Chapter 0: A Hero's Shadow

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There was a strange but not unwelcome sense of peace and prosperity over Wukong Town that brought the Saiyan Kryptonian hybrid a moment of calm and peace as he soared through the air, vigilant and with his senses primed into sharpened awareness for any mischief that might require his attention. The Saiyan of Steel and Xeno Superman had spent the past few years diligently trying to repair the legacy of the symbol on his chest that he prided himself on, and though there were still many people who feared the crest he carried, there were some noticeable number of the Earth’s population that were beginning to accept his earnest efforts for heroism as truth. From his estimation, it was a rough Sixty / Forty split with people still mistrusting him leading the polls, but it was proof that his hard work and determination were not going unrewarded. No longer was the symbol of Superman that he wore with pride a weight on his shoulders or a burden to carry.

The past year alone had been an arduous trial, and though he was no longer on speaking terms with the friends and allies he once valued in the Time Patrol, he was sure of his cause and had no desire or intention to stray from this course. The world needed a Superman, and he was finally beginning to see himself as the worthy successor to that role. His heart and his soul were united and after difficult challenges, he no longer resented the Saiyan blood in his veins and had set himself along the course to be his own kind of Superman. He was taking pride in himself - all of himself, and in doing so was rapidly making progress to being the Superman this new world needed. And though he had parted ways with former comrades, he wasn’t alone. The Hall of Justice was nearly repaired, and his new allies, though few in number, were people he regarded with the utmost respect and appreciated for sharing his belief in the cause.

The communicator nestled in his ear beeped to alert him of an incoming transmission as he turned wide while riding the air currents to glide between two tall buildings. Wukong Town was a decently sized commune, more of a small city really. The hustle and bustle down below of street life and people going about their business was something he kept his attention primed to in case he needed to respond as he let his right hand press against the communicator and let the other end of the line to open up for him. On the other end, a voice called out for him to listen.

Green Lantern: “Supes! Buddy! Listen, I know you’re out on patrol, but seriously. Hear me out! We deserve to call ourselves the Justice League! Bro, come on! We cannot call ourselves the Justice Crew!”

Sparga sighed and tried to keep his expression from shifting to annoyance, even though the man on the other end of the line wasn’t present to witness his features drooping. It felt like this conversation happened three or four times a week and there was really no end in sight to it.

Sparga: “Miso, we’ve had this talk already. There’s not enough of us to justify calling ourselves a ‘League.’ And does it really matter what we call ourselves?”

The Green Lantern recruit, Miso, was probably making a face himself right now as he all but yelled in uproar directly into Sparga’s ear, causing the hero to wince and jolt his head to the side. He almost instinctively ripped his earpiece out just to prevent the noise from damaging his eardrum as he grimaced at the more than spirited response.

Miso: “Bro! Come on! Of course it matters! And before you say a word, I’ve already vetoed Justice Gang. I’ll be caught dead in a ditch before I’m part of a group with a name that dorky.”

Sparga: “Oh, look at that, a robbery. I’m sure Braiselle wants to hear more about this, though! Gotta go, duty calls!”

Miso: “Don’t you hang up on me, bro!”

The release of the button on his communicator ended the transmission as Sparga began a swift dive toward the streets below, toward the purse snatche,r where he yanked him up by his collar and tossed him up a few feet off the ground so he could catch the purse first and then the robber. His speed was leisurely for him, but more than quick enough for an ordinary man to be overtaken as he held the man over his shoulder before gliding back to the woman and holding his arm out to offer her her belongings back. The man struggled for a bit, but against the Superman’s firm grip, found himself trapped with an ease that bordered on insulting if it weren’t for who was restraining him. And as he offered the woman her purse back, Sparga wore a gentle and sincere smile, his dark brown eyes catching the light of the afternoon sun to gently glow a warm tone full of kindness and honesty.

Sparga: “Sorry about him, miss. Hope I didn’t give you a fright. Here’s your purse.”

 

[Majin]

Listen & Read
In a distant timeline, long past saving, a ruined city smoldered beneath a dying sky. On the horizon stood a lone silhouette, motionless amid the scattered corpses of heroes and villains alike. One foot rested on a man’s chest as a green ring levitated away from them. Steel and stone lay twisted around him, and the air still hummed with the residue of violence. His figure was shrouded in darkness, yet it pulsed with a sinister energy that seemed almost alive. Scarlet smoke lingered and coiled from his eyes, drifting upward in thin, venomous strands. He slowly opened and closed his fist in a steady rhythm, the sound of bone and sinew tightening breaking the heavy silence. It was not idle movement. It was deliberate. Measured. As if he were testing the limits of a newfound strength, power bestowed by some eternal, unknowable source.


“Impressive,” a feminine voice echoed across the wasteland.


A red skinned woman approached him without hesitation, her steps calm, unhurried, untouched by fear. There was pride in her tone, quiet but unmistakable. “Now you are ready,” she continued. The woman raised her hand, and a time portal unraveled in the sky above them. In the same breath, she disappeared. The dark silhouette offered no response. Not a word. Not even the slightest shift in posture. He remained facing forward, eyes fixed on the shattered horizon. In the distance, broken signs and collapsed structures bore the physical scars of energy blasts, entire sections of the city erased in violent bursts of power.

The Conqueror's flight

Without warning.


He lowered himself slowly, controlled, until one knee bent and his fist pressed into the blood soaked earth. The puddles of the fallen spread beneath his knuckles, staining his skin as though the battlefield itself were anointing him. His head dipped. His shoulders rolled forward. Breath drew in once, deep and absolute.


The ground trembled.


Pebbles began to rattle first, skittering across cracked pavement. Then stones lifted. Chunks of broken concrete tore free from the street. Even the dust rose, spiraling around him in tightening rings. The air thickened with pressure, humming with a force that bent outward from his body. His muscles coiled like a spring drawn to its final limit. Every fiber in him tightened at once, tendons straining, spine aligned, power compressing into a single violent point. The earth beneath his fist fractured, spiderweb cracks racing outward in jagged lines.


For a heartbeat, everything went still.

Then the release came.

The ground detonated beneath him as he launched upward, a thunderclap splitting the ruined city in two. Shockwaves blasted outward, shattering what little glass remained and flattening debris in a violent ring. He did not stumble or arc wildly. He cut through the sky with absolute power, body aligned, one arm forward as if parting the heavens themselves. Dust and rubble chased his ascent in a spiraling vortex before being left behind. The portal above churned with crimson light, and he pierced it without hesitation, vanishing into its depths like a spear hurled by a god.
​

The destruction before him was not an ending.
It was proof.

His destination was not escape.
​

Not conquest.
Conquest had already been proven.​

This was something far more intimate.


The erasure of Xeno Superman.
Before the symbol ever had a chance to rise.

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[Sparga]

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As he held his outstretched hand in offering to return her purse to her, the Superman’s smile prolonged itself and held in place without failure - a practiced gesture honed from spending the past few years expressing and improving his disposition to appear more amiable and approachable to people who might be afraid of him. He was, after all, an admittedly odd sight; Tall at 5’11”, but his thick lion’s mane of spikey and wild hair that simultaneously stood on end and cascaded down past his waistline gave volume to his silhouette that made him appear much larger and bearing a physique of chisled musculature that would make even a Greek God envious. And his furry, prehensile tail swayed lazily behind him as his dark brown eyes held the light as he waited patiently for the woman to retrieve her purse from his grasp. She stared at him, hesitating for a moment before slowly clasping her hands around the leather satchel and nodding in thanks before running off to return to her business in the hopes of finishing her day unbothered any further.

But when her fingers brushed against his own to take hold of her belongings, the ring adorning his right hand began to glow softly, faintly, and almost imperceptibly to anyone not paying attention to it. He certainly wasn’t. So when the ring glimmered around his index finger, Sparga wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

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A flash of incandescence burned through his gaze, blinding him momentarily in a wash of white before he could shield his eyes from the luminosity that burned his retina to bring him to wince sharply and without warning. And when the light faded, the world around him was vastly different. The acrid smell of smoke pluming out of craters that were once sturdy and unbroken buildings filled his lungs as the Saiyan Kryptonian hybrid was greeted by the sight of the town around him reduced to a smouldering ruin. Flames gone cold sputtered and gasped for air to linger and cling to life and recreate their blaze before burning out around him. Concrete and asphalt that were once whole were splintered into fragmented debris that had been blasted all around and scattered in every direction. What once were towering skyscrapers that pierced the clouds to assert the ingenuity of man were toppled and leaning, ready to crumble under their own weight when the right breeze might push into that final, gentle shove.

And most prominently in his awareness was another scent filling the air, thicker than that of the smoke and flame choking the skies above. The scent of blood permeated with the feeling that great violence had been done here, a residual sensation that vibrated in the air in a way that only those who spent their lives committed to martial training like he had could perceive.

But this didn’t make sense. He was just standing in Wukong Town, and his sharp and ever-vigilant preternatural awareness would have detected some threat. It always did. Sparga kept his wits sharp at all times to prevent disasters like this from happening.

So what happened? How did this slip past him? How could he have allowed this to unfold?

Sparga: “... What the hell?”

He stood alone in the craterous ruins of the city around him, shook and stupefied at what he was seeing. But then he heard someone call him, a voice that was so close and so present that it was practically right in front of him. Sparga blinked back from his shock and looked down, seeing the woman with her hands on her bag still, waiting for him.

Woman: “... Sir? Mister Superman? Can you… please let go of my bag now?”

And in an instant, he was back.

The world around him suddenly and sharply returned back to where he left it. Sparga was once again rattled by the sight as he slowly and dumbly let go of the woman’s handbag so she could press it to her chest and run away, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder back at him.

He watched her retreating form turn a corner and out of his line of sight, still processing what he had witnessed. Only moments ago, or at least what felt like moments, he was surrounded by a silent ruin that only had its stillness broken by the crackle of dying embers. Shattered streets upturned and tossed over onto themselves like something angry and stronger than words could convey had rampaged through. And to suddenly be back to reality, where people were safe and unharmed, and the cacophony of city living in all its noisy splendor was more than a little jarring for even a man who threw himself into dangerous environments to prevent calamity. The sounds of a dog barking nearby as it reacted to passersby whose footsteps echoed against the pavement and the alarm of car horns blaring was proof enough that the city and its inhabitants were unharmed.

So what the hell did he just see?

Movement against his frame rattled him and he nearly jolted with a start until he remembered that the purse thief was still slung over his shoulder and struggling to break free. Right, he thought to himself. Finish this first, then worry about it.

He hastily dropped the runner off into the custody of the nearest officer and explained the situation before letting his altitude gently rise back up to level with the city skyline. Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, he kept seeing hints of devastation and destruction. But every time he shifted his direction to face it and race off to offer aid, reality returned to normal in his view and greet him with the sight of the city whole and intact. He hovered in place, brow knotting into a tense furrow as tension began to accumulate in his hackle-raised shoulders.

His hand lifted back up to the communicator hidden in his ear so he could make the call, and he slowly spoke, his voice full of anxiety. He was trying to brush it off, but he couldn’t help but be bothered by this glitch in his vision that always disappeared whenever he tried to focus back on it. Something was wrong, and he wasn’t sure how, but he knew he needed to be ready. Superman always needed to be ready.

Sparga: “... Hey, Braiselle? Let’s not let Lantern make the coffee anymore, alright? I think the caffeine is getting to me… ”

 

[Sparga]

Due to mutual agreement between participants, this thread will be temporarily closed until further notice.

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