Zod picked up the armored infantry transport and tossed it into the air to strike one of the Blackhawk helicopters bearing down upon them. Truck and helicopter exploded in a rain of burning metal, killing everyone in them instantly. Ursa laughed and glanced at the second line of transports approaching. Her heat vision roasted the soldiers inside alive. Non walked through machine gun fire to break men in half with his bare hands.
When silence at last took the battlefield and the humans knelt in surrender, Zod rose into the air, feeling that he had at last received his destiny, denied him by the shortsightedness of the Kryptonian Council, and the vindictiveness of Jor-el. On this planet, he thought as he looked down upon his new subjects, there was no doubt of his power, his righteous superiority.
"I am General Zod," he announced. "Your ruler. Your lands, your possessions, your very lives will gladly be given in tribute to me. In return you will receive my generous protection. In other words, you will be allowed to live."
The world trembled, under the blows of these mad titans, and cried out. But the Fortress of Solitude was impenetrable to sound. Inside it, he heard nothing but Lara's voice and Lois' breath.
"Your father and I tried to anticipate your every question, Kal-el. This is the one we hoped you would not ask."
He stared at his mother's image, the perfect Kryptonian hologram, lifelike, seemingly solid, remote. "I have to," he said.
"And she, the one you have chosen, she feels as much for you?"
"Yes."
"If this is what you wish, if you would hold one above all the others," Lara looked down, struggling to hold back her emotion. She took a deep breath and pinned him with piercing blue eyes so like his own, "If you intend to live your life with a mortal, you must live as a mortal. You must forsake Krypton, and become one of them."
Become… one of them. His heart pounded at the undreamt of possibility opening before him. To live a normal life, with Lois. With Lois…
"This crystal chamber has harnessed the rays of the red sun of Krypton," Lara said. "Once exposed to these rays, all of your great powers on Earth will disappear forever."
There was no time to feel all of this, no room inside him now, for Lois had filled up all the echoing, empty spaces he had endured so long. But it took all of his strength to turn against the drag of Lara's words. If you would hold one above all the others. He looked at Lois, watching him from a short distance away. In her eyes he saw hope, fear, confusion, courage – she opened her lips as if to bid him, no, it is too much, but he silenced her with a look of utter and deep certainty. He stepped toward the chamber.
"But consider," Lara's voice stopped his movement, "once it is done there is no return. You will feel like an ordinary man. You can be hurt like an ordinary man. Oh, my son," her voice broke and she reached out to him, across time, to plead a mother's fears. "Are you sure?"
He wished with his whole being that he could touch her, just once.
"Mother," he said softly. Then he straightened and smiled gently, "I love her."
Lara's head bowed, and she faded from his sight, lost to him, forever.
He stepped into the chamber, and warm crystal grew around him, encasing him. In an instant fire consumed his body. The flesh was stripped from him, his bones were ground to powder, as radiation burned through every tissue, every cell, every molecule. The agony went on, and on, while the energies rewrought him from the inside out. The living crystal of the Fortress slowly died around him and he felt it as he felt the strength bleeding from his body, his senses dwindling, collapsing inward, the pressure like a black hole sucking with impossible, bone-breaking power.
When at last it ended and the crystal chamber melted away from him, Lois ran to catch him as he stepped uncertainly and faltered. She pulled him close, and he wrapped his arms around her. She was breathing hard, her cheek wet against his.
"Clark," she whispered. "Clark, are you…"
He kissed her, the joy so sweet and intense he could not tell it from the pain.
The President of the United States, leader of the Free World which no longer existed, stepped forward and tried to keep fear from shaking his voice. "What I do now, I do only because it will save lives. But there is one man on Earth who will never kneel before you."
Zod looked faintly bored by such a threat, "Who is this imbecile? Where is he?"
The President's shoulders bowed, "I wish I knew." Slowly, he bent his knees. His eyes fell on the eagle decorating the carpet, the Great Seal of his office. "Oh, God," he whispered.
"Zod," the General corrected him.