[center][img]https://imgur.com/0ubfQ2Y.png[/img][/center] [center][h2][color=RoyalBlue][u]The Death of the Supermen[/u][/color][/h2] [h3]Part One[/h3][/center] [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Everyone, stay back!"[/b][/color] I call out to the panicking crowd. You'd think that in an emergency situation, moving to safety would be the last thing you would need to remind people to do, but when things start happening quickly and the people around you start to panic, it's easy to get confused, to freeze up, or to gawk at what's going on. Normally I try to personally ensure the stragglers and gawkers and deer-in-the-headlights get to a safe place..... [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/e1L9HAg.png[/img][/center] ...but unfortunately, my hands are a little tied at the moment. My vision explodes into stars and blotches of color as I tumble head over heels across the pavement, finally coming to a stop when something smacks me hard against the back. I'm quick to pull myself up to a vertical base, shaking the dizziness out of my head long enough to see that I'd slammed into a courier van, knocking it onto its side with the impact. After a quick scan to make sure there's no one inside of the van, I rub my jaw, still smarting from the impact. It's not very often these days that I have to deal with someone who can hit hard enough to leave a mark on me. But damned if today didn't end up being one of those days. I burned breakfast this morning while putting out a wildfire in Oregon, so Lois and Jon had to make do with cold cereal. I got an earful from Perry about how my story on Lex Luthor's parole hearing is behind schedule, and how he's giving the story to Ron if I don't have it done by Friday. The United Nations was attacked while I was preventing a suicide bombing in Pokolistan. A hurricane is bearing down on Madripoor, and while I'm sure Kara can take care of it herself, I'd hoped to lend a hand.... [color=LimeGreen][b]"Stay down, Superman. I don't want to have to take all day killing you."[/b][/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/gZFedG1.jpg?2[/img][/center] ....but that's when the Atomic Skull came out to pick a fight. Joseph Martin, the unfortunate victim of exposure to exotic radiation from one of STAR Labs' many unconventional experiments with alien or cosmic technology. The incident melted the flesh off of his bones, but somehow his consciousness remained intact, becoming a walking nuclear warhead, strong enough to go blow-for-blow with me and capable of letting out blasts of irradiated plasma that can burn an ordinary human to dust in an instant. While he has regained most of his sanity over the years, it's done nothing to alleviate his agony, or his hatred of the world around him. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"You want to fight me, Martin? Fine, we'll fight,"[/b][/color] I say, cracking my knuckles as I hover over him, [color=RoyalBlue][b]"but not here. We do it outside of the city, where we can go twelve rounds without putting these people in danger."[/b][/color] [color=LimeGreen][b]"Why bother?"[/b][/color] he answers, letting out a pulse of radiation that pushes me back, sending a wave of stinging pain and nausea through my body. [color=LimeGreen][b]"They're next once I'm done with you. Everyone burns today, Superman. [i]Everyone burns![/i]"[/b][/color] Atomic Skull lashes out with his right arm, hurling a radioactive plasma bolt at a group of terrified civilians. I've seen what happens to people who get caught by one of Martin's blasts: the dust that used to be their bodies leaves an imprint on the buildings behind them, burning a silhouette of the person in their final moment. 'Hiroshima shadows,' they call it. That's not happening today, as I throw myself between the Skull and the bystanders, letting the blast hit me square in the chest. Every nerve in my body is screaming, my senses reeling with agony and sickness. It's not as bad as Kryptonite poisoning, but it's damned close. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Nngh!"[/b][/color] I grunt, digging my fingers into the asphalt to prevent myself from tumbling away. Gritting my teeth, I glare back at the Skull and ball up my fists. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Have it...[i]*rgh!*[/i]....have it your way."[/b][/color] Atomic Skull isn't as cunning as Luthor, as advanced as Brainiac, as ruthless as Zod, or as unstoppable as Doomsday. But he's still tough as nails and incredibly volatile. His radioactive aura soaks up most of my Heat Vision, and weakens me when I get too close, so the longer this fight goes, the more trouble I'm in. First things first, then: disperse that aura as much as possible, then take him down fast and hard. I take in a deep breath, and as Martin charges forward, I let him have it. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/aQN3si6.png[/img][/center] A cone of hurricane-force wind, super-cooled by compression to near Absolute Zero, knocks the Atomic Skull off of his feet, and more importantly, slows the decay of the atoms in his radioactive cloud, rendering it all but inert for a precious few fractions of a second. Which, hopefully, should be all I need. I take a three-point stance, like a linebacker about to pounce, and rush forward, ramming my shoulder into the disoriented Skull's gut and grabbing him around the waist. Martin's tough enough that one punch, even from me, won't be enough to put him down, so I'm going to need to do something a little more drastic if I want to end this before someone gets hurt. Before the Skull can react, I take to the air, wrenching him upwards as we go above the rooftops of New Bohemia, above the monolithic LexCorp Tower downtown, above the clouds. The air ignites in our wake, the friction from the sheer speed of our flight leaving a fiery streak as we go higher and higher....... By the time the Atomic Skull regains his bearings and realizes where he is, the blue skies over Metropolis have given away to the endless starry expanse of space. The jaws of his death's-head visage hang open as he shouts and screams in protest, but up here there's no air for the sound to carry. I'd tell him he brought this on himself, but since he can't hear it, I give him a look that says it for me. I then grab hold of his arm, whirl him twice around me, and on the third spin, I send him back down towards the planet. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/DOdLWpb.png[/img][/center] [b][i][color=RoyalBlue]I sure hope my aim was good,[/color][/i][/b] I think to myself as a bright flash of orange light signals that Atomic Skull has hit the atmosphere. Given the distance from the target area, the curvature of the Earth, the change in trajectory from hitting air resistance, and several dozen other minute variables, I only had a few fractions of a second to do the calculations in my head once and didn't have the time to double-check. If I was off by even a fraction of a degree, he could impact miles away from where I want, possibly in a populated area. Taking a few precious seconds to soak some unfiltered rays of rejuvenating sunlight, I pour on the speed and begin following the Skull down, getting in a few jabs here and there to correct course as he arcs downward. A few hundred yards up, I put on the brakes and let loose with a blast of Heat Vision, not at the Skull himself, but at the ground he's barreling towards at Mach seven. Hitting solid ground at that speed would devastate the surrounding area and kick up a massive dust cloud like a meteor impact. As the ground liquefies into magma, however, he passes through it like a hot knife through butter before landing where I want.... ....at the bottom of a massive concrete cask at the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility. It's not Stryker's Island, to be sure, but a few hundred feet of concrete should contain him long enough for SHIELD to extract him safely. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"I told you I'd go twelve rounds with you once we were out of the city,"[/b][/color] I say, indulging in a little bit of swagger as I fly down the molten tunnel his landing had bored into the ground. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Should I start the ten-count now, or do you--.....wait...."[/b][/color] As the Atomic Skull lies in a heap at the bottom of the concrete cask, he begins to twitch, sparks and electrical arcs popping and crackling from different joints in his body. I focus my eyes to the X-Ray spectrum, scanning him for some sort of internal injuries.... ....and all I find are circuitry and wires. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"A robot?"[/b][/color] I say out loud, to no one in particular. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Who'd make a robot duplicate of--"[/b][/color] [i]Wait. Something's wrong.[/i] I can hear it, something very clearly off. When you can sense things on the other side of the planet, hear and feel and smell far beyond the range most would consider physically possible, it's important to have a few constants, standards that you can use to find your center in a sea of sensations generated by billions of people. For the longest time, I kept my hearing focused to a single rhythm, a pulse that I could always find no matter where I was. Eventually, it would be two rhythms, two steady drumbeats that let me know things were okay. The heartbeats of my wife and my son. And right now, both of them are pounding like machine guns. I smash the robot copy of the Atomic Skull with an appropriately large slab of concrete and take to the skies with a speed that would catch even Wally off-guard. Whatever's going on with the robot, it can wait. Lois and Jon are in trouble. Normally, I take a long and winding route back to the farmhouse in Hamilton County, about twenty miles west of Metropolis. I don't want people following me back to my family, even if that house is home to a ten-year-old that can already lift a tractor and protected by a dog that chews on titanium like a rawhide bone. Now, though, I'm leaving a fiery comet-trail in the air across the Continental United States, and if someone wants to follow that trail, they won't like who they find at the end of it. [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Lois! Jon!"[/b][/color] I call out as I land outside the farmhouse, the loud crack of a sonic boom announcing my arrival. [color=DarkOrchid]"Clark!"[/color] Lo calls back from the front porch, cradling a figure in her arms. [color=DarkOrchid]"Oh, thank God, I wasn't sure what--"[/color] [color=Teal]"Dad!"[/color] I hear Jon from inside. [color=Teal]"Mom won't let me come out. I can't see what's--[/color] [color=DarkOrchid]"Go back inside, Jon."[/color] [color=Teal]"But Mom, I--"[/color] [color=DarkOrchid]"Jonathan Samuel Kent, you go back inside [i]right now.[/i]"[/color] Lois says with the kind of protective fury that only a mother has. [color=RoyalBlue]"Listen to your mother, Jon,"[/color] I say as I approach the front step, seeing exactly what it is she's holding. [color=RoyalBlue]"This isn't something you should see."[/color] Jonathan hesitates for a moment before I give him a stern look, and then he looks away and heads inside. I know that his own X-Ray vision is starting to develop at this point, but he knows better than to use it when both Lois and I tell him he shouldn't be looking at something. Lois lays the figure back down, standing up as she wipes nervous tears from her eyes. [color=DarkOrchid]"I was working on a story in the office, and I.....I heard this loud thump, and Krypto started going crazy and I just...."[/color] [color=RoyalBlue]"It's okay, Lo,"[/color] I say, putting my arms around her and holding her close. [color=RoyalBlue]"I'll get the League on the line and we'll figure this out. In the meantime, I'll take it to the barn so Jon won't see it."[/color] [color=DarkOrchid]"God, I sound like such a mess,"[/color] Lois laughs at herself. [color=DarkOrchid]"Lois Lane-Kent, fearless reporter, the woman who's stared down terrorists and alien demigods, and now I'm shaking and crying like I've never seen this sort of thing before. I just....I thought it was.......oh God, I thought it was--"[/color] [color=RoyalBlue]"It's not,"[/color] I reassure her, running my fingers through her hair. [color=RoyalBlue]"I'm right here."[/color] As I hold my wife and tell her it's going to be all right, I look down at the figure lying on our porch. One quick look, and I know. Lois was right to be afraid, even if I can't make heads or tails of it. Someone has left the body of a dead man at our doorstep. Not just a dead man...... [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ShLM3VJ.jpg[/img][/center] .....a dead Superman. [hr] [h3][b][i]ELSEWHERE[/i][/b][/h3] [color=SteelBlue]"I've just received signal of another incursion. I think our next target has just been singled out."[/color] [color=SlateGray]"Any sign of infection yet?"[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"Not yet. We're actually ahead of the ball this time, so we may be able to intervene before it's too late."[/color] [color=MediumSlateBlue]"What sort of secondary targets are we looking at on this world?"[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"Pulling it up right now. It looks like-- oh, wow. Nearly a complete legacy on this world. A Supergirl and [i]two[/i] Superboys, possibly a Power Girl as well, though that's not confirmed. I'm also seeing several derivations here: a Thor, a Captain Marvel, a Sentry, even a Blue Marvel! This may be the most well-defended world we've encountered so far!"[/color] [color=SlateGray]"I think you mean it's the most target-rich environment. All of those different angles of attack..."[/color] [color=MediumSlateBlue]"You're being awfully pessimistic, friend."[/color] [color=SlateGray]"One of us has to be."[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"We need to establish contact with the primary target as soon as possible. If we can bring him in before he's infected, then all the better. If not, we can extract him and put him in null-space before it has the chance to spread. I think we have a chance of stopping it here, though."[/color] [color=MediumSlateBlue]"Agreed. We haven't been able to bring in an uninfected target before. If we can get to him before the enemy arrives, we can lure it out and take it down."[/color] [color=SlateGray]"Or we could die like the last team who was on this case."[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"None of that. This is our best chance of identifying and capturing our enemy and avenging our comrades."[/color] [color=SlateGray]"If things go South, though, the Omega Sanction--"[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"--is not to be used under any circumstances, am I clear?"[/color] [color=SlateGray]"You say that now, but you weren't there when--"[/color] [color=SteelBlue][i]"Am. I. Clear?"[/i][/color] [color=SlateGray]"......you're clear."[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"That's what I thought. No matter how bad it gets here, we are never resorting to that again."[/color] [color=MediumSlateBlue]"On that, you have my oath."[/color] [color=SlateGray]"If you say so."[/color] [color=SteelBlue]"Good. Now, we don't have much time. So, gentlemen.....let's get to work."[/color]