"It's over son. It's over."

It really was over. Gohan could feel it in the way Superman effortlessly kept him in place. No matter how hard he pulled or struggled, his hands were kept imprisoned in the Kryptonian's grip. It was like his hands weren't even his own anymore. But more than that, he could see it in the alien's expression. There was no smug arrogance like he had seen in the eyes of Cell, nor psychopathic joy like he had seen in Buu's pink malleable expression. No, it was far worse than that. It was pity.

Superman looked down on the boy. The boy's arms had gone slack and he had stopped struggling. But even without super-senses, Clark could tell the boy wasn't alright.

Was this what his father had felt? Small and pathetic and worthless, as this Man of Tomorrow had treated his cosmos shattering attack like a stiff autumn breeze? Was this what he felt when Superman casually interrupted his attack by pulling his hands apart so insultingly easily? Was this what it was like when he… died?

No. He was Son Goku. He was the hope of the universe. He was the answer to all living things that cry out for peace. The protector of the innocent. The light in the darkness. He was truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to Superman!

Gohan's ki gathered in his hands. He was his father's son. He would never back down from a challenge.

From deep within the pit of his soul, Gohan gathered all of the strength in his body, all of the power in his heart, and he poured it into the palms of his hands. They glowed with a light so bright, they blinded the half Saiyan. He didn't care. He kept going. Because Son Goku always found a way. It didn't matter if he was fighting an intergalactic tyrant, an assassin from another universe, or even an evil clone of himself. He always found a way. So would he.

Twin beams of energy burst forth, swallowing the Kryptonian. A blast of blue energy so potent it easily cleared the gravity of New Namek, shooting off into space with enough power to split reality in half. Across the entire planet, all of New Namek rumbled. Earthquakes tore several towns apart, fissures opening in the earth large enough to swallow cities. Oceans boiled as the beam sliced the sky apart, turning night into day, it's mere presence flash-frying over a million living creatures. Around the world, helpless Namekians ran for cover as the wrath of a single man brought about what felt like the end of days. Still, despite all that, all of New Namek would remember that day for a single, haunting sound. Rising over the sound of that impossible, world-shattering ki blast, was the sound of Son Gohan, who roared with the fury of a million generations of Saiyans, pouring all of their power and all of their will into a single, ultimate attack.

To Son Gohan, there was nothing else. There was no sound, no sight, no sensation left. Every single fiber of his being was being channeled for a single purpose: to reduce the man who murdered his father to ash. He kept pouring it on. The air ran out of his lungs. He ignored it. Blood began dribbling from his nose. He ignored that too. The smell of burning flesh wafted through the air. He never even noticed.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Gohan's attack waned. Gohan couldn't tell if he had been attacking for a minute, an hour, or an entire lifetime. He kept shouting, kept firing, even as his body grew numb and his senses dulled. Eventually, he couldn't even tell if he was still alive. Perhaps he'd died and just hadn't noticed. As Gohan's ultimate attack finally faded, he slowly came to realize that his legs had given out. He was kneeling now. As his sight slowly returned, he realized that in front of him were two objects, almost entirely charred black except for some places where the skin and flesh had been entirely burned away, revealing the pale white bone beneath. It took him a second to recognize them as his hands.

It took him another moment to finally look up. He was too numb to really register the horror of what he had just done to his own body. But he was still present enough to realize who was still there.

Superman. And his look of pity.

Clark reached out, offering his hand to Gohan. A hand which Gohan saw didn't have a scratch, a blemish, or even a single callous on it.

"I'm sorry son, but-"

Before he could finish his sentence, three blurs came streaking in to tackle the Man of Steel. Gohan barely had a moment before a person he vaguely recognized as Tien Shinhan appeared to shake him out of his reverie.

"Get to the Senzu Beans, we'll hold him off!"

And like that, without even a moment to glance at the incinerated remains of his friend's hands, Tien sped off to join Androids 18, 17, and Yamcha.

The Androids had tackled Superman first, trying to force him away from Gohan. As he had been distracted at the time, they had succeeded at that. But once Superman got his bearings, he planted his feet firmly into the earth, and suddenly these Androids, who could easily move mountains on their own, found that they were pushing as uselessly as kittens trying to topple a skyscraper. They both looked up as Superman raised his fists

"Aww, crap-baskets…" they said simultaneously.

Superman swung down on the two of them with enough force to send them tunneling underground. It would take them well over a thousand kilometers before they were finally able to halt their momentum, by which point they were buried deep into the mantle of New Namek. Superman didn't get a moment to relax before Yamcha, the legendary desert bandit, was on top of him with his famous Wolf Fang Fist attack. Amazingly, Yamcha was able to force the Kryptonian to retreat, where so many of his compatriots, all far stronger than him, had failed. For a moment, Yamcha felt a surge of hope in him. Perhaps the Kryptonian was finally weakening under their combined assault?

Ironically, Clark was having a harder time against Yamcha than he had against all of the other Z Fighters, though not due to Yamcha's strength. In fact, it was the opposite; in comparison to the rest of his peers, Yamcha was so much more frail that Clark had to try his best to make sure the poor guy didn't hurt himself. With each attack he had to either move with the blow so the human didn't break every bone in his arm, or he had to move out of the way. Even that was harder, since if he moved too quickly the shockwave could potentially cause irreparable damage to the martial artist turned baseball player. Unfortunately, the man's friend would soon force Superman's hand.

High above them, Tien clasped his hands together, preparing to focus all of his ki into his strongest attack. He might not have been a Namekian, or an Android, or a Super Saiyan, but he'd make damn sure this hurt. As the image of Superman and Yamcha fighting seemed to "zoom in" within the triangular space formed by his hands, Tien got ready to fire as soon as the two separated. Yamcha wouldn't last long, but if Tien could cover him he might get a chance to regroup with the Androids before-

Tien didn't get a change to finish that thought, because Superman saw what he was doing and decided to put a stop to that before it got troublesome. He grabbed Yamcha by the ankle as he was in the middle of a kick and threw the professional athlete at the martial arts master.

"Kiko-OH SHIT!"

Tien barely had a moment to realize what was happening before Yamcha collided dead-on with him. Not even a second after impact, and Superman was up there in the sky with them as well. He grabbed Yamcha by the scruff of his neck and Tien by the collar of his shirt before throwing both of them back down to earth.

Tien landed first, followed swiftly by Yamcha. Superman had intended to use the stronger Tien as a cushion for the weaker Yamcha when he threw the two of them. Clark inspected the duo from the sky, wincing as he did. He could see that both of them were twitching on the ground, but they were at least alive. It was so difficult to tell with these Z Fighters between what would kill them and what would just knock them out. They should be out for a while.

That was especially good since it meant Superman could focus on the Androids, one of whom, the male named 17, had finally come back from the depths of New Namek to wrap his arms in a chokehold around the Kryptonian's neck. This was followed swiftly by Android 18, who placed both her hands on the Kryptonian's broad chest.

"Now 17!" cried out the blonde cyborg.

Superman felt a sudden wooziness wash over him, the closest thing to actual damage the Z Fighters had been able to inflict all battle. There was also a familiarity to the sensation, which told him exactly what the two Androids were doing.

"Energy absorption. That's a new trick."

The Androids ignored him, both focusing on draining as much of his power as possible. But there was just so much of it, it was hard to even fathom. They had to be careful, too much would likely overwhelm them. Both 17 and 18 grit their teeth as incalculable amounts of energy flowed through the palms of their hands into their bodies.

A new trick it may have been for them, but it certainly wasn't a new trick to Superman. Countless battles against Parasite and every other supervillain trying to take his power had taught him exactly how to deal with this. Pursing his lips together, Superman froze 18's hands solid with a quick, downward Freeze Breath. With her hands frozen, the energy stopped flowing into her. Superman grasped her hands firmly, the frozen flesh cracking under his grip. The Android cried out in pain, and Superman couldn't help but take pity on her. He looked at her vitals and saw the cybernetic enhancements which had been grafted onto her organs. Among them he could also see computers, designed to help her regulate her awesome powers. It was amazingly sophisticated technology. But it was still technology built by humans, which meant it was technology he knew how to handle.

Targeting the specific electrons which encoded the programing allowing her enhancements to function, Superman was able to read and translate their code. It was complex and impressive, but certainly not nearly as complex or impressive as DNA, which Superman could also read and memorize effortlessly. Then, using his heat vision, attuned to the right frequency, he was able to manipulate the individual electrical charges which made up that binary code. Suddenly, Android 18 passed out and fell asleep as peacefully as a babe in a cradle.

"What did you do to her?!" exclaimed 17, still hanging on for dear life to Superman's neck.

"I reprogrammed her enhancements. I shut off most of them, including the ones which suppress exhaustion. She'll live," explained Superman, letting go of 18's hands and letting her fall back to New Namek. Superman reached behind him, putting both hands near where he approximated would by 17's ears. Snapping his fingers, the resultant sonic booms tore apart 17's eardrums like they were paper sails caught in a hurricane. His ears exploding, 17 couldn't stop Superman as he ripped him off of his neck, before reprogramming his enhancements as he had done to his sister. He fell to earth to join his sister in slumber.

"Okay, that's Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Android 17, Android 18, Tien, and Yamcha. Trunks should still be in his timeline so that leaves…"

"EVIL CONTAINMENT WAVE!"

Superman turned to see an unnaturally buff old man with his hands up and an open rice cooker by his side, focusing all his energy on trapping Superman inside of that household appliance. Superman frowned. From what he understood from his research, the Evil Containment Wave put an enormous strain on the user's body, a strain which increased exponentially when the person being sealed was stronger than the person doing the sealing. And Superman was enormously more powerful than Master Roshi.

The old man grit his teeth, returning to his smaller, normal self as he lost the energy to maintain his larger, more intimidating form. But he had known this would likely happen, which was why his friends had helped him prepare for that. With a heavy heart, the Turtle Sage pulled out a syringe from his pocket, using one hand to maintain the Mafuba technique, and another hand to inject the strange concoction into his neck.

Superman raised an eyebrow. Was that epinephrine? An adrenaline shot to help Master Roshi pull off such an incredible feat? As the chemical concoction surged through the old master's body, Superman took another look at what he had just injected into himself. His eyes widened. It was a formula which Superman had thought lost to time ages ago. A chemical stimulant known only as Venom.

Roshi's eyes expanded, life surged through him like it hadn't in centuries. His veins bulged as his body exploded into a form larger and more powerful than it ever had under his own power. Superman began to truly feel the effects of the Evil Containment Wave. However, that wasn't what concerned him. As the old man's muscles throbbed with barely contained power, Superman saw a very different kind of throbbing inside the man's chest, as his heart began to pound so hard that the cardiac muscle was tearing itself apart.

"You're killing yourself!" cried out Superman.

Roshi roared, all thoughts beside victory banished from his mind.

As the pull from the Turtle Sage's technique began to spaghettify him, Superman thought quickly and targeted the rice cooker at Roshi's feat with his heat vision. A quick burst shattered the appliance, and Superman breathed a sigh of relief as the technique dissipated. However, that relief quickly gave way to fear as he saw the old man collapse.