Return - OTA
Kal-El stood, looking around at the beauty of the farm he had built. The flowing fields, the sounds of content animals, the simple efficiency of the barn and out buildings. Peaceful and serene, the farm was timeless and untouched by the troubles of the world. It was also a lie. The buildings and animals were real enough, but the open sky and peaceful surroundings were just a simulation. The technology behind the simulation was such that very few people would have been able to distinguish it from reality. Unfortunately, Kal-El was one.
He had recently been visited by another, Diana of Themiscyra. She had come today, as she had many times in the last decade, in an attempt to talk Kal into returning to the world, into becoming Superman once again. She had argued with reason, pleaded with passion, and finally shamed him with the truth: that he was, in fact, being amazingly petty and vindictive.
A million people, dead. The American mid-West, a nation's breadbasket, turned into a wasteland. He had turned his back on her, unable in that moment to face the full horror of the truth: that he might have prevented it, and did not.
Diana had left the Fortress, though Kal could see her flying off in the distance clearly enough to know that she was not returning to Themiscyra as he had suggested. She hadn't given up, and he had.
Kal left the simulator, returning to his personal quarters in the Fortress. Shaving was a complicated process when even your hair was invulnerable. After many years of practice, though, Kal was quite adept as using his reflected heat vision to do the job. There was a time when the special tools in the Fortress had been up to the job, but decades of absorbing solar radiation had left Kal more powerful than ever - even Kryptonite barely affected him anymore. Once that was done, Kal stood for a moment and looked into the mirror. Though the years hadn't dimmed his powers, Kal was not immortal like Diana. There was gray, and there were wrinkles. Still, there was time to go back to try and make a difference again ...
... abruptly Clark found himself standing near a barn again. Disoriented for a moment, he looked around. Though there was similarities to the Fortress simulation, this far was very real. Or, at least, it was a good enough simulation to fool even Kryptonian senses. Then, the memories came flooding back, memories that caused Clark to sink onto his knees in the soft dirt. Friends ... family ... peace ... he'd had it all here, and had forgotten it. The lingering emptiness of all these years, how much of it had been because of this loss?
Clark knelt there, utterly at a loss as to how fate could be so generous to him, and so cruel.
[ooc: Clark has returned, from the time period of Kingdom Come. He appears as a (very) vigorous man in his late 50s, still wearing coveralls but no glasses.]
He had recently been visited by another, Diana of Themiscyra. She had come today, as she had many times in the last decade, in an attempt to talk Kal into returning to the world, into becoming Superman once again. She had argued with reason, pleaded with passion, and finally shamed him with the truth: that he was, in fact, being amazingly petty and vindictive.
A million people, dead. The American mid-West, a nation's breadbasket, turned into a wasteland. He had turned his back on her, unable in that moment to face the full horror of the truth: that he might have prevented it, and did not.
Diana had left the Fortress, though Kal could see her flying off in the distance clearly enough to know that she was not returning to Themiscyra as he had suggested. She hadn't given up, and he had.
Kal left the simulator, returning to his personal quarters in the Fortress. Shaving was a complicated process when even your hair was invulnerable. After many years of practice, though, Kal was quite adept as using his reflected heat vision to do the job. There was a time when the special tools in the Fortress had been up to the job, but decades of absorbing solar radiation had left Kal more powerful than ever - even Kryptonite barely affected him anymore. Once that was done, Kal stood for a moment and looked into the mirror. Though the years hadn't dimmed his powers, Kal was not immortal like Diana. There was gray, and there were wrinkles. Still, there was time to go back to try and make a difference again ...
... abruptly Clark found himself standing near a barn again. Disoriented for a moment, he looked around. Though there was similarities to the Fortress simulation, this far was very real. Or, at least, it was a good enough simulation to fool even Kryptonian senses. Then, the memories came flooding back, memories that caused Clark to sink onto his knees in the soft dirt. Friends ... family ... peace ... he'd had it all here, and had forgotten it. The lingering emptiness of all these years, how much of it had been because of this loss?
Clark knelt there, utterly at a loss as to how fate could be so generous to him, and so cruel.
[ooc: Clark has returned, from the time period of Kingdom Come. He appears as a (very) vigorous man in his late 50s, still wearing coveralls but no glasses.]