Part 1 - First Awakening
15 minutes ago, Leesburg was a typical Amerikan small town.
That was 15 minutes ago. That was before Ultraman decided to take his aggression out on it, leaving only a smoking crater in its place.
"Satisfied?"
Ultraman turned to see his wife, Superwoman, glide to a stop in the sky behind him. "No," he replied.
"Really? By now you're usually lighting up and asking the corpses if it was good for them too." She patted him on the arm in a mock show of concern. "Don't worry it happens to all men at some point in their lives."
He slapped her hand away. "How many boltholes does Luthor have scattered across this country? Every time I root one up, it seems another two take their place." Ultraman waved a hand in the direction of the carnage, "Do you think this will even slow him down? That self-righteous bastard will get all teary eyed for the 'poor innocent victims' for about a minute, then he'll be straight back into it, trying to topple the Crime Syndicate like nothing even happened."
Ultraman's shoulders slumped. "Sometimes I wonder what the point even is of making examples out of innocent people."
Superwoman folded her arms across her fearsome chest. "Why does a man climb a mountain, Clark? Or in your case, destroy one?" Before Ultraman could answer, she continued; "Because they can. You know perfectly well Luthor won't back down. If he was the type to be scared off, you would have killed him years ago."
"You're right," Ultraman reluctantly agreed.
"Of course I'm right, I'm your wife," Superwoman replied. "And before I forget, I came out here to tell you that you missed the dinner tonight."
"What dinner?"
"Colonel White and Alice were coming over, remember? I told them an emergency came up and you were needed at the base."
Ultraman grabbed his wife's waist and pulled her close to him. "What did I do before I married you?"
"Killed anyone who got close to your secret." She pulled out of his grip and started to slowly ascend. "I don't know what the point of having a secret identity is if you're not going to play with it properly."
"That's easy for you to say," Ultraman replied, following her. "You made your identity up when you came to man's world. It's just a game to you. I was Clark Kent for over twenty years."
He glanced down at the countryside falling away below him. The ugly scar that was Leesburg was already little more than a speck. If he wanted to, he could still see his handiwork as if he was right on top of it by using his ultra-vision, but there wasn't any point. You see one smoking crater, you've seen them all.
But if Ultraman had looked back, what would he have seen? Beneath the rubble and corpses, something stirred. It wasn't what you would call alive, but it couldn't be classified as dead either.
It had been forgotten about; left to gather dust in a forgotten corner of a forgotten laboratory. For years It had slept without dreaming, but now that It was awake, It could remember It's previous existence only in the way one remembers a dream; insubstantial, fragmented.
It remembered capes and cruelty.
It remembered power and abuse.
But most important of all, It remembered how warm living had felt, and It knew how cold It was now.
It would change all that.
It would live again.
It would remember... and It would pay back all those who had abused It in the past.