Avengers: Dawn of Justice Chapter 6 (MCU/DCU Commission)

Light years away from Earth, the sheets of an alien bed were twisted around two writhing figures. These two looked, for all intents and purposes, human. Yet they were not. They were Kryptonians, and they were the first in centuries to fulfill the act they were in the process of.

“Jor-El!” Jor-El’s wife, Lara Lor-Van, cried out. She touched his cheeks and smiled at him.

Above her, Jor-El thrusted into her, the loving couple locked in the throes of missionary intimacy. Sex was present on Krypton, but only in controlled environments, after the participants had been sterilized.

Neither Jor-El nor Lara had undergone that. They were doing this with a purpose. As Jor-El gasped and came, Lara cried out and orgasmed with him. Their bodies flexed as they underwent their respective climaxes.

When the moment started to pass, and their breathing evened out again, Lara started to laugh.

“We’ve done it,” Jor-El said. They had run the simulations and algorithms. Tonight, there was no chance of their efforts being wasted.

“Let’s do it a bit more,” his wife said huskily. “Just… while we’re here.”

She grabbed his head and pulled him into a kiss while Jor-El started to thrust again. This time, for nothing but the pleasure of it, sharing this intimacy with the love of his life.

LINE BREAK

Months later, Jor-El and Lara sat on the roof of their home. From here, they could see the airships shooting overhead that filled Krypton’s airspace. You could see out of the city in one direction, over a landscape of somewhat rugged desert hills. In the sky were two moons. One was much larger than the other, with a bluish hugh. That’s the direction Jor-El and Lara were looking in. 

“The council won’t listen,” Jor-El said.

“They’ve always been stubborn,” Lara said, holding his hand. “It’s unsurprising that they won’t change their mind, even when you show them indisputable evidence. You cannot save everyone, Jor-El. You’re only one man.”

“Except in this case, I am witnessing the doom of all of us,” Jor-El growled.

“Not all of us.” Lara touched her stomach.

It was starting to distend. Soon, Lara would have to isolate within their home to prevent discovery. She was the first Kryptonian woman to carry a natural child in centuries. If the average Kryptonian saw such a thing, they were sure to cry out that it was heresy.

Kryptonians, as a species, had “transcended” natural births. Jor-El could not bring himself to use that word without irony. The short description of their system was a genetic modification system which engineered being perfect for each role. The council that Jor-El could not bring to see reason about the armageddon that was coming had all been engineered to be leaders. Supposedly, they were benevolent and wise, but either lived experience had warped them or the Codex process was not as all-powerful as most believed, because Jor-El found them stuffy, arrogant, and nearsighted. Jor-El’s lifelong friend Zod had been designed to be a soldier. Rising to the rank of general through consistent service, Zod never lost the potent fighting spirit that he’d been born with. 

Jor-El and Lara were both scientists. They had been given greater ability to ponder and to reason about the world. With these traits, they became two of Krypton’s foremost minds who’d made multiple groundbreaking scientific contributions. These traits were a double edged sword for Kryptonian’s, though. They also pondered the way that Kryptonian’s operated. In the end, they found it lacking. Overly rigid in so many ways, without the ability to adapt. Kryptonians believed they had superseded nature, but Jor-El could see the truth.

Nature’s vengeance was coming. Their arrogance would not go unpunished.

He feared it would be the end of the race as a whole. He had not quite given up hope… He was still trying to convince the council to evacuate… But in the worst case, at least one life would live on.

Jor-El touched his wife’s stomach. Lara smiled warmly at him. Inside, Jor-El thought he might have felt a very soft kick. Beneath them, inside of their home, a small rocket ship was already almost finished. It was too small for even one person. A baby, however…

“You will live, my son,” Jor-El said. “I only hope that you are not the only one.”

Time would tell.

LINE BREAK

“We are out of time. You MUST give the order!” Jor-El shouted.

He barely restrained from snarling his words like a threat. In front of him sat five spectacularly adorned Kryptonians in luxurious robes. They were all on the elderly side with wrinkles native to their faces. One or two of them were shaking their heads at Jor-El.

“Think about what it is you are saying,” said Ro-Zar, the woman who led this group: Krypton’s Council of Five. “You are telling us to abandon our world. To leave Krypton to die. What could possibly merit the dooming of our world?”

“That is a question you all would need to answer,” Jor-El said, a little bit angrily. Inside, he was livid, but he had to hold his tongue. “It was your choice to make use of Krypton’s core that doomed this planet. I am only trying to save us from the fallout.”

“Mind your words! Would you have had us lose tens of thousands of years of progress, living without energy?” said a man on the council. “We needed a power source! Krypton provided, as it will continue to provide for future generations. You have always been an alarmist, Jor-El.”

Jor-El took a deep breath.

“You are going to be responsible for billions of deaths,” Jor-El said. “Can you shoulder that responsibility?”

Some of the members of the council began shifting uncomfortably. It seemed like, just maybe, he was starting to get through to them. 

An explosion stalled their conversation. Guards shouted with alarm before being felled by blasts of blue light. Their bodies fell to the ground with steam rising off of them.

“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded Ro-Zar. The leader of the council leaned forward. “What are you doing… Zod?”

Flanked by soldiers, Jor-El’s longtime friend and the leader of Krypton’s armies smiled at the council. It was not a friendly expression.

“I’m fixing your mistakes,” Zod said. “Too long, you doddering fools have hidden behind words to avoid making a decision. Our people can withstand it no longer. I will lead us to a better future!”

“You are mad. You will rot in prison before I allow such a thing,” Ro-Zar said. 

“Fortunately, I am not asking,” Zod said. 

He grabbed a rifle from one of his men and fired. Ro-Zar was struck and killed, falling limply in her seat. The rest of the council shouted with alarm while Zod’s men trained weapons on them.

Zod approached Jor-El, who was watching in silence.

“My friend. My old, old friend. Won’t you help me fix our world?” Zod asked.

“It’s too late for our world,” Jor-El said. “Maybe not it’s people. But our world is doomed.”

Zod put his hand on Jor-El’s shoulder. “No! I will fix our future! The Codex, that is the answer! All these weak, menial genes that we have retained create fools like this council. We only need men of action, like us! I will fix it. I will purge the poisonous genes and Kryptonians will rise from these ashes, as a race of conquerors!”

Jor-El didn’t answer and Zod’s smile became strained.

“When the time comes… to weed the weak genes from the necessary ones… Who will make that choice?” Jor-El asked. “You?”

“Someone must,” Zod said. “It’s a weight I’m willing to bear.”

“No. It’s a benefit you are fighting—and killing—to win,” Jor-El said. “I refuse. Your offer, your methods, and your goal are all things I have no interest in.”

Zod’s lips quivered. He took his hand off of Jor-El’s shoulder.

“Arrest him!” Zod announced. “And make certain the council are dealt with for their crimes! This planet will be ours before the day is done.”

Zod left the room while his shoulders led Jor-El away. Jor-El did not fight them. He allowed himself to be taken away.

They led him through passages within the council building until they were stopped by an oddly shaped robot. Kelor was her designated name. Jor-El designed her with his own two hands.

“Are you alright, sir?” Kelor asked.

“Move!” said the guards.

They pointed their weapons threateningly. Jor-El looked at Kelor and inclined his head slightly. 

Kelor released a blinding flash of light. Jor-El instantly turned and delivered an uppercut to the guard on his right. Wrestling away the man’s weapon, Jor-El fired on the rest of his guards, defeating them quickly. The last man, who was still trying to hold onto the stolen weapon, Jor-El head butted. As the man staggered back, Jor-El fired on him, completing his escape.

Breathing heavily, Jor-El said, “Kelor, connect me to Lara.”

An outline of his wife’s face appeared on the robot’s futuristic display.

“Jor-El? Honey? What is it?” Lara asked.

“Zod. He has gone mad. I think he sees himself as the savior of our race, taking everyone’s fate into his own hands,” Jor-El said. “It’s the exact opposite of everything we’re striving for. Please, prepare the pod…”

The outline of Lara’s face took on a pronounced frown. “Must we?”

“It’s come to this. We are doomed,” Jor-El said. “All of us… except Kal-El.”

They had done it. Their son, conceived naturally, had been born and arrived in the world healthy. Jor-El was proud to no end. If one thing on this whole miserable planet was to survive, it HAD to be his son. Kal-El was the future. Not Zod’s twisted power fantasy, but a TRUE future, one that reunited with nature instead of attempting to defeat it.

“I’ll prepare the pod. Please, make it home safely,” Lara said.

Jor-El smiled. “I will. However, I have one stop to make first.”

A few minutes later, Jor-El was in the air, riding H’Raka, his loyal War Kite. The creature flew between battling airships and dodged gunfire. Close to Jor-El’s home, an explosion wounded H’Raka, but the mount kept flying. She brought him home before collapsing. Jor-El looked sadly as she whimpered. He wanted to sit with her as she passed from this mortal wound, but he could not spare the time.

He gently closed H’Raka’s eyes. “Forgive me. I will join you soon.”

Jor-El ran through his house as the floor shook from the battle overtaking the planet. Kal-El was already in his pod when Jor-El arrived. Lara was working on the controls, calibrating Kal-El’s trip.

Jor-El approached his son. The thing he risked his life to procure before arriving here, the Codex that carried all Kryptonian DNA, he melded to his son. Where Kal-El went, he would carry all of Krypton with him.

“Live well, my son.” Jor-El’s voice shook slightly. “Where you are going, you will be strong. You will be like a god among them. But you must never carry all that weight alone, do you hear me? Grow up good. Grow up better than me, your pitiful father, who can only send you away from his failures. Please, I beg you, Kal-El… Above all, grow strong and live happily.”

He bent down and kissed his son’s forehead. Lara touched her husband’s back and he straightened, sniffing and wiping away the few tears that were starting to fall.

“Zod is here,” Lara said.

Jor-El’s face hardened. “Then I’ll face him.”

When Zod marched in with four of his followers, those around him were quickly gunned down by Jor-El. Zod did not immediately charge. He and Jor-El pointed weapons at each other, entering a standoff.

“I know that you took the codex. Give it to me and I will not be forced to take your life,” Zod said.

“I refuse,” Jor-El said. “The Codex will be leaving this planet with our only hope.”

“I AM OUR ONLY HOPE!” Zod screamed. “Why do you resist me, Jor-El? Do you truly prefer that hollow council?”

“I think that you’re all wrong,” Jor-El said. “In fact, I know that all of you are. Our race’s way of living, the Codex, all of it was a mistake. Lara and I have rectified it in our own way. We have given birth, Zod. A natural child, one who can become anything he wants to be, has been born. He will carry the codex with him.

“HERESY!” Zod screamed, fulfilling the prediction Jor-El made many months ago.

Zod was so enraged by this un-Kryptonian idea that he charged Jor-El. Both men had outfitted themselves in war armor. They shot at each other and hit each other’s rifles, breaking both the weapons. They charged each other with their fists next, roaring.

Zod was Krypton’s general but Jor-El was no weakling. More importantly, Zod was fighting for his own delusions of grandeur. Jor-El was fighting for his son. When Jor-El was hit, he roared and fought through it like a man possessed. Soon he had Zod against the wall, pounding the general’s face. A succession of brutal punches made Zod fall to the floor. 

On his hands and knees, the general addressed Lara.

“Listen to me… Lara… You must not launch that ship,” Zod said. “You will be sending away our future. To launch that rocket is to doom this planet for the sake of an abomination!”

Lara stopped and looked coldly at him. “This planet is already doomed. And a word of advice, Zod? Never call a mother’s child an abomination.”

She hit the launch button. Zod roared. He reached a hidden blade and surged up, ramming it through a chink in Jor-El’s armor. Jor-El did not even struggle. The rocket had been launched now. The one who mattered was free of this planet and everyone left on it was soon to die, one way or another. 

Zod ran at Lara who watched him fearlessly. He pressed his blade to her neck but she didn’t flinch.

“Bring it back!” Zod roared.

“I cannot. And I would not, if I could,” Lara said.

Zod screamed with rage. He grabbed a communication device on his wrist and screamed into it: “All forces, shoot down the pod above my coordinates!”

Airships loyal to him started to converge. However, they were obliterated in turn by larger ships belonging to those loyal to the council. Zod could only watch in rage as the pod escaped and his hopes of a coup were brutally suppressed. Soon, troops swarmed the House of El. Zod fought them when they arrived, but he was soon overwhelmed and pinned to the ground.

They found Lara sitting beside an empty pod bay, ignorant of who she had just sent away. Her husband was laying on the ground, his life having faded from the wound that Zod left. He had joined his mount exactly as he promised he would.

Lara didn’t cry. She knew that she would be joining them soon. If she cried now, it would only be tears of relief, ironically.

Kal-El was free.