“It’s a bird!”
“No, it’s a plane!”
“It’s… no wait that’s definitely a plane.”
High above the swaying tropical forest, Clark Kent was forced to stifle a chuckle to himself. There was something amusing about the child’s defeated tone from the surface thousands of feet below the passenger jet that Clark was currently seated within. It was as though the boy had been looking to the sky for something grander, waiting for the heavens to answer a prayer or for a sign of hope to descend from between the clouds. Instead, all the child got was another plane full of Americans here to spend their money on a vacation and litter the otherwise beautiful country.
At least, that’s what Clark had gathered the majority of the plane’s occupants were here for. He on the other hand was working. In order to complete his journalism program at Metropolis University, Clark was required to get some real world experience in the form of an internship. Naturally, like so many others in his class, he had tried to get in with the Daily Planet Broadcasting Corporation. Working alongside someone who had accelerated their career as quickly as the legendary Lois Lane would have been resume gold. Unfortunately that coveted position went to Cat Grant.
That’s not to say however, that Clark felt he had been slighted in any regard. He considered himself to be quite lucky having found an internship with renowned investigative reporter John Corben. Corben had gained almost a celebrity notoriety for his exposé features over the past decade. He had exposed human traffickers, drug rings, even terrorist cells. If there was a headline to be made, you can be sure that Corben made it.
This new assignment in Peru, however, had Clark feeling particularly drawn towards it. Somewhere in the jungle, an unknown object had been unearthed. Its discoverer, Dr. Emmet Vale, had described it only as a ‘vessel of unknown origin’. But Clark knew exactly what those words meant. Being friends with Chloe ‘Curator of the Wall of Weird’ Sullivan all through highschool meant a certain amount of intuition rubbed off on you. In Chloe’s own words, a vessel of unknown origin was basically the unspoken term for one word.
Alien.While by no means an authority on the subject, Clark did have a certain investment in research revolving around aliens. Nineteen years ago, another vessel of unknown origin, a small pod, fell into a cornfield in Smallville. That pod contained a young toddler who was fortunate enough to be found by Jonathan and Martha Kent and raised as their own.
For those of you following along at home, that child was me.Clark allowed a smirk of amusement to cross his face, tilting his head from shoulder to shoulder while pretending to narrate his own personal sitcom. Back in Smallville, his best friend, Pete Ross, used to refer to it as ‘Planet Clark’. A ‘Planet Clark’ moment being anytime Clark retreated into his own mind, often processing his next action without jeopardizing the secret his parents had worked so many years to hide from the world. But Smallville wasn’t without its struggles and the meteor rocks that had destroyed its cream corn crop had caused all sorts of peculiar situations the young teenager often found himself mixed up in or pinned up on Chloe’s aforementioned Wall of Weird.
The young man found himself forced to stifle a chuckle at the idea of ‘Planet Clark’ being a weekly series following a teenager with superpowers balancing high school with stopping so-called ‘bad guys’. From the seat to Clark’s immediate left, the woman beside him shot him a quick look of bewilderment and concern at his sudden outburst before returning to her in-flight movie. Rubbing his flushed cheeks, Clark turned his attention back to the window on his other side, watching as the plane descended closer and closer towards the asphalt.
The initial bounce of the wheels first touching down was barely noticeable from the interior of the plane. But Clark could see, hear and feel everything. Disembarking from the aircraft, he entered Jorge Chavez International Airport. Passing through customs, Clark took a look around the building, honing his vision as he looked through and past anyone who obstructed his field of sight. On the other side of the building was a man holding a sign that clearly read ‘Kent’.
Looking to either side to see if anyone was watching him, Clark let out a quick smirk before launching himself forward, moving through the frozen crowd around him before coming to a stop a few paces away from the man awaiting his arrival. Straightening his shirt and quickly putting his hair back in place, Clark began to move forward with a hand outstretched to make his introduction.
“Kent? Clark Kent?” He asked, motioning to the sign as the other man turned towards him.
“Kent! About time you landed, you know the story doesn’t wait for any man.” The other man beamed, a whitened smile flashing towards Clark. “Damn, they grow you big in Kansas, what’d your ma feed you, farmboy?”
“Nothing too out of the normal, I’m afraid.” Clark replied, lowering his gaze to meet the other man’s.
“Quite a grip too, college football? I played for the Sharks myself once upon a time.”“Just highschool I’m afraid.”“Damn shame, Sharks could have used a quarterback built like you this season.” The man stated, nodding his head knowingly.
“John Corben by the way, but you already knew that.”“I didn’t want to assume.” Clark replied with a nervous chuckle.
“Good instincts, never assume.” Corben replied before turning towards the door.
“Now come on, farmboy, we have history to make.”
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