Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister:
The Beginning
(c) 2006
Note: Though it last saw print over 40 years ago, the Superboy story "Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister!" is still fondly remembered by many fans of TG fiction. The original was a mere 9 pages long so, understandably, the story was pretty compressed. In recent years, there's been a move in comics towards what has become known as 'decompressed' storytelling, towards giving stories the room they need to breathe. Which led me to wonder how a somewhat decompressed adaptation of this story might look, of course, and to how I could extend it past the point where the original finished...
All characters herein are the property of DC Comics.
High above the cornfields of Kansas a blue and red streak arced across the clear blue skies. Most people glancing up from the ground on hearing the sonic boom as it reached mach-1 and following its trajectory would have taken this to be an airplane or possibly the test firing of some new rocket, but it was neither. No, it was something much stranger: a teenager from another planet who had arrived on our Earth as a baby and been raised as one of us, a teenager with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, a teenager known to the world as...Superboy!
"Son, I have a strange feeling that something amazing will change your whole life today," Martha Kent had told Clark, her adopted son, before he set off on his morning flight. He had chuckled at this instance of 'feminine intuition' then headed out through the tunnel from their basement that led to a concealed exit some miles away - having Superboy spotted flying to and from the Kent family home would make maintaining his Clark Kent identity impossible, and being able to live among normal humans as one of them was too precious to him to risk lightly. Not that normal human beings were on his mind as he flew west towards Colorado...
It had only been two days since their last visit, but Clark still found his mind drifting back to the time, two months earlier, when three super-powered teenagers had first arrived in his hometown of Smallville and sought him out. Lightning Boy (now -Lad), Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl - Garth Ranzz, Rokk Krinn, and Imra Ardeen - were part of a club of super-powered teens in the 30th century who called themselves the Legion of Super-Heroes. They had travelled back in time to invite him to return with them and join the Legion. Since visiting their time, learning that they hailed from planets colonised by humans in the intervening years, and experiencing the wonders of the 30th century, the 20th century had come to seem almost humdrum. Of course, during their recent second visit they had imprisoned him on an alien world, but he didn't hold it against them. Misunderstandings happened, after all.
The Sangre de Cristo mountains were rushing towards him, the point where Clark usually turned on these early morning flights and headed back towards Smallville. As always, he checked the area with his telescopic vision for any storm clouds that might be forming, looking for a few hours warning of any bad weather that would be headed their way. This was a routine by now and never turned up anything unusual. Until today.
Small, dark green, and with a clear canopy enclosing its pilot, the craft zoomed above the clouds at a speed no fighter jet could have matched.
"That queer craft..." thought Clark, flying in for a closer look, "is it a spacecraft from another world? I wonder what its spaceman pilot looks like?"
As it happened the pilot was female, but if Clark was surprised by her gender she was far more stunned to see him flying alongside her craft under his own power, so much so that she momentarily lost control of it, causing it to go into a steep dive. Muttering under his breath about 'women drivers', Clark swooped after her craft, which was on a collision course with one of the peaks.
Not knowing anything about the structural strength of the craft, it was too risky for Clark to attempt to halt it himself - grabbing hold of it or trying to push it off course could result in its destruction - so he took the only other option open to him. Overtaking the craft, he slammed into the peak himself, demolishing its tip and so allowing the pilot to clear it with inches to spare. She landed in one of the small, grassy valleys of the high mountains and climbed out. Tall and striking with short, blonde hair and clad in a short-skirted purple dress of alien design, she regarded Superboy imperiously as he alighted on the grass next to her. If he had expected gratitude for saving her he was in for a rude surprise.
"I'm Shar-La," came a voice in his head. "My race communicates telepathically, so I can read minds. I picked up your insulting thoughts before - 'just like a woman'. Well, boy, it so happens the world I come from is ruled by women, not men!"
While it was not something he required of them, Clark had grown used to people thanking him when he saved their lives. So it was a shock to be greeted with aggression rather than with gratitude. Stung, he blurted out:
"If you women run your world the way you run your spaceships... well, I'm glad I don't live there!"
"Another insult!" she said, her brow knitting in anger - it was disconcerting how he heard her voice in his head while her lips never moved. "I'll teach you a lesson, you snippy boy!"
So saying, Shar-La pointed her ring at him and twisted the jewel in its setting. Instantly, it started giving off waves of light that swept over his body.
"The powerful rays from my ring's jewel will strike you and..."
"Huh, I'm invulnerable to all physical harm, Shar-La, except from a substance called kryptonite," said Superboy, taking to the air, his patience with the woman at an end, "and the angry way you're acting makes me glad I'm not a girl."
"You may not be able to say that later..." came her voice in his mind as he flew away.
Clark wondered briefly what she could mean by this, before shaking his head and swiftly accelerating. Once upon a time, meeting someone from another world would have fascinated him, but what with his own travels to other planets and even to other times over the past few years such occurrences had come to seem almost normal. And anyway, telepathy and spacecraft aside, a quick scan with his X-ray vision had revealed her to be a pretty normal Earth-standard humanoid rather than anything more exotic. It would have been interesting to find out more about her world, but what with her attitude and him having to get back to Smallville in time for Clark Kent's first class of the day, this was no big loss.
Flying over the placid waters of a mountain lake, Clark glanced down at his reflection. It took a moment for what he was seeing to register, but when it did he swooped down to the lakeside and stood there, numbly running a hand through his suddenly shoulder-length hair and staring in shock at the image in the waters.
"I've been changed into a...a girl!" he thought, numbly. "Shar-La's weird ring rays must have somehow done this."
He had felt nothing, no shifting of flesh or bone, but the evidence before his eyes and under the slender, unfamiliar fingers he ran over his altered form, over his pert breasts and now rounder buttocks, confirmed that it had happened. And the pretty face staring back at him was that of a girl. Much as he wanted to deny what had happened, he could not. He was now female.
"I'll rush back and make her return me to normal."
It was his only thought as, panicking, he took to the skies once more. He was too late. It took only minutes to get to the spot where he had last seen Shar-La, took only a few more to scan the skies with his powerful telescopic vision, all to no avail. She was gone.
"Shar-La went back to her world but she didn't tell me in what part of the universe it is. Holy cow! I'll remain a girl, even though I still have a boy's mind!"
Clark's thoughts were churning feverishly as he - as she - flew the rest of the distance home, and reentered her house through the secret tunnel to the basement, where her parents happened to be doing chores.
"Ah, just in time to help us Superboy," said Pa Kent. Then he registered the unfamiliar form inside that famous costume. "Jehosophat! That isn't our son!"
"Yes, Dad, it's still me...mentally at least."
"Tell us what happened, Clark," said Ma Kent, taking control of the situation.
"O..okay," said Clark, her heart racing.
The Kents then listened in amazement as their son-turned-daughter told them of her meeting with Shar-La.
"So here I am," she said, lip trembling as she finished her tale, "a girl."
Ma Kent took her shaking child in her arms and hugged her.
"I've always wanted a daughter as well as a son," she said.
Clark knew Ma's words were meant to soothe and comfort her, but it was the hug she really needed, the reassurance that despite the huge change she had gone through her parents would still love her. The logical part of her brain knew it was inconceivable that people as decent and as loving as the Kents would ever reject her for such a reason, but there was still that small, irrational part that had been worried at the possibility.
"Hmm," said Ma Kent, breaking the hug and looking her new daughter up and down critically, "you can't change into Clark's clothes, so I'll have to go shopping for you. Will you be OK for awhile?"
Clark bit her lip, but nodded. Ma Kent's brusque, no-nonsense practicality, her ability to do whatever was required however weird the situation, was just was needed right now.
"Good, then I'll get what we need from the department store. It'll take me a few hours, so hang in there, Clark."
When Ma Kent departed, it left Clark alone with her father. There was an awkward silence as neither parent nor child quite knew what to say or what the situation demanded.
"So," said Jonathan Kent, at last, "what about those Knicks?"
Clark stared at him for a moment, then they both burst out laughing. Only Clark's laughter quickly turned to sobs.
"Hey, now," said Pa Kent, going over to his child and wrapping his arms around her, "I know what's happened is a shock but we'll get through it, learn to live with it."
"B..but it changes everything!" said Clark. "How can I learn to live with it?"
"Because you're our child," said Pa, looking her straight in the eye, "and as you've shown your mother and I time and again, there isn't anything you can't do if you put your mind to it."
Later, in her room, Clark stripped off her costume and carefully examined her reflection in the mirror from all angles, hard as it was to look at the new arrivals on her chest and the disturbing absence...down there. She was, she could see, a very pretty girl, but even as the thought crossed her mind so she winced at it. 'Pretty' was not something she had ever aspired to be.
"But I suppose I'd better start thinking of myself in those terms, if I can't find a way to become a boy again," she sighed.
To make space for the new clothes her mother was getting her, Clark carefully emptied the closet and drawers in her room of all her male clothing and bundled them into some laundry sacks ready to be stored away. It was her fervent hope that she would one day need to take them out of storage again. Donning her bathrobe, she sat down on the edge of the bed to wait for her mother's return. It was a wait of several hours, but eventually Ma Kent swept into the room, laden down with shopping bags.
"Did you leave anything in the store?" asked Clark, staring in wonderment and trepidation at all those bags.
"A girl needs a greater variety of outfits than a boy does," said Ma Kent, "and I think I've got something here to fit every occasion."
"I believe it," said Clark, dryly.
"Right, first the underwear," said her mother, fishing a plain white bra and panties set out of one of the bags.
"A bra?" said Clark, shrinking away from the garment as if it was kryptonite.
"Of course a bra!" said Ma Kent, exasperated. "Are we going to go through this with every item of clothing, young lady, or are you going to trust that I know what I'm doing?"
"I..I guess so," said Clark, abashed.
"Good. Now slip out of that bathrobe and hold out your arms."
Clark did as she asked then Ma slid the bra up her arms, turned her around, and fastened it at the rear. Turning her back round, she then adjusted Clark's breasts in the cups.
"You'll soon get the hang of putting one on," she said, handing Clark the panties, "and these you can manage by yourself."
While Clark was donning the panties, Ma Kent pulled a white blouse and a red check skirt out of another bag. Clark put these on without protest, but gulped when she saw all the dresses her mother was hanging in her closet.
"You'll have to wear dresses now, Clark," she said
"I..I guess so, but I can't be called Clark anymore," said the girl as she slipped on her glasses, the only thing she was retaining from her former life. "Hmmm...I think I have a story to explain everything."
As soon as the cover story had been fleshed out, they needed someone to test it on. Since the school day was now over, there was an obvious candidate.
"Clark was invited to visit out-of-town relatives," said Ma Kent to their young neighbour, "in turn, their daughter will stay with us. Lana Lang meet Claire Kent!"
"Hi, Claire," said the pretty redhead, shaking Claire's hand. Claire smiled and searched Lana's eyes, but there was no hint of recognition there. Clearly, she really did look different from how she had as a boy, and Lana had readily accepted their story.
"You two girls run along and play now," smiled Ma, "I've got to arrange for Claire to start at Smallville High as a transfer student tomorrow, and then I have chores that need attending to. Go have fun."
Claire knew that one of those chores involved feminizing her room, and she was uneasy at the thought of what it might look like when she returned.
"It's great to have a girl my age next door," said Lana, as the two teenagers walked to her house. Claire was only half listening, distracted as she was by the new sensation of a skirt swirling around her legs. It was a strange feeling, but also kind of...nice.
"Let's try out a recipe I heard over the radio," said Lana, as they reached her house. Cooking was not something Claire particularly wanted to do, but then she knew she would be expected to like doing different things than she used to now she was a girl. In the field next to the Lang house, a group of local boys were playing a game of baseball. Claire looked at them, wistfully. Now there was something she would much rather be doing, but she knew they would never let a girl join in with their game.
After they'd made a cake and put it in the oven to bake, Lana led Claire upstairs to her room.
"I've got something you're going to love!" she told the other girl.
Claire very much doubted this, but she let herself be led anyway. She was in too much of a daze to do otherwise.
"Look!" said Lana, rushing over to her vanity and holding up a couple of items triumphantly.
"What are they?" asked Claire, dubiously.
"Only the latest shade of lipstick and nail polish!" said Lana, excitedly. "'Scarlet Passion' - you're going to love it!"
Without quite being sure how it had happened, Claire found herself seated in front of the mirror with Lana applying the lipstick to her lips.
"Don't you just love doing make-overs with your girlfriends?" said Lana. "Boys just don't know what they're missing."
"They have no idea," agreed Claire ruefully, as Lana started in on her nails.
"We need to do your eyes next," she said, reaching for Claire's glasses.
"Whoa, time out!" said Claire holding up her hands.
"Is there a problem?" said Lana, looking puzzled.
"It's just that I'm squeamish about my eyes," said Claire. In fact she was far more concerned about Lana getting a good look at her face minus the glasses. They were a simple device, yet along with carrying himself differently and modifying his voice, they had enabled Clark to establish him and Superboy as two different people. Claire fully expected to be going into super-action again soon as a girl, and they would prove just as useful then. By themselves, they were not a disguise, but they *were* its lynchpin.
"Oookay," said Lana.
While Claire's nail polish was drying, Lana pursed her lips and gave her new friend a long appraisal.
"You're the only girl our age I know who doesn't have pierced ears," she said. "That's really kind of strange."
"Oh, I just haven't gotten around to it yet," said Claire.
"Well I know someone who does a good job," said Lana, "I'd be happy to give you his phone number."
"Thanks, that'd be great!" smiled Claire.
Later, the two girls lay back and listened to records by Lana's current favourite boy band.
"Hmm, what's better than listening to record's and dreaming about those gorgeous boys, Claire?" she said.
Claire could think of a lot of things. The past couple of hours of insight into the life of teenage girls, a life she feared she was going to have to get used to, had had their moments but now she was bored stiff. Salvation came in a peculiar and unexpected form.
**"SOS..Arrow Girl in danger..in amusement park..SOS..."**
It was a strange warning, ringing in her mind. Weird though it was, Claire had no choice but to treat it as genuine. Making a hurried excuse, she left Lana so that she could change into her costume in secret.
"I told Lana I had an errand to run so I could investigate this strange mental distress call," thought Claire, changing clothes at super-speed. "It's definitely a job for Superboy..er.. Supergi.. Oh, I'm all mixed up!"
Putting her mental confusion aside, Claire took to the air and moments later was at the amusement park - in actuality a small travelling fair that had set up shop on the edge of town. Looming over it all was a huge, animatronic figure of Robin Hood.
"There she goes," the barker was announcing, "the giant mechanical archer has shot Arrow Girl towards the steel target!"
That was the plan, anyway. Unfortunately, just as Arrow Girl was shot from the bow, she was hit by a freakishly strong gust of wind, altering her trajectory. Now, instead of passing safely through the the hole in the centre of the target, she was headed for the steel to one side of. She screamed, realizing what had happened and knowing the impact would kill her. Pouring on the speed, Claire got in front of the girl and smashed a hole through the target at the point she where she would hit it, allowing Arrow Girl to pass through harmlessly and land in the safety net beyond.
"Look...a streak of blue! It must be Superboy!" shouted one excited onlooker.
"Wait," said another with sharper eyesight, "that isn't Superboy ...it's a girl with super-powers!"
As Claire landed near the crowd, someone else offered his own explanation.
"You look enough like Superboy to be his twin sister," said the man. "Maybe he never revealed your existence before for reasons of his own."
"How did you guess?" said Claire, deciding this was as good an explanation to cover her sudden appearance as any other, "call me..uh..Super-Sister! I've changed places with my..er..brother. He's on the world where I lived, and I'll protect Earth in his place."
"Hmmph, well," said the man, "you may not be as able as Superboy, Super-Sister. After all, super or not, you're just a girl."
The comment was unfair, and it stung. She might be a girl now, but Claire knew she was no less competant as Super-Sister than she had been as Superboy. However, of more immediate interest to her was the mystery of the strange mental warning she had received.
"It's simple, Clark..er..Claire," said Ma Kent when Claire returned home and told her what had happened, "you have feminine intuition now. Men don't have it. It's like a sixth sense that warns many women of dangers in advance."
"You really believe in feminine intuition, Mom?" said Clark, in surprise.
"Well, no, of course I don't," said Ma Kent. "Women are usually more observant than men, though. They pay attention more and often notice things men don't. To some men this seems like some mysterious sixth sense, and they're the ones who labelled it 'feminine intuition'. However, with all your amazing powers, who's to say that transforming you didn't result in you gaining what is, to all intents and purposes, actual feminine-intuition?"
"Then the laugh's on Shar-La," chuckled Claire. "Instead of punishing me she gave me a new super-power I never had before: super-intuition."
She paused then and cocked her head to one side as if listening to something.
"And it's working again right now," she said. "It's telling me my secret identity is in danger from Lana."
Focussing her x-ray vision and super-hearing on the Lang house, Claire saw Lana and her father watching a TV report on Super-Sister's rescue of Arrow Girl.
"Look, Dad," Lana was saying, "just before Super-Sister did that job, Claire Kent left me with a flimsy excuse. Hmm... I'll try to trap her in school tomorrow."
"That girl just never gives up, does she?" said Ma Kent when Claire told her what she had heard. "She spent ages trying to prove Clark was really Superboy, and now she seems determined to prove you're Super-Sister. How are you going to put her off the scent?"
"Oh, I think I have a trick or two up my sleeve," said Claire, mysteriously, "but there's something else I wanted to talk with you about, Mom."
"Does it have anything to do with the fact you're wearing nail polish and lipstick?" asked Ma, shrewdly.
"Yeah," said Claire, sheepishly. "Lana was so excited about her new make-up and insisted on trying it out on me. I didn't know how to refuse, or even if I should have."
"I should've thought of that," sighed Ma Kent. "You young girls start wearing make-up much younger than we did when I was your age. Of course Claire Kent would have an interest in make-up. She'd probably wear at least lipstick, like most of her female classmates. But it would be a lot more subtle than 'Scarlet Passion'."
"You recognize the shade?" said Claire, amazed.
"Hey, I may be old but I'm not dead yet!" said Ma Kent, in mock outrage.
"The subject of my ears not being pierced also came up," said Claire, "something else I need to do to fit in, and Lana recommended somewhere I could have it done."
"I'd like to see anyone try to pierce your ears," chuckled Ma.
"Exactly," said Claire. "No needle forged on Earth can even scratch me."
"Are you thinking what I think you are," said Ma.
"Only Kryptonian metal backed by my super-strength is up to the task," said Claire. "You made my costume by unravelling the blankets wrapped around me in the rocket that brought me to Earth. It was the only material that could survive the punishment my adventures would subject it to. There's a needle-like shard among the components we've salvaged from the rocket over the years."
"Yes, there is. Well, you know where they are. If you're sure this is something you want to do....?"
"Yeah, I think it is," smiled Claire. "I know how to fit in as an Earthling; now I need to do everything I can to fit in as a girl."
The following day, Claire Kent made her debut as the new pupil at Smallville High. Being introduced to classmates she had actually known for years and having to feign unfamiliarity with the layout of the school were in many ways no less strange than her transformation itself.
At the end of one of the morning classes, Claire saw Lana making for her and realized that this was it. Surreptitiously, she reached into her school bag and activated a small transmitter.
"Look, Claire! Let me show you how cool my new nail clippers work," she said, reaching for Claire's hand, knowing they would be useless against the super-tough nails of a Kryptonian.
As she did so, there was a noise outside the window. Looking up, Lana was just in time to see Super-Sister fly past.
"Is there a problem?" asked Claire, smiling sweetly at Lana who was staring out the window open-mouthed.
"What? No, I..I was miles away," said Lana.
Then she noticed the tiny stud earrings Claire was wearing.
"You had your ears pierced!" she said.
"Yeah, after talking with you, I figured it was time," said Claire.
If the fly-by of the Superboy robot she had feminized last night had not already convinced Lana that Claire was not Super-Sister, then the ear-piercing had clinched it.
"Say, do you want to watch the football squad practice after school?" said Lana.
"Sure," said Claire, "but I didn't think you were interested in football."
"Oh, I'm not," said Lana, "but I am interested in how those cute little butts look in their tight uniforms."
Much later, back at the Kent home, Claire filled Ma Kent in on what her day had been like. Once it would have been her Dad she told this stuff, but one aspect of her transformation she really liked was how it had made she and her mother even closer and how good it felt to confide in Ma.
"So I got to spend an hour with Lana looking at guys' butts," said Claire. "I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed."
"Oh, Claire," laughed Ma Kent, "you may not appreciate them now, but I hope you do as you get older."
"Yeah, well, anyway," said Claire, eager to get off the topic of male butts, "on the way home from school I had another of those weird flashes of super-intuition. It directed me to Wallibu Island in the Pacific, where I saved a teenage girl from a volcano."
"That's good," said Ma Kent.
"Yes, it really is," said Claire, "but on my return trip I passed a Coast Guard ship towing a freighter that had hit an iceberg. Why didn't my super-intuition warn me about that? Why does it only seem to work with girls? Is that part of Shar-La's revenge, I wonder?"
"Maybe, but all that matters is that you're saving lives. The Coast Guard rescued the ship anyway, but perhaps you were the only one who could've rescued that girl from the volcano."
"I guess," said Claire, "but I...."
She stopped in mid sentence, staring into space.
"What is it?" said Ma Kent.
"Another mental message," said Claire, already stripping off her outerwear to reveal the costume beneath. "It looks like Super-Sister is needed again."
This time it was an aquatic show in Florida, and once again it was a girl who was in trouble.
"She's doing underwater stunts for people watching from a glass-bottomed boat," said Claire to herself, viewing the scene from afar with her telescopic vision as she closed in on the show, her high speed flight covering the distance between Smallville and Florida in minutes, "and there's a great white heading straight for her."
Claire plunged into the water without slowing, the noise of her entry and the plume of water it produced alerting the spectators to her presence. Grabbing the shark's tail, she spun it around then launched it back out to sea.
Emerging from the water, Claire landed softly on the floating platform where the girl performer, obviously shaken, was confronting her manager.
"I...I just can't go on, Mr Stone," she said. "Refund all the customers' money."
"Alright," said Stone, angrily, "but I'll tear up your contract, too. You're through."
"Hold it, Mr Stone, "said Claire, "I'll stand in for her and give your customers their money's worth."
And she did, even putting her head in the mouth of the great white shark when it returned, angry and out for payback. It was her final act that impressed the most, however.
"Terrific! Super-Sister gathered those rainbow-colored fish in a seaweed net!" said one spectator. "It's like underwater fireworks as they burst free!"
Claire smiled, but her mind was elsewhere. She was glad she had helped another girl, she realized, even if it did seem like she was always favoring women in danger over men. As she thought this, everything abruptly changed...
...and she was back in the mountains with Shar-La, standing next to her spacecraft.
"Awaken, Superboy!" Shar-La was saying. "By willingly aiding that girl, you have earned my forgiveness."
Superboy? In a daze, Clark looked down at his once-again male body.
"Did your ring's rays change me back?"
"No, you never were a girl, Superboy," smiled Shar-La. "The moment my ring's mento rays struck you, at the start, they hypnotized you and time stood still. Then I projected a mental dramatization of you being Super-Sister."
"It...it was all in my imagination?" said Clark, wonderingly. "Well I learned my lesson. I know now how it feels to be a girl and meet undeserved scorn and ridicule from men."
"Good, Superboy," said Shar-La, climbing into her craft, "we always treat the men fairly on our women-ruled world. Farewell."
Flying back to Smallville after watching Shar-La depart, Clark could not get over how real his experience as Super-Sister had been. He had been subject to Shar-La's hypnotic illusions for what can have been no more than a few minutes at most, yet it seemed like days had passed. So real had it been, so convincing, that it felt odd to be male once more. As he thought this, so everything abruptly changed again...
...and he was lurching forward in bed, sitting upright and looking about him wildly, eyes taking in the vanity table, the dresses hanging in the open closet. Glancing down, he saw the now familiar young breasts pushing against the fabric of his nightdress. It had been a dream. He...she...was still female, was still Claire Kent, Super-Sister. The door to the bedroom opened.
"Claire?" said Ma Kent, sleepily. "You were thrashing about so loudly in your sleep it woke me up. Are you OK, sweetie?"
"I...I'm fine, Mom," said Claire, managing a smile. "I was dreaming, reliving my rescue of the girl at that aquatic show yesterday, when the dream switched to...something else."
"Was it a nightmare?"
"A nightmare?" mused Claire. "No, it definitely wasn't a nightmare, but it was a wake-up call of sorts. There's something I've been hanging onto, a hope it really is time I let go of so I can get on with my life."
"Well, as long as you're sure you're alright..." said Ma, dubiously.
"I'll be fine," said Claire. "I think I'll fly to the Sangre de Cristo mountains tomorrow morning before school. I haven't been back there since I encountered Shar-La, and I want to get back to my old routine."
The following morning, the Sangre de Cristo mountains rushing towards her, Claire began her turn as she always had at this point on these early morning flights before heading back to Smallville, reflecting on how good it felt to be doing this again. As always, she checked the area with her telescopic vision for any storm clouds that might be forming, looking for a few hours warning of any bad weather that would be headed their way. This was a routine by now and, the last time aside, never turned up anything unusual. On that occasion she had encountered a strange craft with a female pilot, a meeting she did not expect would be repeated today.
She was wrong.
A transparent globe, the craft drifted to a landing in the very mountain meadow where Claire had had her fateful meeting with Shar-La, its blonde, female occupant clearly visible inside. Claire alighted beside the craft as it's passenger stepped out of it.
"Hello, Saturn Girl," said Claire. "What brings you back to the 20th century?"
"I never left after our last visit," she replied, eying Claire, with open curiousity. "Our records of the past have their gaps, but history says this was the time when Super-Sister took over from her brother and I wanted to be here to witness it happen. What I didn't expect was to discover that Superboy *became* Super-Sister."
"Yeah, well, if it was a surprise for you, you can imagine how strange it's been for me."
"Yes, I can," said Saturn Girl, softly, stepping forward and hugging the other girl.
"So," said Claire gruffly, still not used to the casual intimacy of girls, "I doubt this is an accidental meeting.
"No, it's not," admitted her friend. "But before I explain, let me get my prisoner."
So saying she touched a small stud on her belt which, Claire noticed, caused a light to start blinking on the control console of her craft. Within moments another craft materialized next to the first, one Claire recognized.
"Shar-La!" she exclaimed, seeing her nemesis inside, apparently unconscious. "Is she OK?"
"She tried to resist arrest and we duelled," said Saturn Girl. "Fortunately, I'm a much stronger telepath. I'd arrived just as Shar-La was bathing you in the rays of her ring. I pursued her, we fought, I mentally interrogated her, then rendered her unconscious. I'll wake her now, but I'll keep her limbs paralysed so she's unable to escape and keep her telepathy damped down so she can't affect you in any way."
With that she directed a mental burst at her prisoner and Shar-La began groggily to rouse.
"I've discovered there's more behind what happened to you than you suspect," said Saturn Girl
"More?" said Claire, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Well, to begin with, Shar-La's ship isn't a spacecraft; it's a timeship. She's not from a world ruled by women but from the future, from the 30th century, and her real name is Zynthia Ardeen."
"'Ardeen'?" said Claire, frowning. "Does that mean...?"
"Yes," said Saturn Girl, aka Imra Ardeen. "She's my cousin. I didn't recognize her at first, though. She's a few months younger than me, but Shar-La is a dozen years older, which means she's not just from your future but from my future, too."
"I don't understand," said Claire. "Why the subterfuge, and why did she do this to me?"
"As a child, Zynthia was fascinated by tales of the Age of Heroes, of your time, and particularly by the legend of Superboy. She developed an enormous crush on you, one she never got past. As a teenager, she heard about Thom Kallor of the planet Xanthu, who went by the name Star Boy and seemed to possess the same powers you do. You were a lost legend of the past and so beyond her reach, but here was someone she could reach, someone who was as close as she was likely to get to the boy of her dreams. So she left Titan illegally and moved to Xanthu."
"Why illegally? Couldn't she have emigrated legally?"
"Yes, but then I'd have had to bear the mark," sneered Zynthia, now fully awake. "It's degrading and we shouldn't be forced to wear it."
"Mark?" said Claire, puzzled. "What's she talking about?"
"All Titanians have to wear it offworld," said Saturn Girl, glancing down at the symbol for the planet Saturn emblazoned on the tunic of her own costume, "the one that tells everyone the wearer is a telepath. Non-telepaths are suspicious of us. They don't like having mind-readers among them without knowing who they are. This was the last thing Zynthia wanted anyone to know about her. No, once on Xanthu she managed to contrive a meeting with Star Boy, gently probed his mind to discover what he did and didn't like in a girl, and used that knowledge to become his girlfriend."
"You make it sound like I coerced Thom, but I didn't," said Zynthia, "I just used my abilities to find out everything about him that another girl would have had to seek out by other means. My way just saved time."
"It's still an offense to hide your true nature and take advantage of him that way," said Saturn Girl. "You may not approve of the laws of our world, but they're there for a reason."
She turned back to Claire and continued her story.
"Not long after they got together, Star Boy was inducted into the newly-formed Legion as a part-time member - his duties as the champion of Xanthu kept him from attending many meetings.
As you know, at the point in the 30th century where I'm from, it's only been a few years since the long-lost secret of time-travel was rediscovered. The Legion is one of the few groups cleared to use it, but criminals on Xanthu managed to steal a timeship. One of them used it to escape into the past and to land on Earth in your era. He'll arrive a few weeks from now, pursued by Star Boy, and the two of you will capture him and return him to the 30th century."
"Should you really be telling me this?" asked Claire, uneasily. "Aren't you risking changing things by telling me about events that haven't happened to me yet?"
"I don't think so," smiled Saturn Girl, "because I'm describing how they happened to you once, but things can't happen that way this time."
"This time?" frowned Claire. "I'm not sure I follow you."
"By the end of my tale you'll understand, I promise you. Anyway, Star Boy asks for you to help him locate a second criminal hiding in the copper drainage pipes of Xanthu, since his X-ray vision cannot penetrate copper. Your friend Lana Lang overhears this part of the conversation and, pretending to know his secret identity, she blackmails Star Boy into taking her with him, apparently hoping to make you jealous. You overhear Lana's plot and decide to teach her a lesson by ignoring her on 30th century Xanthu and pretending to fall for Zynthia, who of course is only too happy to play along. Amazingly, miraculously, the boy of her dreams, Superboy, has come from the past and there she is, in his arms."
"It was like a dream come true," said Zynthia, gazing at Claire wistfully. "Oh, I knew you were only pretending to court me, but part of me hoped...." "That you could somehow use this to make him love you for real," said Saturn Girl, staring at her cousin, her gaze holding a touch more sympathy than it had. "It never happened, of course, and Superboy returned to the past leaving you crushed."
"Can you imagine what it's like," said Zynthia, sadly, "to have come to terms with the knowledge you'll never even meet the person you're hopelessly in love with, only to have him miraculously appear, to have him take you in his arms and court you, and then to have him disappear from your life forever? 'Crushed' is far too small a word to describe it."
"Her relationship with Star Boy ended soon afterwards," said Saturn Girl, turning back to face Claire, "and later he even lost his Superboy-like powers, gaining the ability to manipulate mass in their place. So not only had you gone, but Thom Kallor could now no longer substitute for you in her eyes, either. And Thom was never more than a substitute to you, was he, Zynthia?"
"We were teenagers and we had fun together," she replied, defensively. "Neither of us thought the other was going to be the love of their life."
"Maybe not, but while you could have become his, there was never any possibility he could ever become yours, which was unfair to him. Your crush on Superboy had long since become an unhealthy obsession."
"It was love!" protested Zynthia. "I loved him!"
"I'm sorry," said Claire, uncomfortably.
"You have nothing to apologise for," said Saturn Girl. "None of this was your fault. Unfortunately, in the years that followed, Zynthia's life took a downward turn and she convinced herself you'd spurned her. Love turned to hate and she blamed you for all that had gone wrong in her life. She became convinced that everything would have turned out better for you'd never met."
"It would have!" shouted Zynthia. "I'd come to terms with never meeting him; my feelings were something I'd learned to cope with. Then he came into my life and wrecked everything. How could anything ever be the same again after that?"
Claire was stunned by the depth of feeling in Zynthia's voice, by the hatred directed her way for something she had not even done yet.
"Having somehow acquired that strange ring, you hatched a plan to alter the past and make sure you'd never meet Superboy. You stole a time-ship, travelled back to a point a few weeks prior to his encounter with Star Boy, and tracked him down during his morning flight. By turning him into a girl you hoped to ensure there would no longer be a Superboy for you to meet, no longer someone who would pretend to court you and break your heart."
"And it worked," said Zynthia, staring at Claire triumphantly. "The ring's transformations are one-way only. They can't be undone."
"Is she telling the truth?" asked Claire.
"She believes she is," said Saturn Girl, "and I have no reason to doubt her. The ring is psycho-active, meaning it can only be operated by a telepath. I've used my powers to probe it and can find no way its effects can be reversed."
"So what now?" asked Claire.
"I'll take her back to the 30th century and turn her over to the Science Police. They take a very dim view of people who try to change the past."
"'Try'? I'd say she succeeded," said Claire, "or do you know some other way to change me back?"
"No, to both," said Saturn Girl. "She didn't succeed in changing the past, and I can't change you back."
"Huh? That doesn't make any sense."
"Welcome to the wonders of temporal mechanics. Zynthia didn't understand how time travel works, unfortunately. She thought she would change her own past, but she didn't. What happened was that her actions created a new timeline, one in which you were transformed. But her own past remains unchanged. In her own timeline, you stay Superboy and you still break her heart. There will be other timelines where a way was found to reverse your transformation, and still others where at the last moment she decided not to go through with her plan and instead just used her telepathic powers to temporarily make you believe you'd been transformed. In this one, however, you never change back. I know because in the future I come from you grew up to be Superwoman, an inspiration to women for centuries to come. You and your descendants are important historical figures."
"It was you, wasn't it?" said Claire realization dawning. "I never did have super-intuition, did I?"
"No," said Saturn Girl, gently laying a hand on her friend's shoulder, "you didn't. After I saw what had happened, I stayed around to help ease your transition. Those flashes of intuition were telepathic calls from me. I knew it would help you if you kept busy, and by ensuring all your rescues were of girls I hoped this would help speed up your identification with our gender. With a timeship it was child's play to discover when a girl was going to be in trouble then slip back an hour or two to give you timely warnings."
"I suppose I should be grateful," said Claire, ruefully. "If this is who I'm going to be the rest of my life then the sooner I start getting used to it the better."
"Yes," said Saturn Girl, "and the Legion will help you. We're your friends and your teammates. And I'd be lying if I said I don't get goosebumps at the thought of having our first adventure alongside the legendary Super-Sister."
She leaned forward and kissed Claire on the cheek, then stood back and saluted her.
"I have to go now, and turn this Zynthia over to the Science Police of her own timeline. Take care, Claire."
"And you, Imra. Give my regards to the boys when you get back to the future."
Claire watched the two timeships apparently dematerialize as they slipped between the folds of time, then stood there a long while staring at the spot where they had been. Saturn Girl had talked about her descendants, and if Claire had descendants that meant that at some point in her life she would have babies. And a husband.
It looked like she had an interesting life ahead of her. But, whatever the years ahead might hold, what was important right now was making it home in time for school. With that thought, Claire leapt into the sky. She had learned to live with being the sole survivor of Krypton, and she would learn to live with this. Now that she knew she was destined to stay female, this really was the first day of the rest of her life.
High above the cornfields of Kansas a blue and red streak arced across the clear blue skies. People glancing up from the ground on hearing the sonic boom as it reached mach-1 and following its trajectory smiled at a familiar sight. Not an airplane or the test firing of some new rocket, this was the return of the teenager from another planet who had arrived on our Earth as a baby and been raised as one of us, a teenager with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, a teenager evermore to be known to the world as...Super-Sister!
The End
********
The story on which this is based, "Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister!", was written by Otto Binder and drawn by John Sikela. It first appeared in SUPERBOY #78 (Jan 1960), and was later reprinted in the 80 Page Giant, SUPERMAN ANNUAL #1 (1964). It can be read online here, and plays a small but significant role in my story "Carnival of Mirrors: Generations", available here on fictionmania.
The first Legion appearance was in ADVENTURE COMICS #247 (Apr 1958), and the second, "Prisoner of the Super-Heroes", was in ADVENTURE COMICS #269 (Dec 1959). "Claire Kent, Alias Super-Sister!" saw print the following month, and in Superboy chronologies is usually listed as his next adventure, so from this I took it to have occurred a day or two later. I don't have any of these comics, btw, but I do know how to search the web. Remember, search engines are your friend. These days there's no excuse not to do the research. For those wondering where I found synopses of these stories, wonder no more. I found them here.
I'd decided fairly early on to have the telepathic Shar-La be a rogue Titanian from the future, who felt spurned by Clark, but it wasn't until I was looking at an online gallery of comic covers that it hit me: As drawn, Shar-La could be an older version of Zynthia, whose first and only appearance was in "Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes" in ADVENTURE COMICS #282 (March 1961). Heck, she's even wearing what looks like a variation of the same costume in both. So that's who she became. See for yourself here.
I made an error when this story first got posted. The error concerns where the Kents live. In the first version of this story it was on the Kent farm, but this wasn't where they lived in the pre-Crisis Superboy tales. They were farmers when Clark's rocket crash landed on Earth, but by the time he was attending high school they had sold the farm and were running a general store in town. I used to know this, but I blame years of watching the movies and TV series such as 'Smallville' for making me forget. Smallville itself has been variously described as being located in all manner of places (see the Wikipedia entry on the town), but for that I decided to stay with Kansas.