The ocean's horizon still shimmered from the residual nuclear glow of Captain Atom's detonation. The wind howled through the wreckage of the shattered island chain, and Cain stood trembling, his chest heaving, blood streaking the corners of his mouth.
Anissa hovered a few feet Infront of him, her silhouette a goddess crowned in radiant light.
My mind reeled from Anissa's statement. I'm a Type Four hybrid? The words repeated in my head like an echoe.
"What the hell do you mean I'm a Type Four?" he rasped, his voice ragged. "I have a meta-gene, Viltrumite abilities, my hybrid pheromones linked me to a Kryptonian. So how am I a type four?"
Anissa's expression was a chilling mask of indifference, her voice then spoke with the same tone. "You're not wrong. Those are the traits of a type two." She said. Her tone was clinical, and detached, like she was reciting an autopsy. "You do possess those traits… but you seem to be ignoring a few things."
She raised one finger. "First, your Viltrumite physiology. According to Nolan's records and your father's data, and from what you said you only recently awakened your abilities. You're what, nineteen? Twenty? The latest of late bloomers on Viltrume awaken at sixteen to seventeen at most."
Cain's eyes narrowed, sweat and blood mixing down his cheek.
She lifted a second finger, her eyes glowing as they pierced through him.
" Second...My x-ray and microscopic vision can see your DNA. It's barely stable. What I believe happened is that your meta-gene activated at an early age. Your body was breaking down, maybe even dying, and your abilities held you together. Then as your body stabilized and adapted. Your abilities fully manifested as your tactile telekinesis. Then when your body stabilized, or once you came in contact with a proper mate your Viltrumite genes took hold... The latter is the more common one to occur in hybrids."
Cain's stomach sank. The air around him felt colder suddenly.
"Tell me," Anissa said, her voice calm but cutting. "Were you sick as a child? Fragile? Dying perhaps, until one day, it simply stopped?"
Cain froze. For a long moment, he couldn't speak. His mind clawed through fragmented memories of his body. He never reflected on this bodies childhood memories since coming to this world. He had felt no need to. But the truth is he simply couldn't remember them.
"I…" he started. "I don't remember."
"That's natural," Anissa replied, folding her arms. "You were young and your body was under constant stress. Your mind wanted to protect you so it buried the traumatic memories."
The realization hit him like a hammer. His parent's checked him everyday for fevers, and stopping me from playing sport or over exerting myself. They new and tried to protect me.
Anissa's voice broke through my thoughts again.
"Lastly," she said, raising a third finger, "Your DNA is barely stable. It's hanging on by threads. The Viltrumite gene is repairing it, but very slowly. By my estimates, you'll need decades, maybe a century to stabilize completely. That's if you don't die first."
Cain's jaw tightened. "So what? I'm still useful to the Empire, then? You say I'm weak by the empires standards but I can still grow stronger and do this much. If I can survive that is."
Anissa blurred forward, her hand clamping around my throat before I could react. She held me effortlessly int the air, her emerald eyes began burning like suns.
"I have a theory," she said coldly. "No Type Four hybrid has ever survived adolescence like you have. None let alone have developed a meta-gene while doing so. If you survive… Then perhaps you be worth something someday."
Cain struggled, his fists pounding weakly against her arm. "Survive what...?"
Her voice was ice.
"This."
Her first punch sent him flying across the sky.
The impact detonated a shockwave that split the ocean below. Before he could recover, she appeared behind him, fists like comets, striking him again and again.
Each blow cracked the air. The sound of bones straining echoed through the impacts.
Cain's TT field did next to nothing against Anissa's onslaught. He tried to block, tried to counter, but her strikes were everywhere. A flash, a burst, a blur and then another fist caved his ribs, sending him plummeting through the sea.
He barely had time to gasp before she blitzed him through the sky. Sending him crashing through waves, mountains, carving a glowing trail of destruction until his body smashed into the side of a distant island.
When his vision steadied, he lay half-buried in rock and dirt, staring up at a blood-red sky.
Anissa descended slowly, her black body suit gleaming with radiant light. Her hair and eyes burned with a golden-orange aura, the energy rippling off her skin in waves.
Cain spat blood, his voice hoarse. "You… you can enhance your cells with your own radiation."
Anissa smirked faintly. " A very sharp observation. Yes. Kryptonians grow stronger under yellow suns. Exponentially more so under blue and violet ones. Violet being the rarest. I can generate and channel those energies at will throughout my body."
She flexed her hand, and the air shimmered like molten glass. "But I won't use them on you. Not yet. Survive this first, if you can. Consider it conditioning."
Then like constant rain drops falling from the sky.
Her fists rained down faster than thought, blinding, searing, and relentless.
Every hit felt like a meteor. Every punch drove me deeper into the ground. My tactile field did nothing under this explosion of power and speed.
The world became light and pain. Her two fist rained down in a comet like fury. Two fist looked like tens of hundreds of burning suns in the shape of a fist as they connected to my body.
By the time she stopped, the island was shaking apart.
Cain lay motionless in the crater, his body battered and unrecognizable, his bodysuit was shredded in tatters and slick with blood. His breath came in broken gasps. His face was barely visible beneath the bruises. Eyes swollen shut. Lip busted. Nose broken, and skin covered in first degree burns.
Anissa looked down, her expression cold, almost disappointed.
"Consider this a warning, Cain of Earth," she said softly. "If this planet isn't ready by the next inspection, the next Viltrumite who comes won't be as… merciful as me."
She rose into the air, her aura dimming. Above the horizon, Blackfire waited, holding the unconscious Galatea still draped over her shoulder.
"Greetings, Matriarch," Blackfire said, bowing slightly. "Was your mission successful?"
Anissa's gaze swept over the ruined islands. "Perhaps. Either my father will come to cleanse this world… or the hybrids will learn. One way or another, the Dawn of the Empire's rebirth will begin here... For we are inevitable."
Blackfire nodded, her eyes dark. "And the clone?"
"We take her back to the fleet," Anissa replied. "She'll be useful for experimentation. And if she survives... The Grand Regent will have his breeding mate. "
Then Anissa turned once more toward the devastated island. Her palm glowed, forming a swirling orb of green, orange, and yellow energy, humming like a dying star.
"Good luck, little hybrid," she whispered, and hurled it.
The sphere struck the island.
The explosion that followed consumed everything, the surrounding sea, the sky, the mountain, and Cain himself, in a single blinding surge of light.
Miles away, the bioship streaked toward the site.
Superboy and Atom Eve hovered over a crater, helping Mark out it. He was barely conscious, covered in bruises his global guardian suit in tatters.
Then the shockwave hit. The twilight sky lit up in a violent storm of fire and sound.
Mark's eyes widened as he saw the explosion bloom over the horizon. "Galatea!" he screamed.
Eve stood beside him, eyes wide with horror. "Cain…" she whispered.
And the dawn sky burned.