Chapter 37: The Injustice of Invincible Interrogation
My head felt like it had been used as a punching bag by Mammoth on a bad day. I blinked, my vision slowly clearing behind the HUD of my King helmet. The last clear memory I had was the emerald glare of Angstrom’s machine turning the world inside out, followed by a very confused, very fascist-looking Cyborg hitting us with some kind of aerosolized sedative.
I’d have to remember to check my internal filters; apparently, even Viltrumite lungs have a "factory reset" button if the gas is high-grade enough. Would have been nice to know. If Nolan had actually trained me, maybe I would have.
Shut up, I’m not bitter. You’re bitter.
Who am I arguing with?
I sat up, the platinum plates of my armor clinking against a bench that felt like it was made of solid, unyielding ice. I wasn’t in a crater, and I definitely wasn’t in the warehouse.
The cell was a masterpiece of aggressive minimalism. It was too clean, too symmetrical, and lit by a sterile white glow that felt like a migraine in architectural form. It was the kind of set design that a production designer would use to tell the audience "the people here have zero personality," but the people in charge clearly thought it signaled "unassailable justice."
In my world, villains built lairs like this; here, it seemed like the municipal standard.
I looked to my left. A shimmering wall of red light separated me from the next unit. Beyond it, Kara was already on her feet, her hands pressed against the translucent barrier. The red glow washed over her, and even from here, I could see the way her posture had stiffened. Red sun radiation.
Someone in this zip code knew the Kryptonian playbook by heart.
“Luke? You are awake,” Kara said, her voice muffled but steady. She didn’t sound scared—she sounded insulted. “These small men used a cowardly toxin. They have placed us in these translucent boxes. I have attempted to breach the barrier, but my strength feels... dampened. It is as if the air itself is heavy.”
“It’s a red sun field, Kara,” I said, standing up and testing my own range of motion. “Like what we used on Faora, remember?”
My Viltrumite strength was still there, buzzing under my skin like a live wire, but there was a secondary layer of energy in the room—a power-dampening field designed to nullify meta-abilities. It was sophisticated, but it wasn’t tuned for my specific frequency.
To them, I was just a guy in a fancy suit.
Oh, how little they know.
“Just take it easy.” I reassured her. “We’ll be out of here just as soon as the villain’s done monologuing. Shouldn’t take long.”
For them to start monologuing, I mean. The exposition would probably be a good five minutes.
A screen mounted on the far wall flickered to life, the high-resolution display revealing the face of the man who had greeted us with knockout gas.
This version of Victor Stone looked like he hadn’t slept since the turn of the decade. The organic half of his face was set in a permanent scowl, and the cybernetic side was whirring with a series of frantic, overlapping data streams.
Ugly.
“You’re a difficult man to categorize, ’King,’” Cyborg said, his voice a digitized baritone that lacked any of the warmth I associated with the Titans.
I bet he doesn’t even like pizza. Shit, am I thinking of Ninja Turtles?
He was tapping at a virtual interface I couldn’t see. “Your armor is made of a platinum alloy that shouldn’t be structurally sound, yet it’s holding up to our scans like a fortress. And your friend? Her DNA says Kryptonian, but her cellular density and mitochondrial output are completely off-spec. You don’t exist in any of our databases. Not even the high-security archives.”
“Maybe I’m a limited edition,” I said, leaning back against the wall with as much nonchalance as I could muster in a high-security birdcage. “And as for Kara, she’s from out of town. Way out of town. You’re doing a lot of scanning for a guy who hasn’t even offered us a glass of water. Is this the standard welcome package for the Regime?”
Cyborg’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like the word ’Regime’, evidently.
Which was weird, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called anything else.
“We are currently under a state of global security.” Is this better or worse than Justice Lords? Probably worse. “Unidentified metas are a variable the High Councilor doesn’t allow. I’m trying to be the ’good cop’ here, for your sake. If you cooperate, we can figure out where you came from and how to integrate you. We just want to ensure peace.”
I let out a short, dry laugh that echoed inside my helmet. “Global security is usually code for ’I have a serious control problem.’ I’ve seen this movie before, Victor. Usually, the guy talking about peace is the one holding the gun to everyone’s head. Who’s your boss? Does he have a thing for capes and an obsessive need to overstep every boundary known to man?”
“The High Councilor brought order to a world in chaos,” Cyborg countered, his red ocular sensor flashing with irritation. “He did what had to be done. You’d be wise to remember that before you start making jokes.”
“I’m a writer, Victor. Making jokes at the expense of self-important authority figures is my primary hobby,” I said, crossing my arms. “Which doesn’t make a lot of money, by the way. A lot of people stream for free, or they wait for stuff to be released for free.”
Not that I was bitter about that, either… Okay, I’m a little bitter. But there’s a time and place.
I could feel the dampening field pulsing, trying to find a purchase on my Viltrumite physiology and failing. I looked over at Kara, who was watching the screen with the kind of intense, narrowed gaze she usually reserved for our enemies.
Which will never not be hot.
“But hey, if the High Councilor wants to meet, tell him I’m available.” I shrugged. It would have been more poetic if I was shackled, but I think he got my point. “I have a few notes on the interior design of this place. It’s a bit too ’Totalitarian Chic’ for my taste.”
…
The red radiation was a persistent, itching annoyance against Kara’s skin. It did not just dampen her strength; it felt like a heavy, suffocating shroud designed to remind her of her own mortality. She ignored the sensation, standing perfectly still in the center of her cell, her eyes fixed on the two guards stationed outside the containment field.
To a civilian, they might have looked imposing in their matte-black tactical gear. To Kara, they were merely inefficient units. She watched the way the guard on the left shifted his weight every thirty seconds, his grip on his pulse rifle tightening whenever she so much as blinked.
His comrade was even worse, if that was possible, his eyes darting toward the security cameras as if checking to see if his performance was being graded.
It was a familiar atmosphere, yet fundamentally flawed.
She had spent her life under the shadow of Brainiac’s cold, absolute logic. In the New Kryptonian Empire, discipline was a byproduct of purpose. Every soldier knew their place in the grand machine of the cosmos. But here?
The air in this corridor tasted of a different kind of submission. These men weren’t loyal to a cause; they were terrified of a consequence. Their rigidity was brittle. Even the worlds she conquered with her boot to their necks had shown more spine than this.
Whereas this world felt like a poorly constructed imitation of the order she had been raised to enforce. It was a lie wrapped in the aesthetics of peace.
The separation from Luke made the sterile environment even more grating.
Without his dry commentary to ground the situation, the silence of the prison felt heavy. She missed the way he would have already made three disparaging remarks about the guards’ uniform choices by now.
Her protective instincts were humming, a low-frequency roar in the back of her mind that demanded she find him and ensure no "cowardly toxins" were being used on him again. Speaking of, she’d really need to find out what those toxins were, at some point.
The guard on the right stepped closer to the shimmering red barrier, his chest puffed out in a display of hollow bravado. “Keep staring, sweetheart. That field isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you. The High Councilor has a special place for aliens who don’t know their place.”
Kara didn’t beg, barter, or even blink. She let the silence stretch, her gaze boring into the man’s visor until his breathing became audibly shallow.
“Your technology is primitive, and your stance is sloppy.” Her voice was flat, devoid of the heat the guard likely expected. “You lean into your right hip, leaving your center of gravity exposed. If you were a soldier of my Empire, you would be cleaning the stasis pods for a cycle. You are not a guardian of peace. You are a frightened child in an oversized suit.”
The guard recoiled as if she had struck him, his face flushing a deep, embarrassed red behind the glass. He opened his mouth to retort, but the words died in his throat when Kara took a single, deliberate step toward the barrier. Even weakened, the sheer intensity of her presence was enough to make both men stumble back an inch.
“Kara.”
The voice was faint, vibrating through the reinforced walls of the facility, but to her ears, it was as clear as a bell. It was the specific, rhythmic cadence of Luke’s voice, utilizing the super-hearing they both possessed to bypass the room’s electronic surveillance.
“I hear you, Luke,” she whispered, turning her head slightly toward the wall. “This facility is an insult. The units guarding us are undisciplined and motivated by fear. I find the lack of proper military decorum... frustrating.”
“Yeah, I’m getting the same vibe from the half-robot in charge,” Luke’s voice drifted back, carrying that familiar touch of deadpan cynicism. “This place is a narrative nightmare. Too much ego, not enough actual justice. It’s like someone took the worst parts of my dad’s old speeches and turned them into a government. I think we’ve seen enough of the local culture, don’t you?”
Kara felt a sharp, grim spark of satisfaction. Her fists clenched, her knuckles popping with a sound like small explosions. “I agree. These individuals are ’The Bad Guys.’ They have utilized deception and imprisonment against us. We are no longer required to observe their protocols.”
“Good. Give me ten seconds to find the circuit breaker for these dampeners,” Luke said. “I’m tired of the lighting in here anyway. It’s doing nothing for my complexion.”
“I think your complexion is divine.” She valiantly tried her hand at the earth-custom known as ’flirting.’ “And your face is not unpleasant to look at!”
“That’s nice, dear.” He said, sincerely. “But less sweet-talk, more street-talk. I want these guys to be shaking in their boots.”
She could do that.
Wait. Did he mean figuratively or literally? Whatever, it’s fine. She can multitask.
Kara straightened her cape, her eyes glowing with a faint, precursor flicker of heat. The guard outside the cell looked at his partner, confusion finally overriding his anger. He didn’t realize the world he knew was about to be dismantled by two people who had much better places to be.
“My name is Kara Zor-El.” She intoned. “You have failed to impress me. Prepare to grovel.”
…
The heavy blast door at the end of the corridor hissed open with the kind of self-important hydraulic groan that only existed in places where people took themselves way too seriously. I didn’t even have to look up to know it was Victor.
The metal-on-linoleum rhythm of his footsteps was a dead giveaway—heavy, precise, and devoid of any human syncopation. He was flanked by four Regime soldiers who looked like they’d been carved out of the same block of joyless granite.
I remained seated on my bench, leaning my head back against the wall, watching them through the reflective visor of my helmet. Across the hall, Kara had mirrored my casual posture, though her eyes were tracked on the guards’ throat-latches with the predatory focus of a hawk.
Victor stopped just in front of my containment field.
The red glow of the power-dampeners bathed his chrome plating in a sickly, arterial light. He looked down at a holographic display projected from his wrist, his brow furrowed in that specific way people do when the reality in front of them doesn’t match the spreadsheet they were promised.
“I’ve spent the last hour cross-referencing your biometric signatures with every known database in the known universe,” Victor said, his voice echoing in the small chamber. “Nothing. You’re ghosts. But ghosts don’t cause energy spikes that can be seen from the Watchtower.”
I did wonder how they found us so quickly. Whoops.
“The High Councilor has a vision for this world, King. A vision of absolute order where no child has to fear the chaos of the past. To maintain that peace, we cannot have variables. Especially variables that fall outside the parameters of known physics.”
I let out a slow, theatrical yawn that I hoped translated through the helmet’s vocal processor. “Is this the part where you tell me that the ends justify the means? Because honestly, Vic, I’ve written three different screenplays with this exact monologue, and the guy saying it always ends up being the one the audience cheers for when he gets dropped into a vat of acid.”
The real kind, not the fake kind.
“It’s a bit repetitive.” I sighed. “Can we skip to the part where you admit you’re just a glorified mall cop for a god with a temper tantrum?”
Victor’s mechanical eye whirred, focusing with a sharp click. “Your arrogance is a symptom of a world that didn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary. You think this is a joke? We ended war. We ended crime. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re the problem that needs to be erased. We can do this the easy way, or I can start peeling back that armor to see what’s making you tick.”
From the cell next door, Kara’s voice rang out, sharp and incredibly earnest. “Your threat is illogical, Metal Man! You seek to ’peel’ the King? You are merely a toaster with an overinflated ego. If you attempt to touch him, I will ensure your internal processors are used as decorative beads for children!”
I couldn’t help it; I let out a genuine chuckle. “A toaster. Really? Not bad, Kara. I’ll have to remember that one. It’s got a real playground bite to it. What do you think, toaster?”
Victor looked between us, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated bewilderment. He looked at us like we were two idiots sharing a private joke at the end of the world. “You’re both insane. You’re sitting in a cage designed to hold a Kryptonian, and you’re trade-marking insults. Do you have any idea the power you’re mocking?”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” I said, standing up slowly. I let my shoulders drop, shedding the persona of the bored captive.
The power-dampening field was still buzzing, a localized hum designed to suppress meta-genes, but as I’d suspected, it was looking for a DC-standard frequency. It was looking for an S-trigger or a Speed Force signature.
It wasn’t looking for the dense, biological brute force of a Viltrumite. “But here’s the thing about power, Vic. It can be given, sure. But more often than not? It’s taken.”
I didn’t give him time to process the shift in my tone. I didn’t give the guards time to tighten their fingers on their triggers. In the world of the mundane, time is a river; for a Viltrumite in a hurry, it’s a frozen sculpture.
I moved.
To Victor and the guards, I simply ceased to exist in the spot I was standing and reappeared in the center of the hallway. The shockwave of my acceleration shattered the bench I’d been sitting on, the fragments suspended in the air by the sheer vacuum left in my wake.
Before the first guard’s nervous system could even send a signal to his brain to be surprised, I had moved through the red-sun barrier—ignoring the faint tingle as it tried and failed to find a Kryptonian cell to suppress—and systematically dismantled the room.
Crunch.
That was the first emitter, crushed into a pancake of silicon and glass.
Clang.
That was the rifles, snatched from the soldiers’ hands and twisted into metallic pretzels before they could even fall to the floor.
By the time the sound of my movement caught up—a singular, booming crack that rattled the very foundations of the prison—I was standing directly behind Victor. I didn’t hit him. That would have sent his head through a wall, and I still had questions.
Instead, I simply reached out and grabbed his mechanical arm, pinning it behind his back with the kind of casual strength that makes a man realize just how fragile he really is.
“Wh— How?” Victor gasped, his sensors spinning wildly as he tried to recalibrate to a threat that had bypassed every security measure he owned. He tried to fire his white-noise cannon, but I just squeezed. The sound of groaning titanium filled the hall.
“Like you said, tin-man: I’m a variable,” I murmured into his audio-receptor. I looked down at his forearm, which was currently a chaotic dashboard of glowing buttons and holographic sliders.
Well… naturally I couldn’t miss this opportunity.
I started button-mashing with my free hand, curious to see what the user interface was like on a Regime-integrated Cyborg. “Let’s see... Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right... No, no Konami Code. That’s a shame. Devs should be punished. How about this one?”
I slammed my thumb onto a glowing blue icon that looked suspiciously like a power-management toggle. I think.
And I was right!
A heavy clunk vibrated through the floor, followed by the high-pitched whine of generators spinning down. The red-sun lamps flickering above the cells sputtered and died, replaced by the dim, flickering orange of emergency lighting.
I felt the air in the room shift. The oppressive, heavy weight of the dampeners vanished.
A split second later, the reinforced, multi-layered glass of Kara’s cell didn’t just break—it exploded outward in a glittering cloud of diamond-hard shards. Kara stepped through the ruins of her cage, her cape billowing behind her, her eyes glowing with the steady, terrifying warmth of a sun that had finally been let off its leash.
She looked at the disarmed, terrified guards, then at me holding the struggling Cyborg, and finally at the shattered glass at her feet.
“The structural integrity of this glass was significantly lower than I anticipated,” Kara said, brushing a stray shard off her shoulder. “It is as I said: primitive.”
I let go of Victor, giving him a small, helpful shove toward his confused soldiers. He stumbled, clutching his bent arm, his mechanical eye flickering with a red light that looked more like panic than menace.
Yeah… that would probably be fine. I mean, it was only the prosthetic, right?
“Sorry, Vic,” I said, adjusting my cape and checking for any scuffs on my platinum gauntlets. “You were hitting all the tropes. The necessary evils, the no compromises... I just couldn’t sit through it. It’s so cliché. And honestly, when it’s not cliché, it’s just really, really dark. And I’ve had enough dark for one Tuesday.”
I looked over at Kara and tilted my head toward the exit. “Shall we?”
Kara nodded solemnly, though a small, triumphant smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Yes. We shall. Metal Man, do not follow us. I would hate for my next barb to be a physical one.”
We left them there in the flickering orange light—a broken hero and his broken guards—as we headed deeper into the belly of the beast, looking for a bit of color in a world that had gone monochrome.
…
The corridor was a symphony of dying electronics and the heavy, rhythmic thud of Kara’s boots against the polished floor. She moved with a hunter’s grace, her senses expanding to fill the vacuum left by the deactivated dampeners. The facility was cold, efficient, and utterly devoid of spirit—until they reached the maximum-security wing of the lower levels.
Kara stopped so abruptly that the air whistled against her cape. Her eyes widened, the pupils dilating as she stared at the figure slumped behind the reinforced bars of the corner cell. It was a woman, dressed in a tattered, two-toned suit of crimson and shadow, complete with a jester’s cowl that had seen better days.
"Luke. Look. A jester. A bringer of joy and balloon-based artistry," Kara whispered, her voice trembling with a rare, childlike reverence. She leaned closer to the bars, her face illuminated by the flickering emergency lights. "I have seen this on the human broadcast waves. They are the keepers of the laughter, often seen in the company of the large-shoed ones and the striped tents of celebration."
The woman in the cell blinked, looking up from a worn deck of cards. She tilted her head, her blonde pigtails swaying. "A bringer of what-now? Honey, I’ve been called a lot of things, but ’artistry’ usually isn’t on the list unless we’re talkin’ about a getaway plan."
Kara ignored the confusion, her earnestness doubling. "Jester! I require a demonstration of your craft. I demand a balloon animal. A canine of the air, perhaps? It would serve to bolster our morale during this planetary transition."
The brightly-colored woman stood up, a slow, mischievous grin spreading across her face as she looked from the girl in the Kryptonian cape to the man in the silver armor.
"A balloon dog? Well, I’m a bit short on party supplies in the Big House, but..." She reached into a hidden pocket of her corset and pulled out a small, translucent, rolled-up packet. With a flick of her wrist, she shook out, what the inscription referred to as an ’XXL condom’ "I usually keep this for special occasions, but for a fan? Anything."
Harley began to huff air into the latex, the material expanding into a long, slightly wobbling shape. Kara watched with clinical intensity, her brow furrowed in a deep, analytical frown. She looked at the rubbery object, then back to the woman.
"I have seen these before on patrol. I was told they were meant for ’protection’?" Kara asked, her voice dipping into the tone she used when assessing enemy tactical gear. "But against what? It is remarkably small. It would not even cover a soldier’s primary vitals. Is it a localized kinetic barrier? A chemical neutralizer?"
Kara’s mind raced with the logistical absurdity of it.
Why would a warrior need such a flimsy shroud? Perhaps it was meant for a finger? Or a toe? Surely a glove or boot would suffice, why bother going further than that. Only the meek would seek to shield every inch of themselves.
Kara herself had long since discarded her Empire-issued plating for the freedom of her current attire. She went into her battles raw and furious, relying on the density of her own atoms to repel the world. This ’protection’ seemed like a mockery of defense.
"Luke! Are you alright? You are choking!" Kara cried, spinning around as a series of strangled, wheezing sounds erupted from the silver helmet behind her.
She didn’t wait for a response. She activated her X-ray vision, her gaze piercing through the platinum alloy of his visor. Her heart nearly stopped. Luke’s entire face was a vivid, alarming shade of crimson. His lungs were hitching, and he seemed unable to form words.
"You are ill! The fascist metal-man’s toxins are manifesting a delayed secondary reaction!" Kara reached out, cupping his helmeted head in her hands with a strength that made the metal groan. "Do not worry, Luke! I have also discovered the cure to healing one’s injuries from the human broadcast waves. It is to kiss it better!"
"Kara—wait—I’m fine—" Luke managed to wheeze out, his voice cracking, but he was far too slow.
Kara didn’t escape her own momentum.
She began a rapid-fire onslaught, her lips meeting the cold surface of his visor over and over again with the speed of a gatling gun, certain that her affection could physically drive the ’red illness’ from his system. She moved from the visor to the neck-seal, then back to the center of the helmet, her kisses sounding like small, wet explosions in the quiet hall.
"Uh, as much as I love a good rom-com, we’re kinda on a clock here, Romeo and Glow-Stick," Harley interrupted, waving the half-inflated latex ’dog’ between the bars.
Kara pulled back, her chest heaving with the exertion of her healing ritual.
She looked at Luke, whose face—now visible through the visor again—had actually managed to get even redder. Satisfied that she had at least stabilized him, she turned her attention back to the jester.
Right. This was the enemy’s prisoner. Logic dictated she possessed intelligence on the High Councilor’s infrastructure.
"Speak, Bringer of Joy," Kara commanded, her voice regaining its warrior’s edge. "Why does the House of El treat this world as an occupation? My cousin... the Kal-El I know is a guardian, not a jailer."
Harley’s playful expression flickered, a momentary shadow of genuine grief passing over her features. "The Big Blue Boy Scout? He went off the deep end years ago, sugar. One bad day, a big boom in Metropolis, and he decided ’freedom’ was just another word for ’messy.’ Now he’s the High Councilor, and he’s got the whole world under his thumb. Anyone who says ’no’ gets a lobotomy or a one-way ticket to the morgue."
She leaned against the bars, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The Insurgency—the guys who don’t like being told when to sneeze—we’re hanging on by a thread. Bats is hiding in a cave somewhere, and most of the good ones, like Green Arrow, they’re just... gone. It’s a bad time to be a hero, and a worse time to be a clown."
Kara looked at the tattered red-and-black suit, then at the heavy, reinforced bars that held this woman back. The concept of imprisoning a source of laughter felt like a strategic error that even Brainiac wouldn’t have committed. It was a waste of a planetary resource.
"This is unacceptable," Kara said simply. She reached out, her fingers wrapping around the thick, cold metal of the cell bars. With a effortless, grinding screech, she peeled the steel apart, bending the bars back until the gap was wide enough for a tank to drive through. "You are free, Jester. Seek out your ’Bats’ and tell him that a daughter of Krypton does not approve of his cousin’s management style."
Luke watched beside her, as Harley slipped out of the cell, his silence finally returning as the color in his face began to fade. He looked at the mangled steel, then at the wide-eyed Harley, and finally out toward the city beyond the prison walls.
They could both see the direness of the situation at hand.
The stakes weren’t just about getting home anymore; they’d need to clean up this world first.
…
The air outside the containment wing was bitingly cold, carrying the metallic tang of a city that had been scrubbed of its soul. I led the way through a heavy service door, stepping out onto a high-altitude observation balcony that jutted out from the prison’s spire like a gargoyle’s perch.
Below us, Metropolis looked like a scale model built by a particularly obsessive-compulsive god. It was a masterpiece of totalitarian perfection. The traffic moved in synchronized pulses, the lights were uniform, and there wasn’t a single scrap of litter or a stray shadow in sight. It was beautiful, in the way a graveyard is beautiful—peaceful only because nothing was allowed to live outside the lines.
"It is... efficient," Kara whispered, stepping up to the railing. She didn’t look away, her gaze sweeping over the grid-like precision of the streets. "There is no waste. No friction. The tactical layout of the defense turrets is optimized for a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree engagement."
I glanced at her, catching the way her eyes tracked the patrol drones. I knew that look. It was the legacy of Brainiac whispering in the back of her mind, a ghost of her upbringing in the New Kryptonian Empire. To someone raised as a weapon of a galaxy-spanning conquest, this kind of absolute control wasn’t just scary; it was impressive. It was the logical conclusion of "order."
"Efficiency is great for a hard drive, Kara. For a city, it usually means nobody’s allowed to have a loud opinion," I said, leaning my elbows on the cold stone. "Trust me, as a guy who’s spent his life around sets, this place looks like a high-budget dystopia. This is going to get messy.”
"I am aware," Kara murmured, though she sounded conflicted, her fingers tightening on the railing until the metal began to dimple. "I feel the coldness in the atmosphere, Luke. It is stagnant. But the strength required to maintain this level of synchronization... it is formidable. My cousin has accomplished what the Empire sought for cycles. He has silenced the chaos."
Before I could remind her that silencing chaos usually involves silencing the people making it, the light changed. The sun didn’t go behind a cloud; something much larger and much closer simply blotted it out. A massive, looming shadow draped over the balcony, swallowing us in a sudden, artificial twilight.
I looked up, my internal monologue shifting from "witty critique" to "tactical assessment" in a heartbeat.
Hovering a few dozen feet above us was the man himself. Injustice Superman didn’t look like the Clark I’d bantered with. His suit was a darker, more militaristic shade of blue, and the red of his cape didn’t billow—it hung heavy and stiff, like a shroud made of dried blood. He was motionless, his arms crossed over a chest that looked like it was forged from armor-plating rather than muscle.
But it was the face that really did it. The warmth was gone. The "Boy Scout" had been buried under layers of grief and self-righteousness, leaving behind a god who had clearly forgotten how to smile. His eyes didn’t just see us; they judged us.
Kara let out a small, sharp intake of breath. She didn’t move, her eyes locked onto his, and I could feel the shock radiating off her in waves. To her, this was a mirror of her own potential—a Kryptonian who had actually followed through on the ideology Brainiac had tried to graft onto her soul.
She looked horrified by the frozen, arctic coldness in his expression, yet I could see that tiny, stubborn spark of New Kryptonian pride flickering in her eyes. She was disgusted by the tyrant, but the soldier in her was not-so-secretly awed by the sheer, absolute authority he projected.
"He looks so... lonely," Kara said, her voice barely a breath. "Luke, did he never have a family to ground him? Did he never have... a Kara?"
I looked at the High Councilor, remembering the lore of the game I’d played back in a world where this was just pixels on a screen. I knew the answer. In this timeline, the stasis pod with Kara Zor-El hadn’t been found until it was far too late for her to be a sister or a conscience to him.
This Clark had lost his wife, his unborn child, and his city, and he’d had no one left of his own blood to tell him he was crossing the line. But I didn’t share that with her. Some truths are just too heavy to carry into a fight, and I had a feeling we were about to be in the fight of our lives.
"No. I don’t think he did." I said, reaching out to take her hand. Her grip was like a vice, grounding us both. "And I’m pretty sure this guy missed his window for a pep talk. You ready?"
Superman didn’t speak. He just descended, the air humming with the terrifying pressure of his presence, as if the world itself was bowing to the weight of his arrival.
I really, really should have stayed at the bowling alley.