*Mel-Ka POV*
*Location: Krypton, Launch Pad*
*Date (Earth/Worm): November 12th, 1992*
Imagine a world burning...cities up in flames and destruction as people run for cover, a mixture of those unaware of why this was happening and those who knew, the leaders, the scientists who warned them, and anyone else that might've heard of it. It had long since been coming; our planet is...was very old and becoming more unstable with time.
I was part of the science-caste, those in charge of advancing our society through engineering and new scientific studies. I...was supposed to help create interstellar vehicles, spaceships that could take us across the galaxy, but by the time my education was complete, that had all ended with the ruling council dragging all Kryptonian citizens back to our homeworld, regressing from a space-age civilization to a planet-bound one, only by choice this time.
Right now, I was overlooking a society tittering on the brink of collapse, some people were letting themselves run wild, no longer caring about society or common decency. Then the religious types prayed their little hearts out to Rao, believing that this crisis could be prevented somehow, not realizing it was too late.
Only a couple of scientists on the planet knew about this problem and were doing everything to fix it, well, only two to be entirely honest. The first Jor-El, one of Krypton's greatest scientists, but also a man untrusted by the council due to his association with the criminal Zod, a former general of the Kryptonian army/military-caste. He tried to rebel against the council for...for some reason I never learned about. Then there was Mel-Ka, aka me, an engineer who now only existed to help increase fuel efficiency and study the movements of the planet to find possible signs of earthquakes.
I was essentially just a bureaucrat who shuffled paperwork, as we could no longer improve the fuel efficiency of our various vehicles. Earthquakes were nearly nonexistent, but I believed that was due to our own planet's core destabilizing over the many years; but that was more of a personal theory of mine rather than a scientific fact. I was more of a spaceship engineer than anything else, really. I believe that was the reason they stuck me in such a low-energy job with barely anything to do.
Although that gave me plenty of time to discover the planet's imminent demise, and begin planning an evacuation with a few ships ready to take us off-world. While Jor-El tried to convince the council to begin evacuating as well, he also built two ships: one for his child, Kal-El, and another for Zor-El, his older cousin. Hopefully, enough of us could escape that we could rebuild Krypton somewhere, somewhere good.
We had ideas of trying to integrate into a distant world's culture, to interact with the beings who called the blue planet home, Earth, if I remembered correctly. Strangely enough, during that time I saw...brief flashes of a life I never lived, of a life as a human on Earth. I...I ignored it at first, but over time, the memories became more intense with time and the only way I could distract myself was to keep building ships out of any parts I could find.
That was before Jor-El really began in earnest to try and convince the council to evacuate the planet, no, that came after...that day. The day 45% of the military-caste rebelled against the council, and while I agreed the council needed to go, the way they went about it was...horrible, so many people died that day to stop Zod and his relentless march, his need for control.
As punishment, he and his remaining soldiers were banished to the phantom zone, a nearly empty dimension where no time passed, where their bodies were essentially put into stasis, but their minds, their minds would work perfectly while time passed. It felt familiar in its own odd way, like I had experienced something, albeit from a...3rd point of view or something like that. That could explain my less-than-surprised reaction.
Like I had already experienced something like this before...or more accurately, I've read something like it, like from my human life. If that's what my dreams truly depict anyway, either way, it didn't matter; I had long since said my goodbyes to any friends/families, any that I knew of anyway, seeing as I was one of the many cloned kryptonians. No matter, though, I approached my ship, massive enough to house/support me for years on end if the worst were to happen.
Which was unfortunately a large possibility, seeing as how both Kal-El's and Zor-El's original ships were still intact and perhaps were already launched. Right now, I was simply documenting the last moments of Krypton, the disgraceful acts, the acts of kindness, and everything in between, everything that made us Kryptonians so that the children, if they never truly learn our technology, our culture, and everything else about us, could have the chance to do so.
Looking at my reflection, I saw the same tired brown eyes, my medium-length black hair that was unfortunately a mess from the stress. The bags under my eyes didn't help either, but it was odd for some reason I was...smiling, honest to Rao smiling. It was the end of the world, and I was smiling, perhaps all the stress had just piled up till I eventually went insane, or perhaps I was just ecstatic to finally starship knowledge to use, to finally be able in some small way to travel the stars.
Either way, my ship was ready for take-off or as ready as it ever would be, and I lowered the steps with each step I took, mimicking a distant explosion. Signaling the end of the planet and the near extinction of our race. Either way, opening up the pod, I could hear the steps slowly recede, going back into the ship as I entered the pod, closing the hatch once I was all set to go.
I took one last look around, at the vast civilization that we built, at the things we had created, and how we reshaped our very planet. I then clicked a few buttons and punched in the coordinates for Earth, and leaned back, allowing the ship to put me into a state of hibernation for the long journey ahead. I could feel my eyes slowly close as the large, classically shaped rocket of a ship began to lean upward, ready for take-off.
As the last bits of my conscious mind faded into a dream, ready to let the days pass hopefully without incident, hopefully anyway.
*3rd POV*
As the large blue, white, and rusty ship leaned upward, flames sputtered from the back of it. Then, as the planet's core began to titter on the edge of a massive explosion and most of the fighting stopped with prayer taking its place. Then the ship launched, ripping its way through the atmosphere and escaping the stranglehold of the planet's gravity.
Well, in front of it were two more intricately designed ships, one housing an infant, another a young female Kryptonian ready to help raise the young infant. Well behind it was Mel-Ka's ship, and while it was not as well-designed/protected as the first two, it would still follow them and survive the airless void of space.
Soon enough, the planet's core began to fully destabilize and exploded, launching a massive wave of energy that missed the first two pods. However, the third pod, Mel-Ka's, was caught up in the energy fluctuation, colliding with the ship's engines. Normally, this at best would steer the ship off course or cause the ship's/energy levels to drop. However, on this particular day, in a parallel universe near this particular cluster was an event of epic proportions.
A being was born and rampaging across an Iranian oil field, leveling the entirety of it and leaving it uninhabitable for who knows how many years. The radiation it dispersed, however, was not what caused this particualr energy fluctuation. Instead, it would be its core, located in its shoulder region, was connected to the multiverse, all in an effort to keep its facsimile of a body functioning and rampaging. Parahumans from all around the globe tried their best in combating the beast, dealing virtually no damage as it dispensed the energy across the ground, all the while burning any hero who got too close.
Normally, Mel-Ka's ship wouldn't be affected by battles such as this; however, this beast, this...soon-to-be named Endbringer, was no normal creature. Its connection to the multiverse sent out a wave of energy colliding with the ship just as Krypton exploded, sending its own wave of energy. At the moment of collision, something strange happened: Mel-Ka's ship began to fluctuate in and out of reality, the object and its occupants gliching in and out of reality.
Going between the two universes, somehow bypassing the Warrior's Entities cut-off point, that which separated this section of the multiverse from the rest. With each fluctuation of the various energy blasts, did the barrier between realities become ever so thinner, eventually sending Mel-Ka's ship blasting outside of the universe altogether, sending it through a long, bright rainbow, and yet it shattered into countless mirrors showing realities that could be and realities that won't be.
If any living creature were to view this multiversal tunnel, they would go mad and begin ripping their eyes out, unable to understand the beauty of this in-between reality. One formed from the collision of countless energy sources alongside the entities cutting off the rest of the multiverse, forming a temporary tunnel that could, will, and did exist across countless iterations of these same universes.
It didn't matter, though, as the ship eventually came across one specific iteration of an Earth, a place the locals would eventually call Earth Bet. One largely inhabited by various parahumans, each one with varying degrees of abilties, with a drive toward conflict.
No matter, though, his ship ripped through space and time, exiting near Mars and rocketing toward Earth at an unrelenting speed. The ship's engines were now rapidly running low, and the occupant inside tossed and turned as the ship rocked from side to side, as the ship's onboard computer tried to correct itself, understanding that it had encountered a spae-time anomaly and was now rapidly approaching its destination, and yet it gliched knowing full well that this current situation shouldn't be possible.
That didn't matter at this moment, as soon enough, this version of Earth would soon be home to more than humanity; soon, it would be home to the only Kryptonian of this universe, possibly this section of the multiverse.