Inside the Kryptonian command ship, Faora brought up the World Engine's signal and studied it for a second—no more.
"General Zod," she said, "the World Engine has been critically damaged. Terraforming has ceased."
Zod turned from the viewport, the weight of the words settling in before he spoke.
"That is not possible," he said. "This planet does not possess the capability to damage Kryptonian technology. Nothing here should even reach it."
"We received the transmission before it went down," Faora replied, and transferred the footage to the main display.
The screen filled with the image—black spears, vast and unnatural, descending through a storm that did not belong to any atmosphere.
Each impact struck with force enough to fracture structures built to endure planetary conditions, something Kryptonian engineering was never meant to fail against. And above it all, suspended in the air, was the same figure they had expelled into the vacuum of space.
Zod watched in silence.
His jaw tightened.
Kal-El had yet to reappear. The World Engine was gone.
And whatever this was had survived exposure to space, and destroyed their primary device from the outside.
"Dispatch a vanguard unit," Zod ordered, turning away from the display. "Secure the Engine site and restore its function. Remove any interference."
He reached for his helmet.
"I will handle this myself."
In Kansas, Clark Kent stood in front of the television and watched Metropolis burn.
The Kryptonian ship hung over the city like a second sky. Streets buckled. Buildings folded into themselves. People ran with nowhere to go while the news anchor struggled to keep her voice steady.
His people had done this.
Then his father's voice came back to him, not as a single memory but as all of them layered together.
The barn. The river. The day he had pushed a school bus out of the water and saved every kid inside. Jonathan hadn't looked proud. He had looked… careful.
"You have to keep this side of yourself a secret."
"What was I supposed to do—let them die?"
"Maybe."
Clark had carried that answer for years, angry at it, refusing it. He understood it now. It had never been about letting people die. It had been about what came after—what the world would take from him the moment it saw what he could do.
And then the other memory, sharper. The road. The storm. Jonathan standing at the fence, turning back one last time before walking into it.
"The world's not ready yet."
He had died protecting a secret. Buying Clark time. Giving him the right to choose when it mattered.
Clark looked back at the screen. Metropolis was still burning.
He lowered his gaze to his hands, steady now.
His father had given him time to choose.
And now—
He had.
***
"So this is your secret," Diana Prince said, looking at Bruce's face with the calm certainty of someone who didn't need confirmation. "You are Batman."
The mask hid many things. Bone structure wasn't one of them. Not to someone who had spent a century learning to read people.
Batman stood up and looked at her.
"Everyone has their secrets," he said. "You have yours. I have mine."
Diana said nothing to that.
Then the air split above them, sharp and violent, as two Kryptonian aircraft swung around the building, engines screaming as they aligned and pointed their weapons directly at them.
Diana looked up at them and smiled. Not a warm smile.
Her shield came up, the motion smooth, practiced.
She jumped.
The force of it cracked the surface beneath her feet as she launched upward, clearing the full distance between the floor and the first aircraft in a single leap. Her sword drove straight through the cockpit, through metal and glass without resistance, and she didn't stay to watch the result.
She pushed off the hull before it started falling, spinning midair with control that came from long experience, and threw her shield across the gap.
It struck the second pilot square.
She came down on the hood of the second aircraft with both feet, the impact denting the metal beneath her. Her hands caught the frame, fingers digging in, and she twisted, redirecting the entire craft.
She smashed it into the side of the building.
Both crafts were gone in four seconds.
Diana landed beside Batman and straightened, as if none of it had required effort.
"You were saying," she said.
Then something moved through Metropolis that the cameras could barely follow.
A red cape. A blue suit. The S symbol bright on his chest.
He was there and gone between frames—appearing at a collapsing building just long enough to catch the falling facade before it hit the street, then gone before the dust even settled, reappearing blocks away where the ground had split open, pulling people out one after another.
The news helicopter caught him for two seconds before losing him again.
"What is that?" the anchor said, leaning forward. "Is that a person? Is someone flying?"
No one answered.
On the ground, people stopped running. They looked up as something crossed the sky faster than anything they could follow, the red cape flashing once in the light before disappearing again.
A woman pinned under a collapsed pillar felt the weight lift. She looked up.
Blue suit. Red cape. The S on his chest.
He was gone before she could speak.
"There's someone out here," a reporter said, turning in circles with the mic still in her hand. "I don't know who it is. I don't know what it is. But whatever it is—it's saving people."
*****
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