his hands for the handcuffs. When he was almost by Clark's side, his trembling hands twitched and the handcuffs fell down.

Everybody was frozen, as if the man had just cut the wrong wire in an armed bomb; Clark almost sighed. He knew these people would be scared because of the whole situation, but he didn't think it would be this bad.

To his surprise, however, someone did sigh in his place; he looked up to see Natasha losing her patience and approaching with fast steps, taking the handcuffs from the ground and cuffing in one go.

"Follow me," she said, turning around and walking back inside.

Clark gave a look to the man who appeared to be in charge, as if asking permission, and followed her, the soldiers breaking from their paralysis to escort him. Well, at least things were progressing, he thought.

Tony Stark wouldn't say that remembering people's faces was a talent he had. Despite his fast mind and excellent memory, he met so many people during the course of one day that they all blurred together. But sometimes he met a person who stood out, someone who wasn't just an employee, a starstruck fan or a random passerby.

So when he looked up to the sky, adrenalin high on his body because of the alarm sounding and all the people running, he was surprised to notice something familiar about the floating man wearing a red cape up in the sky; which, of course, was ludicrous, because the only person he knew that still used a red cape was Thor and that was clearly not him.

It bothered him so much that he wasn't remembering where he had saw that man's face that his brain had even managed to ignore the most pressing questions that he should be asking; like, how the hell was that man floating? What exactly was he wearing? How had he found the Helicarrier, if the cloaking device was supposed to make it invisible?

All that was thrown to the back of his mind as the man floated down and landed, offering his arms to be cuffed, and he used the situation to try to get a better look; still nothing. The rookie soldier approached him with the handcuffs and dropped them, making everybody freeze in fear; and still nothing.

But when Natasha Romanoff sighed and walked over to him, not a sign of fear on her body language, his mind suddenly clicked.

The man on the party. The one who had tricked Barton. The one who Natasha seemed to know and the one who danced with her, to the astonishment of all present. The one who started the so curious conversation about A.I's with him and Bruce. Clark Kent, if he remembered right.

Eyes widening, he looked at Natasha, only to see her shaking her head very softly at Barton; it seemed he too had remembered and was just instructed to stay silent. Looking around, he could see Bruce's and Cap's eyes glint with recognition as well.

No one said anything, not if Natasha had decided to keep her mouth shut. Tony wasn't exactly the biggest fan of keeping secrets, but even he knew when it was time to be quiet and this seemed like a perfect one. Even then, he wondered how did Natasha know Mr. Kent, or, more accurately, how exactly did she know an alien?

That's when his mind clicked for the second time: the man holding the oil rig! The one he had helped her to find. He almost slapped himself for not connecting the dots earlier. It was so obvious! She knew him because she tracked him down earlier. She hadn't shared anything about her search with him, no matter how much he begged, but it was clear that she had found him, assessed if he was a threat and apparently decided he wasn't.

Was that why she didn't say anything? Did Fury know? Probably. But somehow Tony thought that the knowledge of who this alien truly was ended there. For some reason, SHIELD as a whole wasn't aware of his identity, which, frankly, was weird, even though he supposed a spy organization wouldn't be a fan of sharing what they knew even with each other.

Of course all this brought another concern to Tony's mind. He had seen, in that footage Jarvis had found, exactly how powerful Clark Kent was; basically a mini, non-green, Hulk. That meant that the aliens on that ship on orbit were just as strong. The aliens who had a ship capable of hacking every computer in the world and who knows what more; the aliens who had threatened Earth to make sure "Kal-El", who he now knew was really Clark Kent, showed up.

It seemed the day would just get worse and worse…

Clark sat down in the little interrogation room, resting his cuffed arms on the table as Natasha looked at him, also sitting down. It was just like in the movies, with the one-way mirror, the cameras and, of course, the whole crowd watching from the outside, hidden behind the glass.

Well, not hidden from his eyes, obviously, but they didn't know that.

"I like your suit," Natasha said, suddenly, tracing her eyes slowly from his boots to his face; he controlled himself not to blush.

"Um, thank you," he said, as she gave him a little smirk. "It's a typical Kryptonian skinsuit. It's made to be very resistant."

"Easy on the eyes too."

"Well, that's the first time someone said that to me."

She smiled and looked down, her eyes stopping at his cuffed hands.

"Why did you let me handcuff you?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"Wouldn't be much of a surrender if I resisted. And if this makes them feel more secure… Then all the better for it."

Natasha leaned on the table, a serious expression on her face.

"Why are you surrendering to Zod?" she inquired.

Clark shook his head.

"I'm surrendering to mankind," he corrected her. "There is a difference."

She was in silence for a few seconds, apparently considering what he had said to her, then she looked at him again, another smirk on his face; he held a sigh.

"What does the 'S' stand for?" she questioned.

He smiled.

"It's not an 'S'," he explained. "It's the symbol of the House of El. On my world, it means 'Hope'."

Natasha gave him an impressed look that soon changed into another smirk.

"Well, here it's an 'S'," she countered. "How about Sup…"

There was screeching noise when someone talked on the intercom.

"Hi, my name is…"

"Alexander Goodwin Pierce, I know," Clark completed, looking at the one-way mirror; there was a collective surprise gasp of the people on the other side. "I can see your ID tag in your breast pocket, along with a half-charged cellphone and a pair of glasses on your hand." He stopped for a second, letting what he said sink in, then added: "I can also see the squad of soldiers in the next room, preparing that tranquilizing agent of yours. You won't need it."

He could see by the grimace on their faces that they really didn't want him knowing about that.

"You can't expect us not to take precautions," Pierce explained himself, with a guilty smile. "You could be carrying some kind of alien pathogen!"

"I've been here for all my life, Mr. Pierce. I haven't infected anyone yet," he answered, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"That you know of," said the man with the eye patch, approaching the glass; Director Nicholas Joseph Fury, according to his ID. "Besides, last time I had an alien inside a Helicarrier, things didn't go that well."

Loki, of course. As if things weren't bad enough with Zod, he also had to deal with the fear inherited by the previous, and very recent, alien invasion.

"Precisely!" Pierce agreed. "Now, in the name of trust and the beginning of a peaceful relationship, I must ask that you reveal the identity you've been using on Earth to us."

Clark sighed, tired, looking at Natasha for a second.

"Okay, let's put our cards on the table."

He got up and broke the handcuffs on his wrists as if they were made of wet paper; everyone in the other room, from soldiers to Pierce and even the Avengers, stepped back, as if by instinct. He approached the one-way mirror and stopped there, gazing at them. He looked serious to Fury and Pierce, wanting to make this very clear to both of them.

"You're scared of me because you can't control me," he said, staring at them without blinking. "You don't, and you never will. But… that doesn't mean I'm your enemy."

Fury got closer from the glass.

"Then who is? Zod?" he asked.

Clark sighed and, reluctantly, nodded.

"That's what I'm worried about."

He and Fury kept their eyes on each other, until Fury said:

"Be that as it may, the World Security Council gave me orders to hand you over to him."

Clark looked down for a moment, already resigned but, even so, a little bit hurt by the expected decision.

"Do what you have to do, Director."

"Sir, that's the wrong decision," Natasha complained.

A few seconds after Fury had told Clark they would be handing him over to Zod, she left the room and went to talk to Fury. They were in another room, alone, as he checked the updates he received from SHIELD.

"Wrong or not, it's the Council's decision, Romanoff," Fury answered.

"I recognize the Council has made a decision, but given that's it's a stupid-ass decision, I would think you would've elected to ignore it," she retorted.

Fury stopped what he was doing when he heard his own words being thrown back at his face and looked at Natasha.

"Why do you think Pierce is here, Romanoff?" he asked. "Officially, he is here to help 'build relations' with the Kryptonians. Non-officially, he is here to make sure I hand Kal-El to Zod," he sighed. "The Council is afraid of another attack. And I can't really blame them."

"And do you think that this will stop it?" she questioned.

He didn't look at her for a second.

"No. No, I don't."

Natasha leaned on his table.

"This General threatened the whole world. He didn't need to do that if all he wanted was to find Kal-El," she said. "But he did and that is very telling of his personality. If we comply with this demand, he will have another and another and when he gets tired from this little game he will attack anyway. That's typical terrorist behavior."

"That's what I said," Fury answered. "But you know exactly how the Council is when they think they know best. Which is always."

"What about Pierce?" she insisted. "Can't he help?"

"I've tried," said Pierce, catching the last part of the conversation as he entered the room. "I advised for a preemptive attack. They declined." He closed the door and walked closer. "They don't want to imagine the possibility of another 'Incident' but no matter how we try to explain to them that ignoring the situation won't do any good, they keep ignoring it."

"They didn't want to fire a nuke at the ship? That's a first," Natasha added the second part almost inaudibly.

"No, and for once I agree with them," said Fury. "We don't know what that ship can do. The nukes might not even hit it or, if they do, they might not even scratch it. Or they could be stopped by some form of defense. Hell, for all we know they could turn them back at us."

That was a terrifying thought; she had enough of nuclear warheads for a lifetime, hopefully.

"Miss Romanoff," said Pierce, getting her attention "I understand you were the one who found our resident alien?"

And ate pie with his mother, she added mentally; time for the cover story she had built with Fury then.

"Not exactly," she answered. "I was, as you probably know, sent to find him. I never managed to do it, however; he found me first."

He looked at her and she felt as if he was assessing the veracity of her story.

"And what can you tell me about Kal-El?"

"He seems to be a good man," she said. "Certainly not a threat. Which is the opposite of what I can say about General Zod."

"You seem to trust him," he observed.

Natasha met his eyes.

"I trust nobody," she stated. "But I know when someone is a threat or not."

He held her stare for a moment and then smiled.

"That's good to know." He turned to Fury. "Nick, the Council won't change their minds on this. We'll have to hand them Kal-El."

Fury sighed and completed the thought:

"And prepare ourselves for what happens later."

Clark was left alone in the interrogation room when Natasha left behind Fury and Pierce. He could hear them speaking in the other room, Natasha trying to convince them not to hand him over to Zod and failing; it was a nice gesture on her part, even if she didn't manage to change the final decision.

As he sat there, focusing his senses to hear what was happening, he heard a commotion close by. He looked to the one-way mirror again, seeing the soldiers guarding him in the next room leaving to follow a woman, and then four people appeared, walking fast to the interrogation room: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Clint Barton.

Tony opened the door and entered, not wearing his suit of armor anymore, getting his cellphone for a moment and fidgeting with it.

"Aaand, the cameras are down," he said, putting the cellphone back on his pocket.

Clark looked around for a moment, his enhanced vision confirming that the cameras really were disabled.

"Now we can talk without being bothered, Mr. Kent," Tony added, smiling as he sat down in front of him.

He sighed.

"I guess it was too much to expect you wouldn't recognize me, wasn't it?"

"Well, you are not wearing a mask," Tony answered. "If I were you I would try something like a fake mustache or, I don't know, fake glasses? Maybe a wig."

"I won't wear a wig and a fake mustache," Clark countered.

"Fake nose then?"

"Maybe we should talk about more important matters?" said Dr. Banner, standing close to the table. "Hill can keep them away only for so long."

Clint, leaning against the one-way mirror, seemed to agree.

"Yeah, let's talk about what really happened on that mutant factory," he said, apparently still very much bothered about being tricked.

"This again…" Tony whined, rolling his eyes.

Clark looked at him.

"Mr. Barton, I didn't mean to lie to you. I'm sorry," he apologized. "But you can see now why I did it. You want to know what really happened? Everything I told you was true, except that it wasn't a mutant escaping that did all that, it was me getting inside."

"That huge hole on the ceiling? And the steel door too. That was all you?" Clint asked.

"Yeah. All me," and Jessica too, but she didn't have anything to do with that part. "I saw what they were doing with the people there and I stopped it." He looked serious at Clint again. "I'm sorry I lied to you, but I did what I had to do to stop those people. And I would do it again."

Clint kept staring at him for a while longer than normal, but then nodded.

"Apology accepted."

"Good call," said Tony. "I mean, I saw how strong Mr. Kent is, I would not pick a fight with him either."

"What do you mean? How strong is he?" asked Banner, interested.

Tony seemed extremely excited to finally be able to share everything he knew.

"I helped Romanoff find him," he explained, looking at Clint who had just opened his mouth to say something. "Yeah, she didn't tell anyone about this, not even you, but she needed my help to find some satellite footage. And you won't believe what I found."

He got up and very theatrically, pointed at Clark.

"This guy here held a collapsing oil rig with his bare hands," he announced. "Are you listening to this, Bruce? You might not be the strongest guy out there anymore. Clark here held the entire thing in place so the people could escape the fire and then survived the whole thing exploding and falling on him." He turned to Barton. "So, yeah, Legolas, if I were you, I wouldn't waste my arrows on this one."

Tony's announcement had the very reaction he was expecting, apparently: complete and utter shock. Clark didn't exactly know where to look now, as everybody in the room stared at him with mouths agape, astonished with what he did; he was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable.

"Is every member of your race this strong?" asked Steve, talking for the first time since he got there.

Clark nodded.

"When we are under a yellow sun, yes."

Captain America looked worried now, no doubt turning his thoughts to Zod.

"But how?" asked Banner, when he was able to speak again.

"We evolved to be able to harvest solar energy," he explained. "Our world, Krypton, was too inhospitable. Cold, high gravity, little food… So the living organisms found a way to thrive by absorbing sunlight and using that energy. Krypton's sun, however, was very old, very weak; this one is not. The more energy our cells absorb, the more strength we have."

As he said this, the door opened again, and Natasha entered the room; he already knew she was coming, but the others turned surprised.

"What are you talking about, boys?" she asked, as if they were in a party instead of an interrogation room.

Bruce turned to her, his enthusiastic face showing his amazement at Clark's biology.

"Clark was telling us some things about his abilities. How he gets strong when absorbing sunlight," he explained.

"Oh, yes, I know. Like a solar panel" she said, and Clark almost rolled his eyes remembering Jessica.

"No," Bruce said, to their surprise. He got up, incredibly excited about something. "That's the thing, it's not like a solar panel at all. A solar panel absorbs sunlight and converts it to electricity, that's all it does. But the things he can do? Holding an oil rig, flying, surviving an explosion… That would take a lot more energy than he could possibly absorb by sunlight alone. He isn't using the energy from the sun, he is using the sunlight to generate energy!"

Apparently, the only one there who had understood exactly what Bruce meant was Tony, because his face was in awe just as Banner's.

"Your cells are not a solar panel, they are more like a nuclear reactor," he explained. "Your body is not using the sunlight energy; it is using the sunlight to produce a vastly superior amount of energy. Something similar to the nuclear fusion that powers the sun! Your body is pretty much a star on its own. Only it requires the sunlight of another to produce energy."

Clark raised his eyebrows in amazement; it was weird, however, that he apparently knew less about his own body than Tony and Bruce.

"As amazing as this is," said Natasha, calling his attention "let's focus on the immediate threat, shall we?" She looked at him. "I talked to Fury, told him about Zod, but it was no use. The Council ordered us to hand you over."

"I know, I heard," he answered, to the surprise of the people in the room. "Thank you for trying, though, it means a lot."

"What's the deal with this Zod guy, anyway?" asked Clint, suddenly. "Is he like your Loki? Hates your guts and all that?"

Clark shrugged.

"I don't know," he answered. "I've never met him. Like I told Natasha, I was born on a planet called Krypton, but because of an unstable core, the planet was in the imminence of exploding. My parents knew that, so they put me on a ship and sent me here so I could survive. I was just a baby, I didn't even know what I was until recently."

They listened to what he said with somber faces.

"Your home…?" asked Steve.

He shook his head.

"Gone. And I thought I was the only survivor left until last night."

It wasn't surprising to see Steve's face change into a sad expression when he told them this; most people reacted like that, like everyone in the room did. But it was surprising, however, to see understanding in his face. Maybe it shouldn't be, Clark thought, because if anyone in this planet knew what was like to lose his old world, that person was Steve Rogers.

"I am sorry for your loss," he said, mirrored by the others; Clark murmured a 'thank you'.

There was a moment of silence, when everybody reflected on what Clark had said.

"So you were raised on Earth?" asked Clint.

"Yes. Didn't know I was an alien until my father showed me the spaceship I arrived in," he smiled. "I found out more about my race after I stole that ship on Ellesmere Island."

"What ship?" asked Tony, alarmed.

"The Canadian army found it and they were trying to study it with the help of the American army. It was buried in ice for 20.000 years," Natasha answered. "That's why Fury tasked me to find him."

"Anyway, what I can tell you about Zod is what I learned from the command key my father sent with me," Clark continued. They looked at him expectantly. "Like I said, Krypton was doomed. There was no way to save it. My father, one of Krypton's brightest scientists, knew this and took steps to try to save me. On that day, General Zod, the highest military commander on Krypton, organized a coup, trying to overthrow the Council and take control of the planet."

"But why?" asked Steve.

"To try to save what he could, I suppose. But to do it on his terms," Clark said. "Which meant saving only the ones he deemed worthy to save and changing the culture to fit what he thought better." He stopped for a second, choosing his words. "It didn't work very well for him. He was stopped and sentenced to a place called Phantom Zone."

"Phantom Zone?" asked Tony, clearly interested.

"It's another dimension, in simple terms, that the Kryptonians used to hold its most dangerous criminals. But they didn't consider the chance that Krypton's explosion could damage the Phantom Zone Projector, the 'gate' to the Phantom Zone, and release him and his men."

"But even if he was released, why would he come here?" asked Steve, approaching him. "Why would he be after you? And, more importantly, how would he know you are here?"

Clark looked at him.

"I don't know what he wants with me or Earth, but I do have an idea of how he managed to find out I was here."

There was a curse in Russian by his side and everybody turned to look at Natasha; she was staring at Clark, her face serious.

"The Tesseract?" she asked.

"Wow, wow, wow… Just hold on!" exclaimed Clint. "What does that thing has to do with this?"

Natasha held her stare on Clark for a second, and then turned to Clint.

"I think I'll let Clark explain this one."

Clark gathered his words for a moment.

"Most people think that before the Big Bang, before our universe exploded into existence, there was nothing," he began, remembering what his father had told him. "They are wrong. The Big Bang may have been the start of our universe, but it wasn't the start of everything; to our universe begin, another ended."

He looked at the Avengers, some enraptured in his words, others tense.

"In the previous universe there were 6 singularities. And when that universe ended to give place to ours, the remnants of these singularities were forged into concentrated gems, each one of them holding an aspect of creation itself: the Infinity Stones."

"How?" interrupted Tony, gesturing frenetically. "How could there have been something before the Big Bang itself? And if that's true, how could things from there pass on to our universe? It doesn't make any sense!"

Clark didn't understand it either.

"I have no idea. But you would probably be shocked to know that the Infinity Stones weren't the only things that crossed over. There were living beings too. Your friend, Thor, would probably know better, but the race we call Dark Elves in the mythology really existed at some point. They made their home in one of the 9 Realms overseen by Asgard, named Svartalfheim; but before making their home there, they lived in the previous universe. The one that existed before the Big Bang."

Tony and Bruce were staring at him with wide eyes; Natasha had an interested look; Steve looked a little lost and amazed at the same time; Clint, however, looked impatient.

"Alright, but what about the Tesseract?" he asked. "What does it have to do with any of this?"

"It has to do with this because the Tesseract is the container of one of the Infinity Stones, the Space Stone," Clark explained. "You thought the Tesseract was an energy source, a way to build stronger weapons. It can be, but it is also much more than that. The Tesseract is one of the 6 most powerful relics in the entire universe. There is more power inside one of those Stones than we can possibly imagine. And SHIELD, apparently, made experiments with it without even knowing what it was."

He met the eyes of every Avenger in the room, trying to convey the gravity of what happened.

"The energy the Tesseract released when they messed with it was so powerful that it probably crossed the universe. They lit a beacon that lead to Earth. It was this energy that activated the dormant Kryptonian ship in the ice and it was probably this energy and the ship's distress signal that alerted Zod."

The effect his words had on them was visible. They were visibly tense, scared and, most of all, pissed.

"I warned Fury, didn't I?" Tony said, talking to himself. "I said a nuclear deterrent wouldn't solve anything. I know from experience. And what does SHIELD does? They find a blue rock they don't even know what it is and try to make weapons of it."

"And now we have another war on our hands…" Steve sighed. He looked at Clark. "What do you think? I know you don't know Zod, but do you think he will attack?"

Clark was thinking for almost a minute.

"I don't know what Zod wants, but no one that threatens innocent people can be harmless, no matter their reason," he answered, finally. He looked at Steve. "I will go to him if that's what he requires for peace, I will listen to what he has to say. But no, Captain, I don't think for a second Zod intends to keep his word and leave in peace."

"Is he a risk to you?" asked Barton, from all people, looking at him with something resembling worry.

Clark's expression hardened.

"He killed my father," he said and everybody looked at him in shock; he didn't meet their eyes, controlling his anger, and looked at Clint. "So, yes, I'll probably be in danger."

"And you are going anyway?!" exclaimed Steve, approaching him.

He gave Steve a smile.

"You guys almost sacrificed yourselves when Loki invaded. You almost gave your lives to save the planet. I don't have the right to do anything less, not when I have the chance to help."

Steve kept looking at him in silence, but he could see something else in Captain America's eyes now: respect.

"So there is going to be a fight then?" Tony asked, looking as if he had aged 20 years. "Damn it."

"I'll do what I can to prevent it," Clark said "but I would be prepared for one."

There was the sound of many steps approaching the room.

"There is someone coming," Clark warned.

A few seconds later, Fury and Pierce arrived with a group of soldiers, entering the room. Fury looked at him and he could almost see the regret in his eye.

"It's time," he said. "We contacted Zod and gave him the coordinates for the pickup. We've prepared a Quinjet."

Clark nodded and got up.

"Let's go then," he said, following them out of the room.

He heard a lot of steps behind him.

"Yep, let's go," said Stark, walking to his side alongside the rest of the Avengers. "We'll escort you there."

And before anyone could complain about anything, the soldiers around him were replaced by the Avengers as they went to the Quinjet. Clark didn't know what was going to happen, but he felt a lot better now.

They stood on the edge of a military base in the middle of the desert, waiting. There was nothing around for miles and miles, a perfect place to avoid any innocents from getting caught in the middle of a crossfire, in the event things went bad.

Behind Clark, SHIELD and the American troops made a barrier, with armed soldiers, tanks, helicopters and Quinjets. In front of them, making a line of their own, the Avengers stood in all their glory, all of them clad in their respective suits. Only Natasha stood a few meters forward, waiting by Clark's side. There was a tense silence in the air.

"Thank you," Clark said, suddenly, looking at Natasha.

She turned to him.

"For what?" she asked.

"For believing in me. For trying to stop them."

Natasha gave him a bitter smile.

"Didn't make much of a difference in the end."

Clark looked in her eyes.

"It did to me."

As he said that, there was a sound in the sky, like something big and fast had just entered the atmosphere. Everybody looked up.

"They are coming. You should go back now," Clark said, every muscle in his body tensing.

Natasha hesitated for a moment, but complied, going back to join the Avengers a few meters back. The dark gray ship came down from the sky with amazing velocity, almost touching the ground as it hovered in his direction, lifting the desert dust. It stopped suddenly, opening its flaps like four bug wings, turning in air and finally landing, its engines making his cape sway.

A ramp extended down, touching the ground, and two people got out of the ship. Both of them were women, going by the shape of their bodies, and both of them were completely covered in a black Kryptonian skinsuit and a black Kryptonian armor, complete with a skull like helmet and a breathing device; one of them, the one who stayed close to the ship, was holding some kind of weapon.

The other woman, however, was unarmed and kept walking without hesitation in Clark's direction, her black cape dancing to her moves, until she stopped in front of him; as she did it, her breathing device retracted inside her armor and her helmet lost its black color, becoming transparent and allowing him to see her face.

She was a very beautiful woman, with short dark hair, red full lips and the most piercing blue eyes he had ever seen. Her blue eyes looked at him, going all the way up from his feet, drinking every detail, until they stopped on his face. Clark felt extremely uncomfortable. Not because of what she did; Natasha had done the same thing earlier and it only embarrassed him a little.

But because her eyes, as beautiful as they were, seemed colder than ice. She had the eyes of a predator.

"Kal-El," she said, suddenly, her voice carrying almost no emotion at all. "I'm sub-commander Faora-Ul. On behalf of General Zod, I extend you his greetings."