The sky above the ruins of Vought Tower was black with smoke. Fires still burned in the lower floors, licking out of shattered windows like orange tongues tasting the air. The plaza was empty. Evacuated. The barricades lay twisted where the crowd had fled.
Superman descended through the smoke.
His cape was torn at the edge. His jaw was still bruised from the punch two days ago. But his eyes were clear and his hands were steady. Below him, standing in the crater of his own making, Homelander waited.
"You came back," Homelander said. His voice carried across the empty plaza. No crowd to perform for now. No cameras he controlled. Just the two of them.
" I will show I am god, not you! Not you! Nobody can defeat me " ." Homelander's lip curled.
Clark touched down on the broken concrete. "I'm not here to fight you."
"Then why are you here?"
"To give you one last chance. Surrender. The labs are exposed. The children are safe. Vought is finished. But you don't have to be."
" Are you joking? "
Homelander stared at him. For a moment, something flickered behind his eyes. Not conscience. Not remorse. Confusion. As if the concept of surrender was a language he had never learned.
"Surrender," he repeated. "To you."
"To justice."
"There is no justice." Homelander's voice went cold. "There is only power. And I have more of it than anyone on this planet."
He fired his heat vision.
The beams hit Clark square in the chest. The impact drove him backward, heels gouging trenches through the concrete, cape smoking. He crossed his arms, deflected the beams upward, and the sky burned red.
"You feel that?" Homelander shouted over the roar of his own fire. "That's what I am. Not a hero. Not a symbol. Power. Pure power."
Clark's feet found purchase. He pushed forward. Step by step. Through the beams. Through the heat. His suit was burning at the edges. His skin was glowing dull red. But he walked.
"Stop," Clark said.
Homelander's eyes went wider. The beams intensified. The concrete around Clark liquefied into glass. The air itself ignited.
Clark kept walking.
---
The Watchtower tactical channel lit up simultaneously.
"All League members, engage targets. Now."
Diana's voice was ice. She was already airborne, dropping toward the Staten Island waterfront where The Deep had barricaded himself in an aquarium. Barry was running toward the Hudson Valley where Black Noir had been tracked by satellite. Oliver and John were converging on the Vought executive bunker in Connecticut.
Maeve had surrendered an hour ago. She had walked into the League's temporary command post in Manhattan, unarmed, hands raised, Starlight had followed ten minutes later.
That left four.
---
Diana crashed through the aquarium roof. Glass shattered. Water erupted. The Deep was in the central tank, surrounded by sharks, his gills flaring.
"You think I'm afraid of an Amazon?" he shouted.
"I think you should be."
He sent the sharks at her. She didn't draw her sword. Her fists were enough. The first shark she redirected with a flat palm to the snout. The second she sidestepped and tapped behind the gills. The third she caught by the dorsal fin and guided into a spiraling turn until it swam away confused.
The Deep's face fell. "That's not possible."
"Your understanding of what is possible is very limited."
She closed the distance in two heartbeats. Her fist connected with his jaw. He hit the tank glass, cracked it, and slid unconscious into the water.
"Target down."
---
Barry found Black Noir in an empty warehouse. The silent hero stood in the center of the dust and shadows, twin blades drawn.
Barry circled him at half speed. "You don't have to do this."
Black Noir tilted his head. No words. No sound.
"You know what Vought did to those kids. You know it was wrong."
Nothing.
"Okay. Have it your way."
Barry accelerated to full speed. Black Noir's blades sliced the air where Barry had been a millisecond before. Barry was already behind him, already hitting him, already gone and hitting again. Dozens of impacts in the space of a breath. Black Noir staggered but didn't fall. His healing factor was vicious. His silence was absolute.
"Who are you?" Barry asked, circling. "What did they make you into?"
Black Noir threw a blade. It embedded in the wall six inches from Barry's head. Barry caught the second one midair, reversed it, and drove the hilt into Black Noir's temple. The mute hero crumpled.
Barry stood over him, breathing hard. "You could have talked to me."
---
Oliver and John hit the executive bunker with precision. Oliver's arrows disabled the security turrets. John's constructs tore the blast doors open. Inside, seventeen executives sat around a long table, mid-crisis meeting, faces pale as the green light flooded their sanctuary.
"The United States government will not tolerate—"
"Shut up," Oliver said. He nocked an arrow. "You experimented on children. You sold weapons to terrorists. You framed a dead girl as a murderer. You don't get to talk about what the government will tolerate."
John's ring flared. "You're all under arrest. International Criminal Court jurisdiction. League authority."
"We have lawyers."
"We have evidence."
The executives looked at each other. One by one, they raised their hands.
---
Homelander threw a punch that could have shattered a mountain. Clark caught it. The shockwave flattened the remaining walls of Vought Tower. Glass and steel rained down for twelve blocks. The crater deepened.
"I hate you," Homelander snarled. "I will not defeat here, i am hero ." He threw another punch. Clark caught that one too. "You are no hero! "
Homelander screamed — a raw, ragged sound — and unleashed a flurry of blows. Clark blocked the first five. The sixth hit his ribs. The seventh hit his shoulder. The eighth he caught and used to twist Homelander off balance, driving him into the crater floor. Concrete shattered further. The underground parking structure collapsed beneath them. They fell together, grappling, into the dark.
Clark landed on top. His hands pinned Homelander's shoulders. His eyes were inches away.
"Stay down."
"No."
"Stay down."
"Never."
Homelander's heat vision flared. Clark took it point-blank in the face. His skin sizzled. He didn't blink. He didn't look away. He took the fire and waited until Homelander's supply exhausted itself, until the beams flickered and died and all that was left was a man with nothing left to throw.
"It's over," Clark said.
Homelander went limp. His eyes closed. His breathing was ragged. The fight had drained him. The truth had drained him more.
Clark stood. Pulled the man from the rubble. Carried him up through the layers of broken city until they emerged into the grey afternoon light.
The plaza was filled with League members. Diana, sword still sheathed. Barry, suit smoking. Oliver, bow slung. John, ring at low glow. The captured members of the Seven — Maeve in cuffs she had requested herself, Starlight standing free but guarded, The Deep unconscious, Black Noir silent — waited at the edge of the crater.
Bruce's voice came through the comm, cold and absolute.
"Clark. Kill him."
---
The connection hissed with silence.
"Repeat. Kill him. Now. Before he wakes up."
Clark looked at Homelander in his arms. The face was slack. The cape was tattered. He looked smaller than he had on television. Smaller than he had in the plaza. Smaller than he had ever looked before.
"No."
"He killed civilians. He framed an innocent woman. He attacked you in public. He will never stop. You know he will never stop."
"I know."
"Then end it."
Diana stepped forward. Her hand moved to her sword. The blade came free with a sound like silk tearing.
"I'll do it, Clark."
"Diana—"
"You shouldn't have to carry this. I've killed before. In war. In necessity. This is necessity."
She raised the sword. The sky caught the edge and made it white. Homelander's chest was exposed. One strike. Clean. The threat would be gone.
Clark caught her wrist.
"Please," he said. "Please don't do this."
"He's a monster."
"He's a victim. He was made in a laboratory. He never had a chance."
"That doesn't excuse what he did."
"No. It doesn't. But if we kill him now, unarmed and unconscious, we become something else. We become the thing he always said we were. We become executioners."
Diana's eyes searched his face. Her sword arm trembled — not with weakness, with restraint.
"If he wakes up—"
"Then I'll stop him again. As many times as it takes. But I won't kill him. Not like this. Not because we're afraid of what he might do."
Bruce's voice cut through. "Clark. This is not idealism. This is naivety. He will escape. He will kill again. And those deaths will be on your hands."
" I.. i dont know"
Diana lowered the sword. Slowly. Reluctantly. She sheathed it with a click that echoed across the silent plaza.
---
The laugh started low. Wet. Wrong.
Homelander's body convulsed. Clark dropped him, stepped back. The man on the ground arched his spine, mouth opening, and the laugh poured out like oil from a cracked drum.
The eyes opened.
Black. Solid black. No iris. No pupil. No white. Just darkness.
"At last," Homelander said, but the voice was not his. It was layered. A chorus. Older voices beneath the surface. "At last. A perfect body."
Clark's heat vision flared instinctively. Homelander — the thing inside Homelander — caught the beams on his chest and laughed louder.
"Your fire doesn't burn me, Kryptonian. I am not the man you were fighting. I am something far, far older."
"Who are you?"
The black-eyed thing rose. The posture was different. The movements were different. Homelander had been arrogant, performative, desperate to be seen. This was something else. Calm. Assured. Eternal.
"I have been called many names. Azazel. The Yellow-Eyed master. The one who made a deal with Vought's founders sixty years ago. The one whose blood runs in this body you were too weak to kill."
Clark stepped between the demon and the other League members. Diana drew her sword again.
"You won't leave this plaza," Clark said.
"Won't I?"
The demon raised Homelander's hand. Black smoke poured from the palm, twisting into shapes — wolves, snakes, screaming faces. The smoke spread across the plaza, and the captured members of the Seven began to convulse. A-Train's eyes snapped open, black. The Deep rose from unconsciousness, black. Black Noir's silent mouth opened wide and black smoke poured out.
"An army," Azazel said. "From the bodies your enemies left behind. You should have killed them, Superman. Now they are mine."