Watching the Kryptonian clone rushing toward him, closing the distance in an instant, Joey couldn't help but curse under his breath.
Were there a few too many Kryptonians showing up lately?
And not a single one of them was a decent person—every last one had blood on their hands. Weren't Kryptonians supposed to be symbols of hope in every universe?
If this is how you all use godlike power, then why the hell was I ever hung up on being some saintly Clark Kent?!
Unlike Joey, who still held back in the atmosphere, she showed absolutely no restraint—completely disregarding the devastating storms her movement could unleash on the ecosystem.
As a result, her flight speed was visibly faster than Joey's restrained pace.
Before he could even reposition properly, Joey had no choice but to brace himself and take her diving strike head-on.
Boom!
The two Kryptonians collided midair over Alaska with a single punch.
The good news was that the massive shockwave completely canceled out the destructive winds she had generated during flight. Joey didn't have to worry about the Arctic cold spreading where it shouldn't.
The bad news—
The impact was like a small nuclear airburst detonating in the sky.
The F-22s circling nearby were like butterflies caught in a hurricane, vanishing instantly.
The fortified structures Joey had placed on the ground below—once reliable—were no longer protected by the earth's mass and couldn't withstand such force.
Reduced to exposed steel and concrete frames, they were torn apart by the shockwave.
Especially the largest bunker Joey had just entered—it took the brunt of the impact.
Concrete shattered loose from its steel frame, collapsing under its own weight. The three-level structure crumbled completely under the overwhelming force.
Well… some people's sentences just went from five hundred years to zero.
No wonder Captain Atom and the people behind him were so desperate to move the battlefield into space.
If Kryptonians fought at full power on Earth's surface long enough, they could wipe out the entire planet.
"And you still have the time to worry about those insignificant lives at a time like this?!"
The white-haired Kara's incoming punch was caught in Joey's hand.
He really hadn't been focusing entirely on her.
To him, she was just a clone. He had never even taken the real Kara's combat ability seriously—so what was this knockoff supposed to be?
This fight didn't seem like it would be any harder than his earlier battle with the other Superman.
All he needed to do was restrain her for a while—stall for time until Cyborg noticed and came over. Then they could deal with her effortlessly.
Reading the indifference on Joey's face, the white-haired Kara grew even more furious.
"You don't have even a shred of what a Kryptonian should be! Why don't you start now—act like a real Kryptonian and take every battle seriously?!"
Despite her outburst, Joey's gaze remained fixed on the ruins below.
Because of the lead shielding, his vision couldn't assess the casualties—something that bothered him far more.
As for this clone who attacked him without hesitation, he still brushed her off:
"Be quiet. I'm not in the mood to fight you right now."
Just a pitiful clone. Joey wasn't a native Kryptonian anyway—he had no reason to discriminate against her.
With her arms restrained, the white-haired Kara chose a different approach—she drove her knee straight toward Joey's crotch.
"—!"
Still holding her arms, Joey suddenly had something much more important to protect.
Now he truly couldn't afford to be distracted by whatever was happening below.
With a twist of his body, he threw her off balance, interrupting the crippling strike.
"What kind of serious battle involves cheap shots like that?!"
Kryptonian physiology was very similar to that of humans—if she landed that hit, even a body of steel would feel it.
This clone had zero manners!
Still gripping her arms, Joey finally got annoyed. Tightening his hold, he leaned forward and smashed his forehead into hers.
The collision of two Kryptonian bodies sent out another massive shockwave, shattering the entire ice field and exposing the long-frozen permafrost beneath.
The already-destroyed bunkers took another hit—anyone still inside was likely finished.
While the white-haired Kara was dazed from the headbutt, Joey finally released her arms—and freed his own fists.
Then he drove a punch straight into her face, leaving it a mess of bruised colors as blood sprayed from her nose.
"Besides, what do Kryptonian traditions have to do with you? You're not even a Kryptonian—you're just a clone!"
"You… dare… call me… a clone?!"
She didn't even bother wiping the blood from her face.
In the next instant, she retaliated with a punch to Joey's jaw—so fast he couldn't react—sending him flying out of the atmosphere.
His head ringing, Joey didn't bother stabilizing himself. Instead, he let the momentum carry him into space, avoiding further damage to the surface below.
At the same time, he started looping a broadcast—cycling through Chinese, English, Russian, Arabic, French, German, and Kryptonian:
"Clone. Clone. Clone…"
Behind him, the white-haired Kara hadd completely lost it, as if something inside her snapped.
"That's it—you little mutt, YOU'RE DEAD!"
It was as if Joey had just said something utterly unforgivable.
Heh—some people simply can't accept the truth.
Joey had no idea why the other side suddenly snapped like that.
If a normal Kryptonian were called a clone, then yes, they would definitely be furious. Joey recalled the records in the Kryptonian database about the clone rebellion from ten thousand years ago.
That long and bloody clone war had turned the word 'clone' into something almost cursed on Krypton.
In a Kryptonian context, calling someone a 'clone' was an insult even worse than calling them a 'bastard' or 'son of a bitch'.
But this Kara clone in front of him—what the hell did she know about Krypton?
Just moments ago she was going on about Kryptonian traditions as if no one understood Krypton better than she did.
Joey figured that when Earth scientists cloned her, they probably pumped too much nutrient fluid into her and gave her hallucinations.
Even twins have subtle biological differences in appearance, let alone in front of someone like Joey, who possessed Kryptonian vision.
Although this fake Kara had the same DNA structure as the blonde, real Kara, there were still massive differences in finer details like bone and muscle.
This white-haired one looked significantly older than Kara—he didn't even need X-ray vision to tell.
Her figure was far more developed than the original Kara's, and with her bold outfit, she showed it off with complete confidence.
The real Kara was still, at her core, a shy and insecure girl. She would never wear something like that—at least not now.
Moreover, every Kryptonian's bio-field was almost unique, like a kind of anti-counterfeiting signature.
And this white-haired fake Kara's bio-field was far stronger than that of the real blonde Kara.
Something wasn't right—only now did Joey realize there might be a flaw in this whole situation.
Could Earth's technology really create something like this?
A clone that comes out of a cultivation pod already stronger than the original?
That wasn't something you could explain with sheer luck. If Earth really had that level of scientific capability, why the hell would Joey even be worrying about a Kryptonian invasion?
At that moment, Joey's ears twitched as he picked up a command coming from the ruins of the Alaskan bunker far below:
[ He's gone into space—activate the satellite, start that weapon! ]
In outer space, a satellite projected a beam of pure white energy from its tip, tearing open a rift in space.
If nothing unexpected happened, this was likely a Phantom Zone projection—also a piece of Kryptonian technology.
The Phantom Zone was a void world parallel to the material universe. In the original Kryptonian civilization, where capital punishment didn't exist, it was used to imprison criminals.
Now it seemed Earth had figured out how to access it through Kara's spacecraft—and used it to hide things Joey couldn't observe.
Like the monster in front of him.
After the beam struck, a grotesque figure emerged from the spatial rift.
Gray-green keratinized skin, sharp bone spikes covering its body, dark red eyes sweeping over Joey and the fake Kara, and a massive maw opening in a roar, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Even in the vacuum, Joey didn't bother listening—but it was obvious this thing was filled with pure killing and destructive intent.
With a glance of his super vision, Joey saw that it was primarily built on Kryptonian DNA, mixed with fragments from multiple other species.
Atlantean, Amazonian, and several unknown genetic sequences he couldn't even identify...
Those lab idiots had treated this thing like a LEGO set—just slapping on whatever parts they felt like!
"These ants really have terrible timing."
The white-haired Kara moved in a flash, appearing before the creature. She grabbed its head with one hand and tore it clean off in a single motion.
This Frankenstein-like creation, made by Earth's mad scientists, didn't even get the chance to vent its fury before it died instantly.
Kara frowned in disgust, even using her heat vision to cleanse the hand that had touched the creature.
"What a disgusting pest. Don't you agree, 'Superman'?"
"Wait… Now hold on a second!"
Joey was stunned—not because the creature had been destroyed so easily.
Something that crude was exactly the kind of low-tier trash those idiots would create. Joey himself could've crushed it just as effortlessly.
But its existence raised a new question.
If that thing was a genetically engineered clone weapon made by humans...
Then what exactly was this white-haired Kara in front of him?
And if this white-haired Kara kept talking about Krypton, looked older than Kara, and insisted she wasn't a clone...
Then the blonde Kara he had been with before...
"Haven't figured it out yet, my foolish cousin?"
The white-haired Kara turned toward Joey, clenching her fist. A layer of active metal armor began spreading from a wrist device hidden beneath her glove.
The metal expanded rapidly, soon covering her entire body. Joey finally saw the markings and Kryptonian script on the armor—it was standard Kryptonian military gear.
"Don't worry, I'll explain everything—after I teach you a lesson first."
Joey's ignorance didn't excuse his reckless insult of calling his own relative a 'clone'.
Today, Kara Zor-El would personally discipline this unruly Kryptonian brat on behalf of Kal-El's parents.