"I am Jor-El, the true father of Kal-El." The spirit's voice boomed about the cave, the shimmery light still surrounding Jonathan Kent.

"His name is Clark Kent! I am his father, I raised him," Jonathan yelled back.

"You have fulfilled your function in Kal-El's destiny."

"His destiny is whatever he makes of it," Jonathan protested.

"His destiny is too great for you to comprehend. This was Kal-El's first test to see if he was ready to begin his journey. "

"He's too young! He needs more time!" Jonathan pleaded.

"This phase of Kal-El's journey is almost complete. It will be of no consequence if he returns to you ... for now."

"You'll bring him home?"

"If you want him, you must retrieve him yourself."

"I can't. He's too powerful." He is Jonathan thought, he's far too powerful and on the red Kryptonite I can't make him do anything he doesn't want to.

"Are you willing to sacrifice anything to get him back?"

"Yes! For my son I'll do anything."

More flashes of light filled the cave, all of them hitting into Jonathan. The intensity was increasing with every moment. "Aaah! Aaah!" screamed Jonathan.

-----------------------------

I felt like the energy was filling my body. Something overwhelming-something so strong-was entering me. I felt as though my body was going to self-destruct and then, abruptly and not a moment too soon, the light was gone.

I was left lying on the ground. I supposed that he should feel pain; after all I'd just been hit with light. Slowly I stood up, testing my senses to see if I was alright. There was no sign in the cave that anything had happened at all, save for the key which I hurriedly retrieved lest anyone walk in at that moment.

There seemed to be nothing different about me-that was until I went to run out of the cave. Although I'd never had a bad heart, I thought that mine was about to give out when I saw the world fly by in prismatic color. Boy, was that surprising.

I stopped moving and was shocked to find that I was no longer in the caves but out in the middle of the fields leading to the caves-and I'd gotten there in a matter of seconds. Trying to take deep breaths to calm myself, I realized what Jor-el had done. He'd meant it literally when he'd told me to bring Clark home himself-and he'd given me the ability to do it.

Sitting down right where I was, trying to get a hold of myself, I thought, "How strange is this?" I'd always tried to help Clark the best he could with his ability related problems, but I'd never been able to do so completely because I'd never experienced them. With a soft laugh I realized that apparently that wasn't going to be a problem anymore.

I picked a rock up in my hand and just for kicks tried to crush it. I gasped when I actually was able to crush it. I-Jonathan Kent-had just crushed a rock (A rock!) in my bare hands. Grinding my fist a little more, I watched as the rock was reduced to dust. Clark lived with this kind of power every day, I realized.

This, I realized, was absolute power. I could do anything. No one could stop me.

I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for Clark's gentle demeanor-or rather his normally gently demeanor. That brought me back to my currant problem and the reason for these abilities. I didn't know how long I'd have them and therefore, I knew I needed to find my renegade son as soon as possible.

I really didn't know where Clark was. Yes, I knew he was in Metropolis, but where in Metropolis was a complete mystery to me. Besides, even if I found Clark it wouldn't be a simple thing to get him to come home.

Sure I had powers, but Clark had all of his as well and was therefore just as evenly matched. This problem obviously couldn't be solved by simply going to Metropolis, finding my son, picking him up, and simply carrying him home. Although I supposed I could spank him this time, I thought with a small chuckle, remembering the incident where I'd tried to spank him when he was about three with a hair brush. That poor hairbrush had obviously gotten the worse deal and neither I nor Martha had ever tried that tactic again.

There was also the fact that Clark was more experienced with his abilities as well. I'd only had these things for a few hours. Clark had lived with them his whole life. He'd had his whole life to hone those skills.

No, I'd have to get the ring. Getting the ring off of Clark was the only way this was going to be solved. But doing that wouldn't be easy either, I realized glumly.

I decided I'd have to at least have a working knowledge of these abilities in order to even have a fighting chance. I'd already worked out the strength and speed-at least as well as I could on such a short notice. Now I decided I'd work on x-ray vision.

Boy, was that an odd experience. I walked away from the caves and towards the road. Standing behind a tree, I tried to do that little squint thing that Clark always does when he's x-raying things. At first it didn't work and then-WHAM!-I was seeing through the car-and some random woman's clothing. I definitely needed to have a talk with Clark once I got him home about making sure he didn't abuse his powers. Of course, if I wanted to share this experience-which I didn't think I really did-I'd have to make sure I didn't talk about it when Martha was around. That could get really messy-and I'm a farmer-I know messy.

I tried the x-ray vision out again, this time on a tree. This time it went fairly well, and I got a nice shot of the inside of a tree and a few bugs. X-ray vision-check.

Next thing was the heat vision. Deciding that a small clump of grass wouldn't be too harmful, I focused on that. Once again I tried the squinting action.

Nothing happened.

I blinked a couple of times and tried again.

Still nothing.

Maybe I had to go back to...my baser instincts to get this to work. Concentrating hard, I thought of Martha in that black dress that she wore out to dinner sometimes when we went out. There was this building pressure around my eyes and then suddenly the grass was on fire.

I made a very large note to have a talk with Clark about his powers.

Ok, so now I had everything at least down in some semblance of a working order. Next step was to find my son.

Who was in Metropolis.

So, common sense told me that I should go to Metropolis. Feeling infinitely ridiculous, I started to run and the world began to fly by. I was going by cars like they were standing still.

Ten minutes later, I was in Metropolis.

Finding Clark in a city of this size was going to be no small feat, I realized. I decided that I'd first take a look around the area of the bank robbery a few days before.

At first I overran the area since the speed thing wasn't quite down yet, but I simply went back. Once there I found nothing appeared to be out of order, save for the broken glass and yellow police tape lines that said, "Do Not Cross" as was customary for an investigation.

Really, the only thing it told me was that Clark had to have some serious money on him-and I supposed that could help me.

Clark was probably in this area of town. After all, most of the crimes had been in this area. So I thought that maybe if I just looked up the most expensive apartments in this area it might just lead me to Clark. Yeah, it was a long shot, but it was the only plan I had.

-------------------------

A couple of telephone directories and Google searches on a computer, in a house whose owners were out for the night, later, I had compiled a list of perhaps twenty high-society apartments and hotels. The number of zeros on them made me seriously hope that Clark wasn't at any of them because, if he was, he was using stolen money and morals said that he should pay it back. Of course if he was at one of them and if the number of zero's on the cost per night was really correct, I might have to let even my ethics slide for once, because the farm was already in debt and soup kitchens really didn't sound so appealing to me.

With super-speed it didn't take long to zip to the apartments. I would then scan them, looking at the occupants to see if one might be my son, and then I'd go to the next one.

I was about half way down my list when I scanned a building and saw him. There was no mistaking him, even in all that leather. But even his whole demeanor seemed different. I was glad I'd figured out how to just look through the walls and at the person and not actually x-ray them, but I was also a little regretful about that because the look on my son's face that it was showing me was scary.

It was Clark-but it wasn't. His features were the same, but they were disfigured with a soft, ever-present smirk that didn't suit the boy I knew at all. He looked so-there was no other word to describe it-mean. My son wasn't mean.

I was about to head into the apartment when Clark went into super-speed. Now watching someone else in super-speed is perhaps one of the strangest things that I've ever done. It's like half the world is in slow motion, but that person is in regular time. It is truly bizarre.

Realizing that I had to stop him, I followed. Clark didn't seem to be in any particular hurry and even with my inexperience with these abilities it was easy to keep up with him.

My breath seemed to leave my lungs when I realized where he was. We were at Luthor Corp. Why would my son be at Luthor Corp? Lionel Luthor was his enemy, Lex Luthor was dead, and Clark knew there were meteor rocks in there-or at least there had been. What was he thinking?

I followed him at a distance as he slipped into the building, moving by the security-even stopping and laughing at the security in super-speed mode. Once he was inside I too slipped in and trailed behind him, being careful to use my x-ray vision to look through the walls to make sure he'd gone around the corner into the next part of the hallway before following.

I really wasn't surprised that he went straight to Lionel Luthor's office. Apparently the small stuff wasn't big enough for a Clark Kent on Red Kryptonite. Standing outside the door, I watched with the x-ray vision as he easily broke into the safe and reached for its contents.

It was time to put a stop to this, I decided. I wanted my son back and it was now or never. And so, ready, or so I thought, for whatever was about to happen, I stepped forward. He turned around and when he looked at me I felt my blood run cold. "Hello, Clark," I say.

As I say those words and see the look he gives me I know this is going to be a fight. But no matter what happens tonight, I will get my son back, no matter what it takes.

The End