"Son of Krypton, Kal-El, please land immediately and submit to inspection."
The broadcast blared across the skyline, echoing off glass towers. Three helicopters banked into formation around Superman, rotors chopping the evening air, repeating the warning on loop. Below, A.R.G.U.S. vehicles had already sealed the surrounding streets. Armed soldiers crouched behind barricades, rifles trained upward at the hovering figure in blue.
Superman ignored all of it. His attention remained fixed on Jack Kadere and Lois Lane through the apartment window.
Bang!
The apartment door slammed open. Amanda Waller strode in with June Moone at her flank and a squad of soldiers fanning out behind her.
"How can you just—" Lois started, but Waller walked past her without acknowledgment.
She stopped beside Jack Kadere, her voice low. "I've cleared the entire block. Whatever you're planning to do, do it. Just catch him."
Jack curled his lip and said nothing. He pushed the window open, stepped onto the sill, and swung one leg out over empty air.
The move drew sharp intakes of breath from everyone in the room. They were twenty-some floors up. Superman's expression shifted to surprise, his body tensing as if ready to dive.
"Cold," Lois muttered, hugging herself as a chill swept through the room.
Frost crystallized beneath Jack's descending foot, solidifying into a narrow bridge of ice that caught his weight. He stepped forward, and the ice extended with him—growing outward from the window ledge, stretching toward Superman in a pale, gleaming path.
The helicopters' spotlights tracked him. Below, soldiers lowered their weapons slightly, too stunned to maintain aim.
Superman watched the ice trail lengthen, his brow furrowing. "How do you know what the news reported? Will Zod really come to Earth?"
He was wearing the suit now—the deep blue with the S-shield across his chest. That meant he'd already visited the Fortress of Solitude, already had his father's consciousness explain his origins. Jor-El's program would have been loaded into the scout ship's systems, waiting to greet his son.
"Why aren't you wearing red briefs?" Jack stopped a dozen feet away, standing on nothing but frozen air, and gave Superman a troubled look. "You not wearing your briefs on the outside makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don't even have anything to mock. So—go find a pair of red briefs to put on, and then we can talk?"
"Why would I wear red briefs?"
"Because aside from the S representing hope, Superman's defining symbol is wearing red briefs on the outside." Jack said it like he was explaining basic facts to a child.
"I have no intention of wearing briefs on the outside. Especially not red ones." Superman's jaw tightened. "Now tell me—how do you know these things?"
"You won't wear them?" Jack tilted his head. "Then you're not Superman. And if you're not Superman..."
He lunged.
His fist connected with Superman's face before the Kryptonian could react.
Man of Steel indeed. Hard enough.
The impact sent Superman hurtling backward. His body punched through the building behind him—wall after wall buckling and exploding outward in cascades of plaster and rebar.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The structure that had looked so solid revealed itself as fragile as wet cardboard under that kind of force. Superman's trajectory carved a tunnel straight through, and he burst out the far side trailing glass and debris.
Crash!
The load-bearing walls on that floor gave way. The stories above groaned, tilted, and began to sag outward.
"Oh God—"
Amanda Waller was already moving. "Everyone out! Notify the surrounding blocks—evacuate immediately!"
She'd underestimated the scale of destruction two beings like this could cause. One block wouldn't contain it. Maybe ten wouldn't.
Lois stood frozen, watching Jack step calmly along his ice bridge, curving around the damaged building. He caught up to Superman in seconds, grabbed the trailing red cape, and swung him in a wide arc—hurling him back toward her building.
That broke her paralysis. She ran.
Bang!
The wall beside her exploded inward. Superman's body slammed through it and hit the opposite wall hard enough to crack the concrete. He slumped, letting out a low grunt.
Lois skidded to a stop, heart hammering. Superman pushed himself upright, shook debris from his hair, and launched himself forward again—hands extended, flying straight through the hole he'd made.
She didn't wait to see more. The elevator was suicide; she took the stairs, feet pounding down flight after flight.
Above her, the battle continued.
Superman rocketed out of the building like a missile, fists forward, aimed directly at Jack.
Swoosh.
An ice wall materialized in his path. He punched through it without slowing, shards spraying in all directions.
Swoosh.
Another wall. Another explosion of frozen fragments.
Wall after wall appeared—a dozen, two dozen—and Superman shattered each one, barely losing momentum. Frost clung to his suit. His breath came in visible puffs.
He burst through the final barrier and swung at Jack with everything he had.
"Why?" The word tore out of him, raw with confusion. "Why are you doing this?"
"Copy successful."
Jack smiled—a small, satisfied curl of his lips—and let himself fall backward off the ice.
He dropped like a stone.
Wind screamed past his ears as the ground rushed up. Through the roar, he could hear the soldiers below shouting in alarm. Amanda Waller's low curse. Lois Lane's heartbeat, rapid and frightened, somewhere in the stairwell.
Superman's super-hearing. Not as refined as the sensory awareness he'd gained from Diana, but sharper in its own way. The two abilities layered together now, stacking.
He heard Superman diving after him, closing the distance fast.
Jack opened his eyes.
They blazed crimson, heat building behind his pupils, and twin beams of searing red light lanced upward at the pursuing Kryptonian.
Superman froze mid-dive, shock written across his face.
He—how does he have this ability too?
Is he also a Kryptonian?
He must be. That's the only explanation. That's how he knows about Krypton.
The heat vision caught Superman square in the chest and blasted him backward, tumbling end over end.
Jack spread his arms wide and let himself fall in an X-shape, wind tearing at his clothes, the ground filling his vision.
Boom.
He hit the pavement.
The impact cratered the street, sending cracks spiderwebbing outward for thirty feet. Dust and pulverized concrete billowed up in a gray cloud.
Nearby soldiers flinched back, then exchanged uncertain glances. After a moment, they raised their rifles and crept toward the crater's edge.
Step by step. Five feet. Ten.
They peered down.
Jack Kadere lay at the bottom, eyes closed, motionless.
"Is he... did he just fall to his—"
The whine of displaced air cut the soldier off. Superman was incoming, streaking toward them from across the skyline.
Training overrode thought. The soldiers spun and opened fire.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets swarmed toward the approaching figure in blue.
"The feeling of bungee jumping..." Jack's voice drifted up from the crater, soft and amused. "Actually quite nice."
He opened his eyes, flipped onto his feet, and dusted off his sleeves.
---