Chapter 11 - Cause and effect

A;N : Sorry y'all got burnt out yesterday due to nightmare which gave me no sleep so I was ditzy the whole day but I'm better now so here y'all go 💗 💋!!....

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A month had passed since Darkseid's invasion. The world was scarred, cities in ruins, and countless souls haunted by nightmares that refused to fade. Yet, the world was healing—and so were its people.

Metropolis rose from the ashes faster than anyone could have imagined, rebuilt in mere weeks through Superman's determination and the unrelenting charity of Wayne Enterprises. Lucian often mused bitterly at that—Wayne Enterprises, of course. It always came back to Wayne, didn't it?

But even as cities mended, the world itself was uneasy. Villains grew bold again, feeding on the fear of new extraterrestrial threats. Humanity now knew what awaited them beyond the stars, and that knowledge left the planet restless. The news was a constant stream of speculation—strange technologies discovered in fallen wreckage, sightings of alien dignitaries, whispers of more invasions to come. Superman wasn't spared from criticism either. "Poor boy scout," Lucian muttered one night, staring at yet another broadcast picking apart the Kryptonian's motives.

Despite his irritation, he couldn't help but notice how the world idolized its defenders. Heroes were celebrated, documentaries aired daily, and children wore capes and modeled themselves after them. Lucian's own hologrammed face often flashed across the screen, his so-called heroics dissected by glowing-eyed anchors and starstruck interviewers. "Prince Charming," they called him—a ridiculous moniker that made him wince every single time he heard it.

Bliss in the fact his true face wasn't captured other than seen by those that stayed near.

At his quiet countryside home, far from Metropolis's flashing towers, Lucian stared out into the fields that once smelled of wheat and rain. He couldn't stop thinking about his past—not the one of this world, but the one before it. A life built on tragedy and irony.

He had once been a broken man—paralyzed, bitter, and grieving after surviving a horrific accident that took his parents. The only survivor. The so-called "hero" who had saved a family from murderers, earning a civilian medal at the cost of everything he loved. His fiancée had left him soon after, unable to bear the future that awaited—a lifetime caring for someone she no longer saw as the same man. He didn't hate her for it. How could he? He was already hollow inside.

He used to dream of being someone noble, a savior of others. That dream took everything from him. The crash wasn't an accident—it was revenge. The surviving accomplices of the criminals he had stopped rammed into his family's car on a rainy night. His parents died instantly. His spine shattered. The irony burned deeper than any wound. For a medal. For honor. For saving lives that no longer cared to remember his name.

When the people he'd saved visited him at the hospital, they could barely meet his eyes. No tears, no apologies—just guilt and discomfort. And he understood that, too. He told them to leave, shouted that he never wanted to see them again. Not out of hatred, but mercy. He didn't want to chain them to his misery.

But that night, as he sat near the window wondering if the fall from it would finally end his suffering, the man in the bed beside him spoke.

"Do you regret it?" the stranger asked quietly.

Lucian hesitated, then whispered, "Yes… I do."

The man chuckled, a low, knowing sound. "No, you don't regret saving them. You regret the cost."

Lucian frowned. "What's the difference? It's all the same in the end."

"It's cause and effect," the man said, smiling with an almost divine calm. "And what if I told you that you could have another chance—a life where you could breathe, smile, maybe even have a family again?"

Lucian scoffed. "Another chance to fail? Another curse? No thanks."

The man ignored him and murmured a strange rhyme he never understood:

"Man revels in the glory of God, but God admires the tenacity of man.

Strife caught glory, glory besets pride."

Then came the light. A blinding flash—and when Lucian opened his eyes, he was no longer in a hospital bed. He was in a pod, hurtling through space, his body younger, stronger... and alien.

When he crawled from the wreckage, he realized he wasn't on Planet Vegeta, but on Sadala—a world of Saiyans, yes, but nothing like the ones from the stories. They weren't conquerors. They were protectors, warriors for justice. Still, their sun betrayed them, burning too hot and dooming their world.

Lucian had been an orphan there too, weak and unremarkable. But an older warrior took pity on him and sent him away before Sadala perished—sent him to Earth not to fight, but to live.

When he arrived, Earth was already in chaos. Superman flew across the sky, Batman hunted criminals in the night, and the world trembled under the shadow of gods and monsters. Lucian was taken in by Frank and Melissa Harper, an elderly couple in their sixties who found him collapsed beside their barn.

Frank was a tall man with weathered hands, the kind that told stories of hard work and broken tractors. He laughed often, a warm sound that filled their small house. Melissa had gentle eyes and always smelled faintly of cinnamon; she wrapped him in a blanket, fed him soup, and called him "son" before the week was through.

"You're a strange one, boy," Frank used to say, puffing on his old pipe while the sun dipped below the wheat fields. "But you've got good hands. Hands that can build or break, depending on the heart behind them."

Melissa would chuckle and swat her husband's arm. "Don't scare him, Frank. He needs comfort, not your old war philosophy."

Frank only smiled. "World needs both, Mel. Comfort and steel."

Those years were brief but precious—more family than Lucian had ever known. When they passed away, he buried them beneath the oak tree overlooking the field, the same tree under which they used to sit every evening and hum old songs. He sold the barn afterward, using their last wish to build a quiet home nearby. A life.

For a while, he thought peace had finally found him. But fate never let him rest.

When Darkseid came, the world burned again. He didn't want to fight—not anymore. But when he saw a terrified little girl being dragged away amidst the chaos, he couldn't just turn away.

"Please," she had whispered, trembling in the dirt. "Save me, Mister."

"Emily," he would later learn her name was. And in that moment, Lucian knew—he didn't fight for glory, or fame, or redemption. He fought because she asked him to.

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