CHAPTER 13
All worlds end.
All people die. All gods are lost and forgotten, eventually.
Doomsday comes for all.
But there was once a people, oh, such a people, that did not believe this to be true.
They made their home on a bleak and bitter world, under the watchful eye of a massive and most ancient red sun.
Descended from the broken shards of refugees, desperate sailors of the solar winds, they fell from the sky and upon this harsh land founded a civilization unlike any other.
On this world, only the strong and the brave and the bold could survive, and thrive. And so they did.
For ten thousand planetary cycles, these people lived, and loved and grew, until they had mastered death, farmed the secrets of time and space, and fashioned baubles in the shape of infinity.
Nothing was beyond them. And so they laughed, this race of supermen, secure in their belief that their great power was enough to overcome any obstacle.
And so the red sun set on Krypton's Last Golden Age.
Because all worlds, even the greatest (perhaps especially the greatest) of worlds must end.
Doomsday comes for all.
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And on another world, so far from and yet so similar too Krypton, one man stood against the tide, as he attempted to hold back Doomsday.
It was a task he had performed, in one way or another, his entire life. Holding back doomsday.
Born out of tragedy, the death of Krypton became a second chance at life for Earth. No matter the danger, no matter the cost, this Man of Steel had, by everyone's reckoning but his own, repaid the kindness and love he had found here a thousand times over.
And in the glittering ruins of a once great city, life wrestled with death in one final struggle for the fate of mankind.
For if there was one thing this man, born Kal-El of Krypton, raised Clark Kent of Smallville, and praised as Superman of Earth, knew, it was this:
Doomsday comes for all.
Even for the Destroyer of Worlds!
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There is no fear in the man's eyes. That is the worst part.
For the creature Doomsday, fear is everything. It is the natural state of the living. Everyone the monster has ever come across has displayed fear.
But this man. This Kryptonian. There is something… wrong about him. There is no fear in his eyes anymore. There is only something else.
As the murderous blows land over and over again upon its face, shearing off bone and meat, Doomsday's subtle yet perceptive mind finally grasps what has happened.
The hunter has now become the hunted.
And try as it might to regrow the damaged tissue, to adapt to the force and the rage unchecked, the monster discovers that this Kryptonian adapts faster.
No matter how strong Doomsday becomes, the man becomes even stronger, unleashing more and more power, to the point that "The End of All Things" is finally able to grasp the concept of "never-ending."
This man's power is limitless.
Its arm is caught in the man's grip, unable to shake free. The man bends it back, further and further, at and awkward and impossible angle. The bone and muscle reaches its limit, and still the man pushes.
The crack of shattered bone, as its shoulder explodes, and its arm goes numb and lifeless, sounds so familiar. Such a perversion of the satisfaction the monster feels when heard in the bodies of others.
As is the howl that escapes its mouth. Pain, and confusion and sadness. And something else. Something familiar…
It is the sound of fear.
As this monster, this ender of worlds and destroyer of all life, as this monster looks up at this man it finally, finally, understands what it means to be afraid.