Superman: Shadows of the Multiverse — Chapter 2: Fractures in the Sky
Thunder rolled like artillery across the night sky, rattling the glass towers of Metropolis. The rain had thickened into a merciless curtain, swallowing the city in gray haze and broken reflections. Far below, sirens wailed in layered harmony—ambulances, police cruisers, and fire trucks weaving through flooded streets as citizens scrambled for shelter.
Above the trembling riverfront, two figures hovered, motionless except for the slow ripple of their capes in the storm's breath.
Superman studied the figure before him, every instinct sharpened to its highest alert. The man wore the crest of Krypton—his crest—but twisted into something jagged and cold. The glow from those red eyes was not wild or enraged. It was controlled. Deliberate. Measured like a surgeon deciding where to cut.
Nemesis regarded him with an unsettling calm, hands folded loosely behind his back as if they stood in quiet conversation rather than on the edge of catastrophe.
"You hesitate," Nemesis said, voice barely louder than the rain but cutting through the storm with unnatural clarity. "You always do. Even now, your first thought is not to strike. It is to talk."
Superman held his ground, hovering in the wind. "Violence isn't the solution."
Nemesis tilted his head slightly, almost curious. "That is why your world is fragile."
Below them, another explosion ripped through the factory complex. Steel beams buckled. Sparks cascaded like molten rain as an electrical transformer ruptured. Workers trapped inside shouted in terror, their cries faint but unmistakable to Superman's hearing.
Superman's head snapped downward. Instinct surged through him like lightning.
Nemesis smiled faintly.
"There," Nemesis said softly. "The choice begins."
Superman didn't wait. He dove, slicing through the rain at impossible speed, crashing through the factory roof in a blur of red and blue. Heat vision flashed, severing collapsing girders before they crushed fleeing workers. He scooped two men from beneath falling debris and carried them to safety near the emergency responders gathering outside.
"Everyone out!" Superman shouted, his voice booming across the chaos. "Move away from the building!"
He darted back inside, lifting a shattered support column as the roof sagged dangerously. Flames licked across spilled chemicals, threatening to ignite into something far worse. With careful precision, he froze the spreading fire with a blast of super-breath, crystallizing the flames into brittle frost that shattered harmlessly across the floor.
Within seconds, he had evacuated dozens.
And yet—
The air shifted.
Superman's spine stiffened as a sudden pressure rippled through the factory, bending steel walls inward like soft clay. Machines tore free from their bolts and hovered unnaturally, suspended in a field of invisible force.
Nemesis descended slowly through the broken ceiling, untouched by falling debris, the storm swirling around him like a loyal servant.
"You see?" Nemesis said calmly. "You save individuals. I reshape systems."
With a flick of his hand, the suspended machinery twisted, forming a crushing sphere of metal above the remaining structural supports. The building groaned in protest.
Superman shot upward, slamming into the sphere, forcing it back with raw strength. The metal shrieked as it resisted him, compressed by Nemesis' invisible grip.
"You're going to collapse the entire structure," Superman growled.
Nemesis drifted closer, red eyes glowing brighter in the dim, flickering factory light. "It is inefficient. This place breeds instability. Accidents. Crime. Economic imbalance. Destroying it forces the city to rebuild properly."
"There are people in here!" Superman snapped.
"There are always people," Nemesis replied coldly. "Progress demands casualties."
The metal sphere suddenly tightened, multiplying its pressure. Superman strained, muscles coiling with immense effort as he fought to hold it apart. The entire factory trembled around them, walls fracturing, pipes bursting with shrieking steam.
Below, three workers remained trapped beneath fallen scaffolding, pinned and unable to escape.
Superman saw them.
Nemesis saw Superman see them.
"You cannot do both," Nemesis said, voice almost gentle. "Hold the structure… or save them."
The storm howled through the shattered roof as seconds stretched into eternity.
Superman's jaw clenched. Every calculation raced through his mind—angles of collapse, structural load, time required for rescue, trajectory of falling debris. Every outcome ended the same way.
Someone would suffer.
With a roar of effort, Superman hurled the metal sphere skyward, blasting through the collapsing roof. It exploded into fragments above the factory as he launched downward, tearing through wreckage to reach the trapped workers.
He lifted the scaffolding with trembling precision, pulling each person free before the building's interior gave way completely.
"Go!" he urged, guiding them toward the exit.
Behind him, the factory's central support snapped with a deafening crack.
Superman shot upward again, bracing himself beneath the collapsing ceiling. Concrete and steel cascaded around him as he held the building aloft long enough for the final evacuees to escape.
Then he leapt backward as the entire structure folded inward, collapsing into a thunderous heap of rubble.
The ground shook. Smoke and dust erupted into the rain-soaked night.
Superman hovered above the wreckage, chest rising and falling heavily. His cape clung to him, soaked and torn along one edge.
Across from him, Nemesis floated untouched, arms crossed in quiet observation.
"You sacrificed infrastructure, economy, and long-term stability," Nemesis said. "For a handful of workers."
"They're not numbers," Superman shot back. "They're lives."
Nemesis studied him for a long moment. "And when thousands die tomorrow because that factory no longer exists to supply energy? When riots spread because jobs vanish? Will you save them too, one by one?"
Superman didn't answer immediately.
The rain drummed against his shoulders, masking the silence that stretched between them.
"You fight symptoms," Nemesis continued. "I eliminate disease."
Superman's eyes hardened. "You eliminate choice."
"Choice creates chaos," Nemesis replied. "Your compassion chains you to failure."
Without warning, Nemesis lunged forward, moving faster than thought. His fist collided with Superman's jaw, sending shockwaves ripping through the sky as Superman was hurled across the river, crashing through three skyscraper floors before stopping himself mid-air.
Glass rained onto empty offices below as alarms blared through the building.
Superman wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, stunned not just by the force—but by the precision. Nemesis wasn't fighting recklessly. Every strike was calculated, efficient, brutally controlled.
Nemesis hovered at the shattered window, cape rippling like a living shadow.
"You hold back," Nemesis said.
"I protect," Superman corrected.
Nemesis struck again, their clash detonating thunder through the clouds as they soared upward, colliding in a blur of speed and power that sent hurricane-force winds tearing across Metropolis.
They crashed through the storm layers, lightning arcing between them as fists met in explosive bursts of strength.
Superman swung with full force, finally abandoning restraint. His punch landed squarely against Nemesis' chest, sending him spiraling downward toward the harbor.
The ocean erupted as Nemesis struck the water, sending a tidal wave crashing against the docks.
For a heartbeat, Superman hovered above, breathing hard, rain mixing with ocean mist rising from below.
Then Nemesis burst upward from the sea, unharmed, eyes blazing brighter than before.
"You begin to understand," Nemesis said.
He raised both hands.
The ocean surged.
Massive columns of water spiraled upward, forming towering whirlpools that twisted toward the shoreline, threatening to swallow entire districts.
Superman dove instantly, intercepting the largest surge, freezing it mid-motion with a blast of icy breath while redirecting the others with sweeping gusts of wind generated by his flight.
Ships rocked violently in the harbor as he stabilized the waters, guiding the surges back into the sea.
By the time he turned—
Nemesis was gone.
Only the storm remained.
Sirens screamed louder below as emergency crews rushed to contain the disaster zone. Helicopters circled cautiously, their spotlights slicing through the rain in frantic arcs.
Superman hovered in the center of it all, scanning the city with x-ray and telescopic vision, searching for any trace of his enemy.
Nothing.
Only fear spreading across Metropolis like a second storm.
He descended slowly to the riverfront, landing beside firefighters pulling survivors from the rubble. A young worker stared up at him with wide, trembling eyes.
"Is it over?" the man asked.
Superman hesitated.
"…Not yet," he admitted quietly.
Across the city, inside the dim glow of the Daily Planet newsroom, Lois Lane stood frozen before a flickering television screen broadcasting the destruction live. Her pen hung loosely between her fingers as she watched the two identical figures collide in flashes of lightning and shattered skyline footage.
"Clark…" she whispered to herself, though she didn't know why.
Back at the ruins, Superman gazed over the shattered factory, smoke rising into the rain. His shoulders felt heavier than any building he had ever lifted.
Nemesis' words echoed in his mind.
Progress demands casualties.
Superman clenched his fists, staring into the storm clouds where his enemy had vanished.
"No," he murmured under his breath. "There has to be another way."
High above the city, hidden beyond human sight, Nemesis watched from the shadow of thunderheads, expression unreadable as he studied the hero below.
"The fracture has begun," he said softly to the empty sky.
Lightning illuminated his dark crest as he turned and vanished into the storm once more.
And far below, Metropolis trembled—not from destruction alone, but from the realization that hope now faced its reflection… and the reflection did not blink.