Prologue
An old story yet lives of "Superman," The story of an alien who had done the impossible again and again in service of Humanity. He had fought foes no other man dared fight, and won. He was the Hero the world needed. His story was the focal point of countless others. Yet this story is one of another Hero of Krypton. This is the story of a fallen Hero who struggled to forge a better future for his people and the cost of his struggle was everything.
This is the story of a General, a Warrior, and a Tactician by birth who indeed attained to rank and office, but only to live a life of weary strife against difficulties and met his end in but a shallow grave.
He was a man who could not overcome the one man who's narrative itself transcended all others. He could not overcome Superman. yet he waged the war all the same, in the hope that one day the banners of Krypton could be unfolded across all of the Universe. In the hope that the Children of Krypton could look out across the stars and know that they had a future.
There was a burning passion in his eyes and heart that could not be expunged so easily, and he moved forward in spite of all adversity.
Who has not, in reading or watching the story of Superman, thought of his own strife, and of his own numerous difficulties in his life when reading the comic, or watching the screen?
This story is very closely akin to reality; but still it has its miraculous explanations here on another earth altogether, where reality often points beyond the confines of life on our planet to the regions of the infinite space beyond our sight.
The history of this new world is like a vastly still body of water that reflects to us, on it's surface pictures of the dark murky image that is the present. Of how the benefactors of mankind, the martyrs among us, and the newly created Nikkes wandered along the thorny road of protecting us from both outsiders and ourselves.
From all periods, from the dawn of Man, to his fall, and to the Raptures and Heretics. To The Ark, these shining pictures display themselves to us. Each only appears for a few moments, but each represents a whole life, sometimes a whole age, with its conflicts and victories. Let us contemplate here and there one of the company of martyrs—the company which will receive new a member until the world itself shall pass away.
Zod.
We look down upon a crowded building in the first world. Upon two men who are struggling in the ultimate battle for survival, though perhaps only one truly wishes to survive. The first man, the survivor, a man in a blue and red costume, holding the crest of the House of El on his chest was desperately holding the second man by the neck in a powerful chokehold.
The second man, on his knees on the ground, a man in a black inner armor who had long since lost his plated armor was desperately choking for breath. His squarish face contorted with rage and pain. Sweat and tears poured from his face as he sputtered and quivered.
Several humans in casual attire were frightened by the situation that was unfolding and were slowly backing away with hurried shaky steps. They had no way to interfere even if they wanted to.
The restrained man choked something out with extreme effort as he shivered and desperately tried to extricate himself from the hold.
"You love these people right Kal of the wretched house of El?" He choked and sputtered out as his eyes began to burn with a bright light.
"No!" The man holding him shouted desperately, redoubling his death hold on the man in his arms. It truly was a testament to the second man's resilience, as the hold he was held in could crush a continent to dust in an instant.
With a hacking cough, the second man spoke again with immense difficulty.
"Know this Kal! I will take from you what you have taken ever so callously from me! The last hope of Krypton, destroyed all for what? Your desire to protect these beings? Know the despair that I have faced at your hands".
The second man's eyes blazed brightly, and two beams of concentrated heat rivaling the surface of the sun itself bored across the large station they were in and several humans were instantly incinerated by just being in their vicinity.
"Zod No!" the man known now as Kal shouted in desperation and fear, and with a surge of strength and the crack of a neck being snapped, Zod was vanquished. The future of one peoples traded for the survival of another. There would never be another True Kryptonian child in the future of this universe ever again.
Perhaps this truly is the fate of the weak, to be suppressed by the strong? While noble, honor and belief mean nothing without the strength to enforce them upon others. Zod came close, but he could not enforce his people's future due to one of his own rising against him.
Now the image vanishes with slight ripples upon the infinite surface of water underneath the bright never changing blue sky. The image replacing it shifts to a broken world covered by a cloudy mid summer evening sky.
This was a world at the mercy of technology where Humanity fought tooth and nail against an enemy that would not relent.
Amongst the ruins of decimated buildings and cracked concrete where vines and plant life has begun to reclaim what was once made by man, walks a solemn man, his dark blue eyes were clouded and almost gray to one who was barely glancing upon him. His muscular body was covered in various old scars and welts that could be seen over his slightly tanned pale skin. His short black hair and face was sleek with sweat as he slogged slowly towards an unknown destination.
All he wore was the black leggings of his inner armor and his black boots, letting the sunlight that did manage to reach through the clouds slowly energize him. Slowly but surely his wobbly steps gained strength and renewed vigor, and what was once a weak and hopeless gait was now more firm and resilient. Zod was if anything, resilient. He had to be. It was preordained and built into his very Kryptonian DNA to be as such.
As he regained his sanity and composure to a degree, he looked around, stopping in the middle of a destroyed street. There were no signs of life except for a small nest of rodents somewhere a few dozen meters below the sidewalk to his right.
Enhanced hearing and a variety of other abilities granted by his Kryptonian physiology were still things he hadn't completely acclimated to. Still, he was getting better at blocking it all out.
He had many questions. Namely, how was he still alive? While Kryptonians did have a mild healing factor under a yellow sun, it wasn't so potent that it would heal a snapped neck. At best it would heal minor cuts, bruises and fractures. What he was facing right now was a healing of all his injuries from the past two days before his death.
Wait, did he actually die?
"Damnit!" He growled, hating the uncertainty of the moment. He frowned before punting a nearby destroyed car several miles across the destroyed city with a frustrated kick. The broken car crashed through dozens and dozens of buildings before digging a hole into the concrete of a parking lot three miles away where it's shattered frame was put to rest once and for all.
Such a thing was clearly not natural, and had quickly attracted the attention of several dozen Husk and Servant class raptures that were in the vicinity. Before they could even approach him, they were melted immediately by his heat vision. He had seen them approaching long before they could even recognize him as a living creature.
He was not Kal. He did not wait and react. He acted and left the reacting to the others, as it should be. Looking down to his hand, he clenched and unclenched his fist, hearing the sound of his flesh tensing, and each individual blood cell in his hand moving quickly. These abilities would take some amount of time to get completely used to, easily several days, if not more.
Speaking of Kal-El, he did not seem to be on this planet at the moment, especially if the present situation was the same all across the world. All he could hear or see for miles around was the sound of these robotic monstrosities and their metal sheen reflecting the sun's light.
It reminded him of his childhood on that world of monsters, of how his parents sacrificed themselves for him. It was a sickening sight, seeing their decimated half eaten corpses, but such things are common in the universe and they had served their purpose in saving him. In that sense they had lived up to their duties. Giant mythical monsters the size of skyscrapers dominated the lands in that world, each capable of obliterating dozens of miles of land in their fights amongst themselves, and only after he was thirteen years of age was he capable of rising to the top of the food chain on that world. Then a bit over a year later someone came from the skies to save him and bring him home to Krypton.
The man Jor-El.
His thoughts on that man were complex. He admired his intelligence and his desire to save those who he could, but their methodology was vastly different. Zod, or well, Dru-Zod was for all intents and purposes a man of both thought and actions. Unrestrained by most social norms, he was from his very nature that was predetermined before birth a man who took initiative, whilst the intellectuals debated the morality and such other trivial things.
Those fools would probably intellectualize their own destruction given the chance. Academia and debate did have a place in society, as any man would know. However, when it became so focused on morality that action was delayed, then it was time for the intellectuals to be relegated to the background.
Unclenching his fist and quickly turning on his feet, he was greeted by something oddly resembling a jellyfish in a slight way.
It was large. Very large. Floating at several dozen meters wide in a oval shaped metal body with several dozen extended metallic appendages that writhed angrily around like tentacles, with long gun barrels at their triangular ends. Several cameras were visible around it's sides which were the only part of it's main body that weren't covered in the gray metallic armor plating that protected it from all outside elements on it's top and bottom.
Around sixty other of it's mechanical brethren approached alongside it.
Zod, not giving the machines a chance to begin an attack pulled back his right fist, and with the cracking of the sound barrier being effortlessly shattered he released a punch in their direction, and just the shockwave turned even the massive machine into scrap that was send flying thousands of meters behind him.
The Lord class Rapture that was dubbed as Fingers was utterly annihilated, and its support was in even worse shape, barely more than mangled metal and smoking shards, and Dru-Zod was starting to get annoyed.
Note: This Zod is a mixture of comics/Movie Zod, so if you see some thing blended from the comics, don't freak out.