Chapter 113: Goodbye, Farewell, and May Rao Watch Over You
Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.
Edge of the Milky Way, 13 days left
Despite the civil war in the former Dominion being long over, some holdouts of the old Caste system still remained. Isolated outposts, held by remnants of the old Dominion military, shades of the past refusing to die. One such outpost was at the very edge of the galaxy that humans called the Milky Way. A small, strategically insignificant planet, a pitifully small fleet of warships due for an overhaul, and a group of Dominators desperately clinging to the memories of a glorious empire gone to dust.
These were the first mortals to encounter the god-weapon known as Mageddon.
Only fifteen minutes passed between a sensor operator noticing an extremely large object entering the system and every single living thing in that system perishing in agony. Fifteen minutes filled with terror, despair, and sentient beings tearing each other apart in the face of something far beyond their comprehension.
The war-bringer barely paused. It had its eyes set on a distant star. Whatever calamity it might cause on the way there was no more worthy of notice than insects crushed underfoot.
Themyscira, 11 days left
Sitting underneath their tree, Kara sat with her back propped up against Philippus, who had her arms slung around her in a loving embrace. It was all Kara could do to sit still, truth to be told, as the energy building up inside her body now caused a near constant feeling of irritation and pain, itching under her skin like a million little insects. Any unguarded movement would cause power to spill out of her cells, sometimes in destructive ways.
"You have said all your goodbyes?" Philippus finally asked as the silence became too heavy.
Kara merely nodded. She had met with Hippolyta and Donna just an hour ago. "I fear my days are running short, general. Sooner than I expected. Sooner than I wanted."
Philippus carefully learned forward to press a kiss to Kara's temple. Energy sparked where they touched, leaving a slight burn on the Amazon's lips. She did not care.
"Is it easier for you?" Kara asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You are immortal, Philippus. You... you must have seen many people perish in your long life. Does it... does it make it easier?"
Philippus shook her head. "No, not really."
"Figures," Kara scoffed. "I hoped there would at least be one person I would not hurt when I die."
"You promised you would not give up, goddess," Philippus reminded her.
"I will not, but I am not sure where to look for answers any longer. I have consulted the Guardians of the Universe, I have spoken with the smartest people in the galaxy, and all of them tell me the same thing: my own powers are killing me. Right now I could lift this entire island out of the ocean and into space without even straining, but it is more than even my body can handle. At the end of the day I am only mortal."
Philippus kissed her again. "You will always be my goddess, Kara, never 'only' a mortal."
"And you will always be my general."
A few hours later Kara left the island, probably for the last time. Her eyes remained dry; she had long ago shed all the tears she was going to. It was only once she had flown beyond the mystical barrier that concealed Themyscira from the rest of the world that her communicator chirped, and Kara learned that Lex Luthor had escaped from prison.
11,000 light years from Earth, 10 days left
Space rippled, time skipped a few ticks on the clock, and a flying chair with a man perched on it emerged from far in the future into present day. The New God known as Metron knew that his time was almost over. The Fourth World had died - though with some complications and delays involved - and the dawn of the Fifth World had begun. Despite the fact that he considered himself neither of New Genesis nor of Apokolips, Metron was still tied to the fate of both planets, and he could feel himself fading more and more every day. His journeys were over. Someone new would soon take the place of the knowledge seeker.
He briefly mused on the only other New Gods still remaining in existence, Barda and Scott Free, who now lived on Earth. Soon both of them would realize that they were starting to age. They would live maybe another two or three mortal lifespans, then they would die as mortals did. Metron, however, had no intention of going down the same route. He would end his existence here among the stars.
Having successfully completed his final task of bringing a time-lost Kara-El from Krypton's past into the 30th century, closing one final time loop in the process, he now wondered what fate had in store for him. Blindly jumping through time and space, he trusted that he would end up in an interesting place for his final journey.
Metron was not aware of the old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times", but in the final few moments of his existence he understood its meaning.
In the path of Mageddon, even a New God was barely more than a mote of dust. Especially a fading god, one who had endured past the end of his pantheon. As Metron met the eyes of Mageddon, his sanity crumbled, his strength faded, and with a final act of will he programmed his Mobius Chair to make one final jump.
Metron, one of the last remnants of the Fourth World of Gods, perished, but a warning was carried across space.
Justice League Watchtower, 10 days left
"Did I understand that correctly?" Kara asked, massaging her temples. For once she was feeling a different kind of pain than that of her dying cells. "Lex Luthor had a radio in his cell because some guard figured he had the right to hear some music. And Luthor built a sonic drill from it, using it to burrow out of the prison. Did I miss anything?"
"No, I think those were the high points," Adam Strange replied.
Batman glared at him, clearly not in the mood for smart remarks. "Every law enforcement officer and ever superhero in the world is looking for him. We will find him."
"Luthor is dying," Kara reminded them. "That is why he allowed Brainiac to take control of the Solaris Station. He has nothing left to lose."
Kona shook her head. "That doesn't make sense, he already achieved what he wanted. He wanted to... well... he wanted to kill you, mom, and he knows that he succeeded. What else could he possibly want to do now? Why run?"
"I do not know, but I know that a man who can build a sonic drill from a cheap radio can do a lot more damage before he dies. We need to find him quickly."
"We will, Karen," Batman assured her. "I will personally..."
Without warning there was a flash of light in the middle of the conference room. To everyone else, at least, it was merely a flash of light. For Kara, it was like a slowly expanding ripple in the fabric of space, an object emerging from a higher dimensional plane and folding back into three-dimensional existence. It was an object she had seen before.
"What is that?" Adam asked, having drawn his ray gun on reflex.
"That's Metron's chair," Kara told the others. "Without Metron on it."
A light was blinking on the deceptively simple-looking controls built into the armrest, capturing Kara's attention. As she leaned closer, the light began to blink faster. Sharing a brief look with the other League members present, she carefully touched the controls with her finger.
"This is a message for Kara-El," the voice of Metron suddenly emerged from the chair. "I am freezing local time in order to record this information, as I have only a few moments left in real time before I am killed. Your world is in deadly danger, Kara-El. I have only managed a brief glimpse at the weapon that will end me, but it was clearly built by the Old Gods of the Third World. I have been to the ruins of Urgrund and I recognize the design patterns.
"This weapon is on a direct heading towards your adopted world, which I doubt is a coincidence. I cannot tell you much about it, except that it emits some kind of powerful psychic disruptor field. I can feel my mind come apart; my sanity is shattering. I do not know why this weapon is coming for your world, but you need to stop it, lest it devastate this entire galaxy and beyond. I regret that I cannot give you any further information, Kara-El, but I... I fear that I... what... what was I...? Who... no, what is that? What... no, do not look at me! No, please... I... I do not want to..."
The message suddenly cut off. A moment later the chair, which had been floating so far, slowly set down on the floor. The lights that had been playing over its surface the entire time winked out one by one. The gleaming metal turned dull. The almost subsonic hum it had emitted went silent. Adam went towards it, scanning it with the sensors built into his armor.
"I... I think it's dead," he finally said.
"Something big is coming," Kara muttered, looking at the inert chair.
8,000 light years from Earth, 8 days left
In her time Superwoman had stood against the War World, a killing machine the size of a dwarf star. She had seen the burning planet Apokolips travel through a fissure in space large enough to swallow the Earth whole. She had seen the shattered remnants of New Genesis and had seen a world fold into a pocket universe where time flowed at different speed.
Now, though, her enhanced senses showed her an object whose sheer size alone made her pause. Its shape was impossible to grasp, utterly alien, like an insane painter's nightmare of some ancient deep-sea creature. It did not move through hyper space, yet somehow it still covered light years of distance in mere minutes, almost as if the laws of physics did not apply to it at all. Judging by the size of the star it had just passed, Earth's moon would be but a mote in one of its giant, giant eyes.
Eyes that were looking directly at her from nearly a light year away.
"Rao preserve us," Kara whispered, her words lost to the vacuum of space.
She could feel its immense weight pressing against her mind. Massive, so massive, it felt like someone was trying to unload a mountain on her head. She tried to turn away, look away, but she was frozen as tendrils of pure dread wormed their way into her mind.
Hopeless! It was all hopeless! She was going to die and none of what she had done meant anything. All she had ever done was to try and save Krypton, save her parents, her loved ones, over and over again, but she never could. She never would. No matter how many she saved, she would never make it right. She would always be too late to save the ones she most needed to save. There was no hope! There had never been any hope! She might as well die right now!
There is always hope! Never give up hope! Hope is all we have!
The words of her first friend echoed through her mind, like a scream ringing inside her head, and Kara wrenched her gaze away from the approaching object. The tendrils lost hold of her mind and she quickly accelerated, enlarging the distance between her and this ancient horror.
"Thank you, Imra," she muttered, even as the voice faded from her mind. A post-hypnotic suggestion? Or simply a powerful memory? She didn't know and it didn't matter.
"Mageddon," Kara whispered, the name having remained in her head after the weight had fallen away. "Mageddon!"
She had to stop this thing somehow before it made its way to Earth. Unfortunately she had no idea how.
Justice League Watchtower, 8 days left
"How are we supposed to stop this thing if we can't get within a parsec of it without it crushing our minds?" Hawkwoman asked, having listened to Kara's account of her encounter with the approaching weapon along with everybody else. The entire roster of the Justice League was assembled.
"I could attempt to shield our minds," J'Onn proposed. "It would only work with a very small group, though."
"That thing is the size of star," Adam reminded him, "and it wiped out the mind of a god within seconds. What is a small group going to accomplish?"
"I did get a look at its structure before it got to me," Kara told them. "For all its immense size, it seems to be a rather simple mechanism. A vast power source on the inside, probably a caged sun or something similar. Hard armor and defenses on the outside. Guided by a comparatively small 'brain', so to speak, which is probably the emitter of that psychic field, too. I think a surgical strike might be able to cripple it."
"She says 'caged sun' like that's something that happens every day," Green Arrow muttered, feeling entirely out of his depth.
Kara looked around the gathered heroes, Justice League members and their allies, and quickly made her decision.
"A group of three," she resolved. "J'Onn to shield our minds with his telepathy. Gardner to shield our bodies with his ring. And me, to smash that thing's brain to bits."
Gardner grinned, punching his fist into his hand. "Finally I get to be in on one of the big ones!"
"Given its speed, that thing will be here in roughly eight days," Kara reminded everyone. "We will try and head it off as far out as we can. J'Onn, Gardner, we're heading out first thing tomorrow morning."
As everyone started leaving, Diana approached Kara. "Sister, are you still feeling strong enough for a mission like this? With your illness progressing..."
"My 'illness' is making me stronger every day, Diana," Kara reminded her. "Hopefully just strong enough to take care of this before... well, you know."
Clark and Kona came over to join them. "We should go with you," her children told her, both of them Justice League members in their own right. "Strength in numbers."
She shook her head. "You heard J'Onn, he can only shield a small group. And should we fail, it will be up to you to stop that thing before it reaches Earth."
Despite not liking that idea at all, both of them nodded, understanding.
7,000 light years from Earth, 7 days left
The plan as such was very simple. The attack team would stick close together, physically protected by Green Lantern's ring, mentally protected by the Martian Manhunter's telepathy. They would accelerate to near-lightspeed and, just before impact, the two other Justice League members would veer off, allowing Superwoman to deliver the crippling strike to the ancient weapon's brain. Given her vastly increased powers, nothing short of a Neutron star should be able to resist Superwoman's attack.
The plan failed. They never even got close.
They were still over a parsec away from the massive object when the Martian Manhunter began to scream in agony and his mental shield shattered like cheap glass under the ferocious psychic onslaught. Green Lantern tried to take up the slack, the ring of power on his finger doing its best to stave off the invisible attack coming their way. It worked for all of two seconds before the ring sputtered and died as the will driving it failed.
Like leaves in a hurricane, the three attackers were swept away by Mageddon's onslaught. J'Onn screamed, mentally flaying himself for his failure to protect his native planet and family. Gardner screamed; the waves of fear projected by the demons of Ysmault a paltry imitation of what he was experiencing right now. Kara screamed, her mind and body coming apart as the god weapon intensified its assault on her.
With his last erg of willpower, Guy Gardner made his power ring light up one final time. He muttered the Green Lantern oath under his breath, even as two tendrils of green energy grabbed his incapacitated teammates, propelling them away from Mageddon's flight path. He hoped that it would be enough, that it would save them.
Guy Gardner, Green Lantern of space sector 2814, died before he could see that his last-ditch effort had not been enough. The only thing to escape from Mageddon's influence was his empty power ring, streaking across space to find a new owner.
San Francisco
Superman, arguably the most powerful man on planet Earth, had never felt quite so helpless before. Well, that was not quite true. He remembered quite a few times from his childhood when he had felt like that, a powerless little boy forced to merely watch as his mother went out and performed heroic deed after heroic deed. Those days were long gone, though. Now he was a fully super-powered grown man, who was left behind while his dying mother went into deep space on a suicide mission. It did not make him feel any better.
Which was why he was very much elated when, following up on a tip from Batman, his enhanced vision finally spotted the elusive Lex Luthor in a warehouse on the outskirts of San Francisco. Finally, someone to vent his frustrations on.
Had he been thinking more clearly, he might have recognized it as a trap.
Lex Luthor was walking down into a basement that was lead-shielded and Superman flew after him without pausing to think. Crashing through the ceiling and the floor of the warehouse, he found himself in a corridor underneath. That was when he felt it.
In his entire life, Clark had only ever felt the sting of Kryptonite once. It had been at the polar Fortress, under carefully controlled conditions. His mother had wanted him to recognize the feeling of the deadly element, so she had exposed him to a tiny sliver of it, immediately removing it a few seconds later. He knew that both his mother and Kona had encountered it under less ideal conditions, but not he.
Not until today.
Superman screamed in agony, the intense pain ravaging his body. He collapsed to his knees, unable to remain upright. That was when he saw Lex Luthor standing in front of him, smiling, a glowing piece of Kryptonite in his hand.
"Hello, boy," Luthor said, smiling. "Did mommy not teach you not to follow bad guys into lead-lined basements?"
7,000 light years from Earth
Kara and J'Onn were hurtling away from Mageddon at great speed, propelled by the last-ditch effort of Guy Gardner, but there were still well within the range of the weapon's crippling psychic assault. J'Onn was still screaming, yelling Martian words that made no sense to anyone but him, even as he saw his home planet burn before his eyes again and again.
Kara was no better off. She saw herself dying, saw her adopted planet share the fate of her birth world, and there was nothing she could do. Faintly she heard the voice of her friend Imra in her head, reminding her that there was always hope, but the voice was drowned out. Mageddon's scream of terror and despair was too powerful, too immense, there was nothing she could do. Nothing at all.
Then she heard a new scream.
"Clark?" Kara muttered, the fog of despair around her mind briefly lifting.
She was thousands of light years away from planet Earth. There was no way, absolutely no way at all, that she should have been able to hear a scream over this distance, never mind in real time. But she could hear him. Her son was screaming in pain. She was certain. Maybe it was her vastly enhanced powers, maybe it was just a mother's instincts. It did not matter at all.
Pushing the alien influence from her mind with all her remaining strength, Kara grabbed the struggling form of her friend with one hand, and space began to warp around them. Kara had no idea how she was doing what she was doing, her mind too far gone to really care. Her powers had already increased to the point where she could fly through hyperspace under her own power, but this was different still. She needed to be on Earth. Now! Her son needed her!
Energy crackled, forcing open a rift in the universe, space shivered, and Kara-El and J'Onn J'Onnz disappeared. Mageddon, deprived of its prey, continued its course towards Earth undaunted.
San Francisco
"It has a sort of poetry to it, doesn't it?" Luthor mused, watching with a grin as Superman writhed on the floor, clearly in pain. "This remnant of your home world is radioactive, lethal to us all. Yet you, with all your powers, are so much more susceptible to it than us mere mortals. It took this little rock years to kill me, while it will only take a few minutes to kill you."
Superman tried to rise to his feet. His eyes briefly flashed red, looking to burn the Kryptonite fragment to ash, but it did not work. He tried to crawl away, but Luthor easily kept up with him at a leisurely stroll.
"I could simply wait here and watch you die, boy," Luthor chuckled. "Yet I think there is a more satisfying way of doing this."
He reached into his jacket and removed an old-fashioned revolver, the kind seen in Western movies and old cop serials. He reached into another pocket and took something else out. Something small, green, and bullet shaped.
"Guns are such a very human thing, are they not?" he asked, loading the bullet into the revolver. "We used to hurl rocks at each other with our hands, then we fired shafts of wood at each other with bows, and finally we used explosions to propel pieces of metal to murder other humans."
Drawing back the hammer, he pointed the revolver at Superman.
"So many humans have been killed by these weapons, but I think you might well be the first alien. Or maybe not, I'm sure some enterprising humans shot at Dominator soldiers during the invasion. Still, you will be the first Kryptonian to die here on Earth. I guess that is something."
"Why are... you doing... this?" Superman forced out.
"Why? Oh, you poor, stupid boy. To hurt your mother, of course. Not only will I have killed her, but I will also have killed her son. I will make the Kryptonian race extinct before I go. Your little hybrid sister is next, by the way. Granted, she is kind of my daughter, but no matter. There is still Lena to carry on my uncorrupted genes. Humanity will be master of its own destiny once again."
Smiling, he tightened his finger on the trigger. "Goodbye, Superman! For good this time!"
The gunpowder exploded, the bullet was propelled out of the muzzle at supersonic speed, and space warped between Superman and Luthor. In a flash of light a crack opened in the fabric of reality, spitting out two bodies. One of them immediately crumbled to the ground, twitching in agony. The other, however, stood firm, directly in the path of the bullet.
Luthor barely had time to realize that, somehow, some way, Superwoman suddenly stood between him and her son when the bullet hit her chest... and bounced off. Then he registered the pain. Looking down, he saw a red stain spreading over his immaculate white dress shirt. There was a hole in it, too.
"But...," he started, refusing to accept what was going on. "How... Kryptonite bullet! It should... you should be..."
Superwoman only looked at him for a short moment, then bent down to pick up the Kryptonite fragment Luthor had dropped earlier. Her eyes flashed red and the fragment was reduced to component atoms. Luthor collapsed, the revolver clattering to the floor.
"So I guess Brainiac's original plan did come to fruition after all," Luthor laughed, coughing up blood. "You did kill me."
Kara stood over him, watching as the life fled his body. "Even now, Lex? You still refuse to take responsibility for your own actions?"
Luthor was fading fast, he could feel it. Even if Superwoman were to take him to a hospital at super speed, there was no way to save him. He would die today. Just like her, only sooner. It wasn't fair.
"You should never have come here," Luthor mumbled, his eyes glazing over. "I was the greatest... no one could touch me... then you came, made us all... small. And now... you don't even have the decency to die before I do. I guess you get the last laugh after all… alien!"
"The last laugh? No one is laughing today," Superwoman said, an intense feeling of déjà vu coming over her as she did. "Not you, not me, certainly not your victims! Not even Great Rao is laughing today. He merely weeps for his children gone astray!"
And so Lex Luthor died, struck down by the bullet of spite he had fired himself.
A second later, Kara collapsed.
At the same time, half a world away, a green ring suddenly appeared in front of a very startled man.
"Kyle Rayner of Earth," the ring said, appearing before its new chosen one. "You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."
"What?" the young man asked, confused.
1,800 light years from Earth, 3 days left
"Well, so much for that plan," Adam Strange said, frustrated beyond belief.
After the unsuccessful attempt to stop the Mageddon weapon and the death of Green Lantern Guy Gardner, an emergency session of the Free Worlds Alliance had been called to discuss options. Given that no sentient being seemed capable of even getting close to the weapon without losing their minds, a possible solution quickly presented itself.
With the aid of the Coluans and Brainiac 2, a fleet of warships, donated by all members of the Alliance, had quickly been equipped with automatic controls. Computers steered the ships, no sentient mind on board to go mad, and would bring them close to the Mageddon weapon. Once within range, the ships would unleash the deadliest weapons in the combined arsenals of the members worlds, hopefully enough to penetrate Mageddon's outer hull and take out its brain.
Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that Mageddon's influence did not restrict itself to sentient minds alone. Still two parsecs out, every single computer controlling the attack ships had gone crazy. The ships had fired on each other, exploded, or simply veered off to crash into the nearest planetary body.
Thoughts of mobilizing the War World and sending it against Mageddon had been scrapped immediately after seeing that. No one wanted to deal with an out-of-control War World on top of everything else.
Adam, who had been put in charge of this military assault due to his status as a Justice League founding member and champion of Rann, was out of ideas, to be honest.
"Your computer mind come up with any last-minute plans?" he asked the man standing next to him.
Vril Dox, aka Brainiac-2, merely shook his head. "I fear not. I briefly considered launching some sort of entirely inert object against this weapon, but the energy required to accelerate and target a sufficiently large celestial object is quite beyond our capabilities, at least in the time frame available to us."
"We know its heading," Adam speculated. "Can we put something in its path? A mine field or something like that?"
"Any mines or bombs we could place would still require some sort of computerized systems in order to detonate when we want them to. I fear Mageddon's field would corrupt them long before they could do any damage."
"Damn it," Adam cursed.
The two men fell into silence as despair grabbed hold of them without any influence from Mageddon required.
"Any news regarding Kara-El?" Dox asked.
Adam just shook his head. Directly after saving her son from Luthor, Superwoman had fallen into some sort of coma from which she had yet to wake. At this point Adam was not sure she ever would. Every day her body broke down some more. She might not even survive to see the arrival of Mageddon on Earth.
"We need to make plans to evacuate planet Earth," Dox finally proposed. "If we cannot stop Mageddon, we might still save at least some of its people."
Adam opened his mouth to refute this conclusion, but no words came out. Finally, he nodded. It seemed that there was no last-minute save to be found this time around.
Smallville, 2 hours left
Kara lies in her bed and dreams. Even as her body begins to come apart and her cells expire, her mind is more active than ever. Memories so deeply buried she had no idea they were even there are now accessible to her and in her dream she travels back. She travels back 28 years.
Dimensions shift as the small pod of metal speeds away from a doomed world towards a new home. Propelled by untested science, cobbled together in haste born from desperation, the tiny vessel carries its two occupants to safety. Within its metal hull, a teenaged girl sleeps, an infant boy cradled protectively in her arms.
Years earlier, the scientist Jor-El discovers the dimensional realm he calls the Phantom Zone and tries to build a device to reach it but abandons his research for lack of time as the world begins to break. But the same research goes into the engine he and his brother build to preserve the lives of their children. Jor-El never even imagines that the realm he discovered would be filled with life.
It is not life as he knows it, not life as anyone in the material realm would know it. Civilizations across the universe use the higher dimensional stratums to circumvent the light speed limit, but none have ever flown so high, have removed themselves so far from the governing rules of their own universe.
In the Phantom Zone, life exists. This life has no sense of self and would never utter words such as "I am", "time", or "space", but it still exists. The rules of physics hold no sway here. As the small pod of metal enters this strange realm, the locals take notice, for this is something new, something unknown.
They have no word for it, but someone from the material world would call them curious.
The hull of the pod poses no hindrance to them, and they are not interested in the technology, either. For them, only the glow of the two life forms inside the pod holds any interest. They recognize it as life, but not life as they know it. They have no language, nor any words for the emotions they experience, but a close approximation would probably be joy upon this unique discovery.
As they watch and experience, the girl mumbles in her technology-induced sleep, her dreams filled with the death flash of her world. The locals have no frame of reference for the memories they see, but in some way they do understand the emotions behind it. Sadness. Grief. And determination. Such boundless determination.
"I will protect him," the girl whispers, even as tears run down her cheeks, "I will be strong!"
The locals do not understand the words, but on a far deeper level they understand the girl. They see the love she feels for the child in her arms. And as the small pod of metal speeds on through the strange, ever-shifting energies of the Phantom Zone, the girl's determination mingles with the energies of the locals in new and amazing ways.
In her dream, the girl beseeches Rao, the great sun, to make her stronger, to make them both stronger, so that they can survive as their parents want them to, and the energies surrounding her respond. They change her, guided by her boundless will, and the changes spill over onto the child in her arms. They will be strong. They are children of the sun.
The small pod of metal leaves the Phantom Zone behind, sinking down into the material realms as its destination nears. There is no such thing as time in the Phantom Zone, so there is no need for memories. The locals know the girl because she is here, will always be here. And when a gateway opens, they sense the girl they know standing on the other side of it.
One of them steps through and becomes a girl made from sand.
With a gasp Kara woke, sitting up in her bed, energy crackling over her skin.
"Kara?" a voice asked.
Kara looked at the source of the voice and saw a familiar face.
"Sandy?" she muttered, still a bit confused. "What...? I remember... Rao, I remember."
The girl made from sand, now a woman strongly resembling Kara, sat down next to her, grabbing her hand. For a moment the energy crackling over Kara's breaking skin mingled with hers and the feeling was so very familiar.
"We met before," Kara said. "When Clark and I came from Krypton. We... met in your home dimension."
Sandy frowned. "I fear I have no memory of these events, Kara, but when you just woke up, it felt... it felt incredibly familiar."
Kara smiled at her. "It seems our lives were intermingled long before you emerged from the Phantom Zone, Sandy." Suddenly, though, she remembered something else. "Rao, Clark? Is he... ? Is Clark all right? Luthor, he was..."
There was a whooshing sound as something incredibly fast entered through the room's window and Kara saw her son standing in front her, looking whole and healthy.
"Mom? I heard you all the way from orbit. Are you okay?"
Kara rose to her feet, still a bit unsteady, but quickly crossed the distance between them to take him into her arms. She still had to be careful, her strength was such that she could now hurt even him, but she needed to feel for herself that he was all right.
Once they parted, Clark had tears in his eyes. "I am sorry, mom. I was so... I wanted to make Luthor pay for what he did to you and that just made me run headlong into his trap."
"Luthor is no longer a problem, Clark," she said, brushing her hand across his cheek. "And you are alive. That is all that ever mattered to me."
Gathering herself, she looked at Sandy and Clark. "Now, tell me what I missed."
That was when she felt it.
Blasts of thunder struck like the peal of a deadly clock. An arcane, ominous chronometer, long dormant, now reactivated to chime the coming of finality. To toll in the terrified hearts of a hapless humanity. To announce the hour where all that lives will be murdered. To mark the start of utter annihilation.
Mageddon had come!
Less than ten million people had been successfully evacuated from planet Earth by the Alliance before time ran out. The influence of Mageddon reached out to encompass the planet and every living thing on it started feeling the effects on their minds. It was subtle at first. Tempers flared, depressions deepened, old grudges suddenly sprung up again.
Within seconds, though, the situation grew worse. Many people collapsed where they stood, overcome by despair and terror. Many others, however, were enraged instead. Weapons were drawn, fists were clenched, and the entire human race threatened to go mad and tear itself apart.
But in the face of annihilation and despair, some people, most of them children, turned to a familiar picture of hope. A symbol all of them knew, for it was on posters, coloring books, newspapers, lunch boxes, T-shirts, and more. A symbol that looked very much like an S.
"Superwoman will save us!" thousands of voices muttered. "Please, save us!"
"Hope," Kara muttered, even as she felt the madness of Mageddon try to grab hold of her mind once again. "Hope is all we have!"
Clark was falling to his knees, clutching his head. Sandy was screaming, her body beginning to fall apart. Despair was threatening to drown them all, but Kara still stood. Because her enhanced senses allowed her to hear thousands upon thousands of voices, all crying out her name. Could hear the certainty in her voice that she would save them all from this dark fate.
What could defeat despair? What weapon could possibly be used to stave off such immense feelings of terror?
"Hope!" she repeated and remembered something that Diana had once said to her.
You told me once that this symbol here stands for hope. And it does, because of you. You bring hope wherever you go.
They needed hope, Kara realized. Hope was the only thing that could save them now. It was hope that had allowed her, however briefly, to throw off Mageddon's influence during their first encounter. But now they needed more. More than a single voice of hope echoing in a single mind. They needed all the hope they could get. A planet's worth of hope.
And they needed something to channel it.
Closing her eyes, Kara focused on the power that was running through her body and killing her. Ever since coming to Earth she had been aware of the energy field that surrounded her body at all times, making her all but invulnerable. Recently she had been able to extend that field beyond herself to protect others. It was energy, nothing but energy, and she could manipulate it, maybe even shape it?
Raising her arms, she pushed the energy outwards.
All over the planet, people paused as the wave of despair that threatened to engulf them lessened slightly. They looked up, their eyes instinctively going to the sky. Billions of eyes could see it as it happened. Streams of energy filled the heavens, eddies of power swirled and danced, slowly forming into a symbol they were all familiar with.
Like a shield protecting the planet, a giant version of the symbol of House El filled the sky, forged from pure energy, and pushing back against the power of Mageddon.
People all over the world began to cheer and chant Superwoman's name. And one young man who wore a green ring on his finger began to speak an ancient oath.
"In brightest day..."
Smallville, 17 minutes left
Kona had been busy escorting evacuation ships into orbit when she had heard her mother's voice and immediately changed course towards Smallville. Then, however, the wave of despair had hit the planet. She had tumbled from the sky, barely noticing the impact, and had prayed for death so that the pain would end.
Then the pain had ended. And her family's symbol filled the sky.
Pouring on the speed, Kona made her way to the Kent farm and saw her mother standing outside, arms spread, torrents of energy dancing around her. The sheer power she was projecting made Kona's skin crawl. Just being close to her, Kona could feel her own powers increase as her cells absorbed the excess energy bleeding off Kara.
"Wow," she muttered.
"Good to see you, baby girl," Kara said, her voice strained. "But I fear we are on the clock. Are you okay?"
"I'm... yeah, but earlier it felt like..."
"Mageddon is still up there. This is but a temporary measure."
Kona did not have the same kind of vision powers as her mother and Clark, but even with barely-above-human eyesight she could see that her mother's body was beginning to fail. Ruptures in her skin were bleeding pure energy, the ground was smoldering under her feet, and the air around her shimmered from the excess heat. She chocked back a sob, knowing that her mother probably had just minutes left to live.
"Are Clark, Sandy, and Martha okay?" Kara asked.
Kona moved at super speed, quickly checking on the other inhabitants of the Kent farm. Clark was already on his feet and moving to join them outside. Sandy was in the process of pulling herself together again. Martha was on the kitchen floor and unconscious, but breathing evenly.
"Everyone is fine for now," Kona said, returning to her mother's side. "What's the plan, mom?"
"Not much of one," Kara replied, sounding even more strained than before. "There has to be a reason that this thing came to Earth in the first place. Why would a weapon created by gods to kill other gods come here? That is the question that we never got around to asking; everything happened much too fast."
"So... why did it come here?"
A shadow fell over the world, a giant shape blotted out the sun. Mageddon gazed down upon them, its giant red eyes seeming to look directly at Smallville.
"It is a weapon made to kill gods," Kara said, energy crackling across her skin as the strain to maintain the shield grew. "But the gods killed themselves without its help. It was left behind. A weapon without anyone to wield it. And then it woke up again. Probably when Apokolips and New Genesis went to war."
Clark looked at his mother and understood. "So we have a weapon that is programmed to kill gods. And it went looking for one."
Kona looked at her mother with wide eyes. "Mom...?"
"I can hear them, mom," Clark said. "All over the world, people are chanting your name. They're... they're praying that you will save them."
Kara chuckled. "Yeah, I remember that Orion wanted to convince me that I am a goddess or at least destined to become one. I still think he was wrong, but apparently the big thing up there is willing to settle for the closest thing to a god it can find."
"Can it... can it be stopped?" Kona asked.
Kara nodded. "I think so. Despite its power and size, it's only a machine the gods made, like a clock. It knows when to tick and when to tock. It carries out basic functions, but that is it! A simple machine, but one with a sun inside of it. That is its ultimate function, I believe. It will blow up like a bomb and the unleashed energy will carry its psychic assault far and wide, maybe across the entire universe. Everyone and everything that lives will feel its touch and they will tear themselves apart. All life will go extinct."
She looked at her two children and smiled.
"It is ironic. If Luthor and Brainiac had not fatally overdosed me with sunlight, I would not have the power to even attempt this. My cells are converting to pure energy. I only have a few minutes left to save the world."
Clark looked at her, tears in his eyes, and nodded. "That's more than you ever needed, mom."
Kona hugged her for all that she was worth.
"Look after your big brother, baby girl," Kara told her. "He needs a smart woman to keep him in line and Lois doesn't have superpowers."
She looked at Clark. "Take care of Kona and Martha, Clark. And let mom know that I love her."
"I will," he promised.
Earth orbit, 1 minute left
Kara floated high above the world, gazing at her second home. Many years ago, the first time she had flown up here, she had vowed that she would do whatever it took to make sure that this beautiful world would remain safe. Earth would not share the fate of Krypton, she had promised, not if she had anything to say about it. Her children would live good, long, and peaceful lives here. She had vowed to make sure of it.
Turning around, she looked into the face of Mageddon. The wave of despair was held, kept at bay by the hope of billions, and she could feel the massive god-weapon begin to unleash its power source. A sun, caged inside millions of tons of god-forged armor, was beginning to shed its chains so that the ancient device could fulfil its function and bring death to the universe.
"I lost one home," she told the massive weapon. "You will not destroy my second one."
Despite her brave words down below, she really had no idea how to accomplish what she needed to do. Was it true? Was she becoming some kind of god? Or was this merely one last burst before her own power consumed her? She did not know, and it really was not that important. She needed to save the world, one last time.
It was then that a flash of green light caught her attention and she saw a young man flying up into orbit, a familiar device on his hand projecting a beam of green. Sorrow filled her, because she remembered that the man who had worn this ring before was now dead. It had taken many years before she was ready to consider Guy Gardner a friend, but a friend he had become, and he had given his life to save J'Onn and her.
The young man, the Green Lantern, was throwing his will into the face of despair in the form of green light. It was a futile effort, she could tell. For all their power, the rings of the Green Lanterns were limited by those who wore them. Still, she could not help but smile. Flying into the face of danger, hoping that sheer guts would save the day? Guy would have been proud of his successor, she was sure.
And even as she watched, she began to understand. Just by thinking about it she was beside the young man, who started upon seeing her.
"What the... Superwoman? Oh, thank God you are here, ma'am! I really don't know what I'm doing here."
She smiled at him. "You are doing great, Green Lantern. What is your name?"
"Uh... it's Kyle, ma'am. Kyle Rayner."
"Well, Kyle Rayner, I think you are in the right place at the right time to save the world. In fact, let me help you with this!"
She reached out with her hand and touched the green ring. Thoughts into energy. Will used to shape reality. So that was how that worked. She gazed at the green ring, she saw its inner workings, and she understood. Really, it was so simple.
Kara felt her body come apart, but that no longer mattered. The flesh died, but the energy remained. It was all just matter and energy, she mused, and energy could be shaped by her will, by her thoughts. The Mageddon sun began to explode. Plates of armor the size of continents vaporized as the imprisoned star broke free and pure despair rode on a wave of unleashed energy to encompass the cosmos.
Kara extended her hands, now made from pure energy and guided only by her will, and gently cradled the unleashed star, protecting the fragile orb behind her from the supernova. The energy embraced her like a lover, and she pulled it inside of herself. Kara briefly wondered how it was that she could still absorb sunlight into herself, seeing as all her cells were gone, but it didn't really matter.
"Maybe you were right after all, Orion," she mused.
The despair faded as the exploding sun dimmed and vanished into nothingness. She smiled at the Green Lantern, the young man simply watching everything with wide eyes. With but a thought she told him to head back home and that he should get in contact with the Justice League as soon as possible. They would help him figure out what to do next.
She turned her gaze upon the Earth and then she stood at the Kent farm. Everything around her was immobile and she understood what Metron had meant about freezing local time. She only had moments left, but she could stretch those moments to last an eternity.
Kara looked at her children, who were standing next to each other, holding each other up. Sandy had come out to join them, her strange third child standing with its siblings. Inside the kitchen Martha was stirring and Kara was beside her, gently brushing a kiss to her cheek.
"Goodbye, mom," she whispered.
In the span of a single heartbeat she was with all of her friends. Diana, Bruce, Adam, J'Onn, Shiera, Oliver, Wally, Mary, Barbara, Hippolyta, Philippus, Perry, Lois, so many of them. Friends, family, loved ones. Between two ticks of the clock she said goodbye to them all.
And then the clock ticked one final time and with a bright flash of light the symbol of the House of El vanished from the skies of Earth.
One year later
Clark and Lois stood at the edge of the Kent farm, looking up into the blue sky and the brilliant sun that was slowly approaching the horizon. Kona, Sandy, and Martha walked up behind them, all of them joining hands and hugging each other close.
"It's been a whole year," Kona said. "There are ceremonies and stuff all around the world. Some are calling it a memorial service."
"She is not gone," Clark said with conviction. "Only changed."
"I know," Kona agreed. "She is still out there. And she will come back to us when she can."
Clark held his family close. "And we'll keep them all safe until then. Like she taught us."
Together the family of Kara-El, Superwoman, watched as the sun set on the fields of Kansas.
End Chapter 113
Author's Note: Merry Christmas everyone and we're almost done. Just the Epilogue to go. Hope you all enjoyed the ride as much as I did. This chapter's title is a shoutout to "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen", the amazing series finale of MASH. Mageddon's final fate was (very vaguely) teased in chapter 98 during the time visions Kara experienced while bringing Kandor into the future. The death of Guy Gardner and the appearance of Kyle as his successor was a last-minute thing, to be honest, but I think it fit very well. Sort of a passing of the torch moment.
Kara's quote about Rao weeping for his children gone astray was adapted from New Teen Titans (v1) #15 where Robotman (Cliff Steele) utters a similar sentiment when his old enemy General Zahl falls victim to his own bullet ricocheting off Robotman's body. Don't know why, but this quote always stayed with me. Some of Kara's last words to Clark and Kona are adapted from All-Star Superman by Grant Morrisson.
I hadn't planned it, but the phrase "Not gone, only changed" kind of became the guiding principle for these last few chapters of the story. It's how Lois explained to Sandy what death is back in chapter 110 and I thought it would be a nice bit of synergy to put it on Jonathan's tombstone in chapter 112. Then I figured it would work just as well for Kara, seeing as she, too, is not really gone. Just changed. And isn't that really all that happens to all of us? Even death is really just another change.
One last chapter coming up: Whatever Happened to the Seeder of Worlds?