Chapter 14

Clark pov

I was in the fortress, training with Superboy when I received a call from Butcher saying I needed to get to S.T.R.I.K.E headquarters.

As I was making my way there, he briefed me, "so you see? He claims to be you from an alternate earth or whatever, for all we know he might be a supe with similar powers to you, only he was near the breach, so we need you here to use your alien doohickeys to find out."

That caught my attention and I said to him, "got it, I'm on my way." As I sped up breaking the sound barrier several times over.

I soon reached the building in Washington as that is where the H.Q was located and was greeted by the sight of the waiting Butcher near the door.

As we were making our way there, he started talking to me, "the cunt looks nothing like you, hell, he's not even your Hight, but so far he's cooperating with us and did not give us trouble as of yet."

He finished saying that just as we had reached the door, and then the armored soldier nodded his head at seeing us and opened it and we went inside.

As I saw the man sitting there, I froze in place, he was definitely Superman, just not another Henry Cavill, this one was Tyler Hoechlin in his suit from "Superman and Lois" tv show, which before I died only managed to watch season one.

I look at him, and he looks at me, and both our eyebrows rise up, and I ask him just on the off chance that he is someone else, "Kal-El?"

He nodded his head and said, "Y-yes! Kal-El?" I nodded my head, and then just to be on the safe side, I switched to kryptonese.

"(did they treat you ok?)"

"(yeah, they did, tell me… what had happened here? They seemed to be on high alert when I arrived here…)"

I sighed and spoke one word, "Darkseid." And by his expression, that was all the explanation he needed.

It was a good thing I started to learn how to speak the language a month ago and started to teach it to young Ryan.

Now back to the topic, "(can you tell me how you found yourself here?)"

"(I don't know like I told the guards, I was fighting this woman named Ally Allston, she was in the process of merging my earth with another, I remember stopping her, but after that… it's a blur..)

I was listening to his heartbeat the whole time, and he seemed to be telling the truth, so I nodded my head and said in English this time, "alright, I'll be taking him."

Butcher nodded his head and said, "alright mate, if you're sure." And then he gestured with his head to one of the armed guards, who then proceeded to pull out a pair of keys and I just then noticed that he was cuffed to the table, even though it was obvious that he could've escaped at any given moment.

As we were making our way out of the facility, the other superman (A/N to prevent confusion, from now on I would refer to him as CW superman.) had come closer to me and said, "I have so many questions."

I smiled at him and said, "as do I, but let's get to my fortress first."

He nodded his head, and after taking enough distance, we both rocketed out of there and towards the north pole.

It didn't take us long to reach my fortress, after we landed, I turn around and smirked as I saw CW superman looking in awe at the place, and after we went inside, I felt something tackling me at super speed, and then receiving a tight hug.

I smile at the mass of blonde hair I see under me, and I return the hug and say, "hay Ryan, how are you doing buddy?"

He lets go of me, smiles as he looks at me, and says, "good uncle Kal, Kelex had helped me train after you were called away."

"Oh? Is that so?" at his nodding head, I then say, "well, about that, there is someone you should meet." I say as I move out of the way, leaving CW in view.

I see Ryan's eyes widen, as are the other superman's as he sees our crest on the boy's chest.

I then move behind Ryan, I crouch down and say, "Ryan, this is… well… me from another universe, Kal, this is Ryan Butcher, my protégé, also known as Superboy."

Ryan waves his hand as his eyes widen and he weekly says, "Hi."

Still a bit shocked at this, the CW superman waves his hand as well at the boy and says, "hello, it is nice to meet you, Ryan." He then extends his hand for Ryan to shake, which he gladly takes, then he looks at me and asks, "do you have more Kryptonians on this earth?"

I shake my head and say, "sadly no, I am the only Kryptonian left alive."

He is stunned at my word and says, "but Superboy…?"

"Is not even a Kryptonian, it is a long story." I say as we start making our way deeper into the fortress."

The Deep pov

He was blocking another downward strike from Vulko using his hydro-kinesis to form a shield around his head.

It was now a daily routine for him, in the past month he was training under Vulko per king Arthur's orders.

Vulko had looked at him, and commented while they fought, "good, your reaction time is improving, and your water shield felt a lot more solid than before."

"thank you." He says, as he now took his trident and spun it around aiming it at Vulko's chest, but Vulko had blocked it with his own trident and then proceeded to parry the blow.

"you seemed to have improved in techniques as well, someone has been paying attention to my tutelage."

At that, Vulko spun around, hit Kevin under his feet, and proceeded to hit his chest, pinning him down to the ground.

"But you still have much to learn." He said as the tip of his trident was aimed at his throat.

Kevin just panted before raising his arms in surrender and saying, "I yield, you beat me… again." He added sourly, as the trident was removed from his throat, and a hand was extended towards him.

"now now, it is not the loss that we leave with…"

"but what we learn from it that matters." Kevin continued, as he took the offered hand.

In the last month, he has studied all manner of things under Vulko, such as their origin, their extensive knowledge of the ocean, and even about their faith. As he suspected, it was Greco roman in nature, and as someone who was mostly Christian in upbringing, at first he had trouble adjusting to it.

But they didn't force their belief system on him, rather they just let him reach his own conclusions based on the knowledge given to him.

He was still very self-conscious about his gills, though slowly he started to feel better about them, seeing the other people of Atlantis, and how some of them adapted to the sea had made him more confident about that part of him.

He was now making his way to his assigned quarters, he had a fresh change of cloth waiting for him after his training,

It was an Atlantean style tunic, made out of algae colored with squid ink, the fabric was soft to the touch, very pleasant on his skin, acter cleaning himself from his workout, he dressed up and went to the newly built palace.

He had dinner with the king, the first time he meets him in a month after he declared him to be under his watch.

He stopped at the gate, and waved at the guard while hesitantly saying, "Hi, Kevin Moskowitz here to see the king?"

One of the guards just looked at him, before opening the gate and said, "he's been expecting you." And he signaled him to enter.

Clark pov

"You're kidding me?!" CW Superman said shocked at the tale I told him about this earth.

I shook my head and said, "I wish I was, but that is the really ugly truth of how people on this earth get their powers, well accept for Ryan, he's the only natural-born Supe."

He shook his head and said, "poor kid, and after what he went through with his father… I can't imagine what it's been like for him."

"well thankfully he's been training to better control himself, and it is my hope that one day, he would replace me as earth's champion if he would be up to it of course."

He smiled and said, "yeah… I guess one day we all would be replaced." He was sounding a bit sad, and then I remembered he had two twin sons back on his earth.

"and what about you? Have someone waiting for you?"

He nodded his head and said, "yeah, my wife and my sons."

"oh that must be nice, tell me about them," I said even though I knew some of it from what I had watched in my old life, but he looked like he could use a little bit of talking about it.

He smiled and said, "well there is Jonathan and Jorden, both of them play on the local football team, well Jorden is at least, Jonathan was recently kicked out."

And then he started to tell me everything that had happened post-season 2, and the situation Smallville faced with the X kryptonite, and with the pressure Jonathan felt, he had started using this stuff on himself when he saw that several guys on the team were doing the same, needless to say… it did not end well."

I remembered the X kryptonite angle in the first season, but this was something I did not expect, but then again, I never saw past the first season.

I put my hand on his shoulder and say, "Hey, I'm sure it will be ok, now… I could use your help with something else."

He seems to perk up at that and asks, "oh? And what is that matter?"

I rub the back of my head sheepishly and say, "well, in about a month, I have to be on the planet Mars, to negotiate a possible piece treaty between earth, and an alien people named Marith'rai, now I have no experience doing something like that, so I was hoping you could give me some pointers."

He smiled at me and said, "gladly."

Stan Edgar pov

***unknown location***

Stan was in his hideout, an old facility of Vought that housed some of Vought's even more unwanted experiments, which he was looking at one right now.

At first, they thought of making him to be a 'villain' for the Deep, but the project was deemed too dangerous to be let out.

He looked at the writing that had read, "project shark prince", Stan Edgar was absolutely desperate, but with Atlantis making itself Known to the world, and the Deep seemingly allying himself with them, he had no other choice.

Much like Soldier boy, this creature could only be stooped by using novichok in his water tank.

Stan Edgar pressed a red button, which promptly emptied the water from the tank, as the creature in front of him started to wake up, he had pulled out a bloody piece of green fabric, it was the deep's, after holding it with long pincers, he put it as close to the shark supe's nose as close as possible.

With delight, he watched as the creature sniffed the fabric, and the eyes turned completely black, he pressed another button, opening a door to the water under the cage, and watched as the shark man escaped through it.

All the while he said to himself, "let the game begin…" as he now looked at a screen with a red dote making its way to the Bermuda triangle.

Aquaman pov-New Atlantis

He was sitting in his throne room, his queen right beside him, he held her hand as he heard the door opening, and in swam Kevin, now garbed in fine Atlantean clothing.

In the past months, Arthur had kept an eye on him, and so far, he seemed to actually be making an effort to change himself for the better, he was keeping to his therapy, learning their ways, and slowly but surely, becoming a citizen of Atlantis.

But he still didn't trust him, not fully, while he was making progress, he hasn't made full amends for his actions on the surface world, and they're still was the matter with his trident a month ago… he still couldn't find an explanation for that.

He saw the man bowing his head respectfully at him after reaching the thrones, and he said, "your majesty, I am here per your summons!"

He smirked at the show of respect, and then said, "I've been hearing of your progress from Vulko, he says good things about you."

Then he saw Kevin raising his head and saying, "well he is a good teacher, and the others… has been kind enough to me, well… considering…"

"Your history?" the king added.

He nodded his head and said, "yes… that…"

Arthur took a moment to think about it, and then said, "stand, you will dine tonight with me and my queen, we believe it is time we had a proper sit down with you."

As he stood to his feet, he and his queen stood from their thrones, and swam towards one of the doors, "please, join us." The queen added, her voice soft.

The man simply nodded his head and swam along with them to the royal dining room.

Time skip 1 hour

The man was laughing his ass off from the tale the king told him, "you're kidding me!"

The king shook his head, "nope! All the class, the teacher included didn't know what happened when the shark suddenly hit the glass in the aquarium, cracking it. Needless to say, I was excluded from the next class trips to see the world."

"oh my god! For how long?"

"Uh pretty much all of them."

The laughter that burst out from the deep was so infectious, that even Arthur joined in.

Then his queen asked, "what about you Kevin? Do you have any interesting stories to tell?"

That had gotten him quiet, and he didn't answer for a minute before coughing clearing his throat, and saying, "let's just say that if New Atlantis was here sooner, things might have been different for me."

Both Arthur and Mera had caught the hint and didn't press, the king was about to change the subject when the door burst open and a guard swam in exclaiming, "Your majesty! We are being under attack!"

The king and queen quickly rose up from their seats and he asked, "by who?"

"king shark." Was the guard's only reply before swimming back out.

A/N hey there, I'm back!

Sorry for not updating sooner, but with the wedding preparations getting closer and closer, finding the time and energy to write has been close to impossible.

So, our superman has met a counterpart of himself, now, for the Marith'rai, if one of you readers could come up with a description of them as I am out of ideas, that would be great, and if any of you could give me ideas for the continuation of the story, that would be great.

Until next time, you guys are awesome!

Bookwormjohnny2 out!