The quiet that came after that evening with Diana and Zatanna didn't last. It never did.
By dawn, the sky broke.
Literally.
I stood on the observation deck of the Watchtower, gazing out into the upper atmosphere of the Earth. A crack ran across the rim of space like broken glass, distorting the stars, bleeding purple light into the darkness. Something ancient had awakened. Something older than even the gods of this universe.
Report," I said, voice low, even.
Martian Manhunter's projection flickered to my right. "A dimensional breach. The energy signature is not in our known records. Whatever it is it's looking in."
Looking for me.
My hand gripped the railing. I could feel it deep in my bones power responding to power. This wasn't some random tear. This was a summons, a gauntlet scrawled across the canvas of reality itself.
"Take out a transport pod," I commanded. "I'll intercept it head on."
"By yourself?" J'onn inquired.
I nodded. "No one else is designed for what's on its way."
I was on the verge of Earth's gravity, stars churning like witnessing eyes, mere minutes later. The breach throbbed. My eyes went fuzzy. That was when I heard it a voice that wasn't sound, but thought. It gnawed at my head.
"You tread among mortals, yet you are not of them."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to. My body acted on reflex, defying gravity, accepting vacuum, embracing truth.
I released.
No more boundaries.
No more deception.
The seals I'd put on myself broke like chains corroded by time. Light burst from my flesh, stripping away the final remnants of my human shape. My body expanded not in dimension, but presence. My voice boomed through the breach like thunder awakened.
"I am not a son of Earth or Krypton. I am beyond. I am what preceded the stars."
Cosmic tattoos shone on my arms, golden runes flashing to each heartbeat. My hair stood on end, charged with static power, streaks of starlight running through the locks. My eyes went white hot, reflecting galaxies, chronologies, probabilities unraveling and reforming within every blink.
This was my true form. Unencumbered by gravity or morality or flesh.
A creature born of primal order and chaos.
I burst into the breach.
The other side was. wrong. A dark place where even thoughts bled. Creatures composed of anti light clawed at existence, attempting to feed on my presence. I didn't blink. I willed them out of existence. One thought, and they were gone.
I hovered over their plane like a wrathful god, arms wide. Energy arced off of me in bursts enough to blind satellites, enough to cause even the Source Wall shudder.
Behind me, a door opened Zatanna and Diana stepped through, in defiance.
"You were going to do this without us?" Diana growled, lasso crackling.
Zatanna cocked an eyebrow. "Kinda rude, even for a cosmic being."
I came close to smiling.
But then the breach howled.
A shape coalesced from it. Not an animal a concept. A living contradiction. Not dead. Not alive. It floated in front of us, wrapped in the skeletons of dead universes.
It said a single word:
"Impostor."
Its hand grasped toward me and landed on my chest.
Reality warped.
But I did not flinch.
I released all that I had.
Waves of pure, fiery cosmic energy burst out of my core. Colors unimagined by human eyes rent that plane asunder like flames. I cried out not with pain, but with release. For the first time, I wasn't restraining myself.
Time stood still.
Space cried out.
Even Diana covered her face, and Zatanna muttered anchoring spells just to remain standing.
When it was finished, the breach closed behind us with a hiss like a dying god's breath. The dimension was lost. Unmade.
I floated in silence, the power still coursing through me like a second heartbeat.
Diana flew to me first. "That… that wasn't power. That was creation."
Zatanna looked at me as if I were no longer the man she knew. "You were glowing like a star."
"I am a star," I said softly. "Just one who finally remembered how to burn."
We came back to Earth, and nothing was the same anymore.
They'd seen it now.
Not just my power.
But my reality.
And the universe would never see me in the same light again.
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**End of Chapter 30**