With Steppenwolf dead, Marcus turned his attention to Clark.
His godson was trying to look composed, but Marcus could see the truth. Clark's arms were trembling—subtle shakes that most people would miss, but painfully obvious to someone with Marcus' enhanced senses. The punch that had countered Marcus' kick had taken more out of Clark than he wanted to admit.
"Look at you," Marcus said, shaking his head with a mixture of amusement and concern. "Gone for a few years and you let someone weaken you like this. I'm almost disappointed."
Clark winced, shame coloring his expression. "It wasn't... I mean, I was helping people when—"
"I know," Marcus interrupted gently. "You were doing your job, being the hero. And someone took advantage of your kindness. Tale as old as time."
He reached out toward the sky, toward a Parademon that was still circling above the battlefield. His hand made a grasping motion, and reality twisted.
A portal snapped open directly in front of the Parademon. The creature flew through it without realizing anything was wrong—and emerged from a second portal right in front of Marcus and Clark.
Before it could react, Marcus pointed at it.
Well of Life.
Green energy exploded from Marcus' fingertip, enveloping the Parademon in a sphere of emerald light. The creature froze, suspended in mid-air, its body beginning to glow from within.
Clark felt something wash over him—a pulse of vital energy that spread outward from the captured Parademon like ripples on a pond. Each pulse made him feel lighter, stronger, more whole.
"What...?" Clark looked down at himself, then at the Parademon.
The creature was shrinking with each pulse. Not dying exactly, but being drained—its life force extracted and redistributed to everything the green energy touched.
"Life transfer," Marcus explained casually. "I'm using the Parademon as a battery. Every pulse takes some of its vitality and shares it with you. Since these things are our enemies anyway, might as well make them useful."
Clark watched the process with fascination. The Parademon grew smaller, more withered, while Clark felt energy returning to his body. Muscles that had been screaming with fatigue relaxed. Pain that had been constant background noise for a year began to fade.
"Godfather," Clark said quietly, not sure how to express the gratitude swelling in his chest. "I—"
"Don't get emotional yet," Marcus interrupted, though his tone was kind. "We still need to deal with the actual problem."
He placed a hand on Clark's shoulder, and his expression became serious.
"The kryptonite powder. I can see it scattered through your body—little green lights that shouldn't be there. Lex knew exactly what he was doing. Even if the bullet didn't kill you, the powder would weaken you over time."
Void energy began to seep from Marcus' hand—dark purple-black power that looked like liquid shadow. It flowed into Clark's shoulder, spreading through his body with surgical precision.
Clark gasped. He could feel it moving through him, searching, identifying every particle of kryptonite that had lodged in his tissues.
The Void energy didn't just locate the particles—it wrapped around each one like a protective shell, isolating them from Clark's cells. Then, gently but inexorably, it began pulling them free.
Clark gritted his teeth as the extraction process intensified. It didn't hurt exactly, but the sensation was deeply strange—like having dozens of splinters removed simultaneously from places you didn't know splinters could reach.
"Almost done," Marcus murmured, his concentration absolute.
The Void energy withdrew from Clark's body, and with it came the kryptonite. Tiny green particles floated in the air between them, suspended in dark power, glowing with the radiation that had been poisoning Superman for a year.
Marcus closed his fist, and the particles compressed into a single small crystal—maybe a dozen grains of kryptonite powder, but enough to cripple a Kryptonian.
"That's everything," Marcus said, dismissing the crystal with a wave. It vanished into the Void, gone forever. "How do you feel?"
Clark took a deep breath—the first truly deep breath he'd managed in twelve months. Energy flooded back into his system, solar power that had been suppressed suddenly flowing freely through his cells.
He felt alive again. Whole. Himself.
"I feel incredible," Clark said, stretching his arms and feeling no tremor, no weakness. "Better than I have in... god, it's been so long."
He looked at Marcus with eyes that were suspiciously bright. "Thank you. I tried everything—Kryptonian medical tech, even some experimental treatments Bruce suggested. Nothing worked."
"Because the powder was too small and too dispersed for conventional removal," Marcus explained. "You needed something that could track individual particles at the cellular level. Hence, Void energy."
He gave Clark a stern look. "But you need to be more careful going forward. You're Kryptonian, yes, but kryptonite makes you as vulnerable as any human. Luthor proved that. And the next person who tries this might not settle for just weakening you."
"I know." Clark gestured at his costume. "That's why I upgraded the suit. Kryptonian technology, woven into the fabric. It's bulletproof now—not from my biometric field, but from the material itself. Even if I'm holding kryptonite, normal bullets can't penetrate."
Marcus examined the suit with enhanced vision, seeing the molecular structure, the energy weaves, the careful engineering. "Good. That's smart thinking. But remember—armor only works if you're wearing it, and only protects what it covers."
"I'll be careful," Clark promised.
"See that you are." Marcus' expression softened. "I can't keep showing up just in time to save you, Clark. Eventually, you'll face something while I'm dimensions away, and you'll need to handle it yourself."
"I understand."
"Good." Marcus turned toward the nest. "Now, let's go see about those Mother Boxes. Wouldn't want all this effort to be wasted because we ignored the doomsday device."
A portal opened before them—swirling Void energy forming a stable passage.
Marcus grabbed Steppenwolf's bisected corpse almost as an afterthought, dragging both halves through. "Might as well bring evidence of the kill. Tends to discourage retaliation when you can show the body."
Clark followed through the portal, and they emerged back inside the nest.
The battle was still raging.
Diana moved like poetry given physical form—every sword stroke precise, every shield bash devastating. Her Vulcan Sword sang as it cut through Parademons, the divine metal leaving trails of light in the air.
Arthur fought beside her, his trident a whirlwind of death. Water still clung to him from his earlier storm summoning, and it moved with supernatural grace, forming shields and weapons as needed.
Both warriors had carved a protective perimeter around Victor, who remained connected to the Mother Boxes, his entire focus on keeping them separated.
Clark's eyes flared red, and twin beams of heat vision lanced out. The rays swept through the Parademon swarm like a scythe through wheat, burning through armor and flesh with equal ease.
The creatures' assault faltered as their numbers thinned dramatically.
"Superman's back at full power!" Arthur called out, grinning fiercely. "About time!"
Diana glanced at Clark, saw the strength in his movements, the confidence in his posture. She smiled. "Welcome back."
Marcus walked past them toward the Mother Boxes, still dragging Steppenwolf's corpse. He dropped the remains near the obelisk where the general had been coordinating with Apokolips.
"Just leaving that there as a conversation starter," Marcus said dryly.
He turned his attention to Victor, who was straining visibly. The young man's mechanical body was pushed to its limits—thrusters firing at maximum, servos whining with stress, processing power maxed out.
And the Mother Boxes were still slowly, inexorably pulling together.
"Brute force?" Marcus observed, shaking his head. "That's not going to work."
Victor couldn't spare attention to respond, but Marcus could see the problem clearly. The Mother Boxes wanted to merge. Once that process started, simple physical force couldn't stop it—you needed to interrupt the connection from inside.
But Victor was trying. Fighting against technology far more advanced than anything Earth had produced, using a body built from one Mother Box to control three.
Suddenly, Victor's eyes went distant. His physical body kept working, kept pulling, but his consciousness was elsewhere.
Inside the Mother Box's construct:
Victor found himself standing in a place he'd never expected to see again.
His parents' living room.
Every detail perfect—the worn spot on the couch where his dad always sat, the photos on the mantle showing happier times, the smell of his mother's cooking drifting from the kitchen.
And there, in the doorway, was his mother.
Not a memory. Not a hologram. Her. Looking exactly as she had the day of the accident, before the car crash that had killed her and nearly killed him.
"Victor?" she said, and her voice was exactly right. The warmth, the concern, the love—all of it present in that single word.
Victor looked down at himself and discovered he was whole again. No metal body, no cybernetic components. Just flesh and blood, healthy and strong, the way he'd been before the accident.
Tears started falling before he even registered the emotion behind them. When was the last time he'd cried? The transformation had taken that from him, along with so much else.
"Mom?" His voice broke. "How—"
She crossed to him and pulled him into a hug, and Victor felt himself coming apart. All the grief he'd been carrying, all the pain and loss and anger—it poured out in wracking sobs.
"My sweet boy," she whispered, holding him tight. "You've been so strong. You've carried so much. But you can rest now. We're together again."
"I missed you," Victor managed through tears. "I missed you so much. I have so many things I wanted to tell you—"
"I know, baby. I know." She pulled back enough to look at him, cupping his face in her hands. "I'm so proud of you. Everything you've become, everything you've done to help people. Your father and I, we're both so proud."
Victor's father appeared from the kitchen, and the sight of both his parents—alive, whole, together—nearly broke Victor's heart.
They invited him to sit, to talk, to simply be with them.
And for a few precious moments, Victor allowed himself to believe it was real.
Outside the construct:
BOOM!!!
The shockwave from Marcus' clash with Darkseid's Omega Beams ripped through the nest like a physical thing.
Diana staggered. Arthur was thrown backward. Even Clark had to brace himself against the force.
And Victor's connection to the Mother Box shattered.
His consciousness was ripped from the illusion, dragged back to reality with violent force.
Inside the construct:
Cracks appeared in his mother's face.
She looked at him with sadness and understanding. "I'm sorry, Victor. I wish we could have had more time."
"No!" Victor reached for her desperately. "No, please, I just got you back—"
She smiled—heartbroken but accepting. "I was never really here, baby. You know that. But I'll always be with you. Always."
The world shattered like glass.
Victor screamed as he tumbled through the air, torn from the Mother Boxes by the sheer force of the explosion.
"MOTHER!!!"
The word was raw agony, loss given voice.
He crashed into a pile of debris, his mechanical body absorbing damage that would have killed a human. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional devastation.
He'd seen her. Held her. Had precious minutes with the mother he'd lost.
And then she was gone again.
Victor curled into himself, mechanisms whirring as his body tried to process trauma it wasn't designed to handle.
The others heard his cry, saw his pain, and understood. Diana's expression softened with sympathy. Arthur looked away, uncomfortable with such raw emotion. Clark moved toward Victor instinctively, wanting to help but not sure how.
"No!" Bruce's voice crackled through the comms. "The Mother Boxes—they're merging again!"
Victor's head snapped up, sensors refocusing.
The three cubic artifacts were pulling together again, the separation Victor had maintained now gone. And worse—the sonic boom channel above the nest was expanding, the rift between dimensions growing wider.
Everyone saw the problem simultaneously.
"We need to stop them!" Diana was already moving, running toward the Mother Boxes with sword drawn.
"Wait—" Victor started to say, but she wasn't stopping.
Arthur followed Diana, trident raised. Clark flew toward the artifacts at super-speed. Barry appeared in a flash of lightning, hands already reaching for the nearest Mother Box.
They grabbed the cubes—Barry on one, Diana and Arthur on the second, Clark supporting both—and pulled.
The Mother Boxes resisted, fighting to merge with a will that felt almost alive.
"It's not working!" Barry grunted, his speed-enhanced strength barely making a difference. "They're too strong!"
"Keep pulling!" Clark commanded, his own muscles straining. "We can do this!"
They couldn't. Not with brute force alone.
Victor shook off his grief with visible effort, forcing himself to focus. His mother's image was still fresh in his mind, her voice still echoing in his ears.
But she wouldn't want him to give up. Wouldn't want her death—her sacrifice in that car accident—to be meaningless.
"I need energy!" Victor called out, activating his thrusters and flying back toward the group. "Massive amounts of it! Without power, I can't override the Mother Boxes' programming!"
Everyone looked at each other blankly. Where would they get that kind of energy?
Bruce's voice cut through the confusion. "Flash!!"
Of course.
Barry's face lit up with understanding. "When I run, I generate current. The faster I move, the more electricity I produce. If I go fast enough—"
"You become a power plant," Victor finished. "Exactly what I need!"
Barry released his Mother Box and stepped back. "How much time do you need to build up a charge?"
"As much as you can give me," Victor said. "The more power, the better."
Barry grinned—his trademark expression of excitement before doing something incredibly dangerous and probably stupid.
"Then let's make some lightning."