trans_9 | It's The Final Countdown

Time was running out. He didn't have time to deal with these pests. His mighty fists rained punishing blows on the Grunts, Tanks that tried to run into him were stopped dead in their tracks by his might, and despite the attacks from the firebugs and shrikes tearing into him, he didn't let it stop him.

He couldn't stop. Not now. The whole multiverse was at stake!

Precious minutes passed despite his best efforts, and now the greatest hurdle of all leaped into the fray.

The Ohm known as "The Behemoth" stood between Superman and his goal, all thirty feet of him, and tried to bash the Man of Steel down into the dirt.

Superman grunted as the Behemoth's attack connected with him as he caught it, mighty muscles straining to prevent him from being pummeled.

"Why? Why do all this? What do you have to gain for all of this death an destruction?!" he shouted, punching the arms away.

The general simply hissed, tilting its head, as it grappled with Superman.

Superman isn't sure if he's listening or can even speak. For all he knows, it's less Darkseid and more Doomsday, nothing more than mindless beasts who know nothing but destruction. Except the stuff that they've been bringing out aren't exactly examples of poor intelligence.

He had to keep him off balance, at least long enough to stop the weapon. With that, he unleashed a burst of heat vision, hoping to stagger him long enough to escape.

The Ohm took the blast full on in the face--but its carapace kept the heatvision from burning through and it refused to let go, trying to crush Superman's hands in its own.

Behind it, the weapon was charging, the beam end starting to light up.

Time was almost up!

No more time. Do or die. There was only one thing he can do now.

"Alright, you monster! If I can't go through you, then I'm taking you to it!" Superman shouted. Using all of his strength, he started pushing the creature through flight, intending on building up enough steam to run into the weapon and take it out together.

"No more innocents dies today! I DRAW THE LINE HERE! The Ohm's reign of terror stops NOW!"

The general was strong but it couldn't fly.

The weapon charged.

The two catapulted through the air, building up to a ridiculously fast speed.

The shields which recognized the general's presence and allowed small organics inside failed to stop the two figures careening towards the firewurm.

When the two hit, going through vital components, there was no reaction for the first few second.

Then there was an explosion that was nearly blinding, that shook the entire evac point, and send cracks in the ground in all directions.

When the light died down, and the fires started to burn lower, the firewurm was in pieces.

It was done.

Across the wreckage of the battlefield flew two distraught souls, trying to find Superman--or his body--in the wreckage. They had very little time to do it or their own lives were forfeit, but that didn't seem to matter to them.

"Kal!" Superboy called out, roaring over the noise of the crackling fires scattered around. "Kal! Where are you?!"

Kara was only a few feet to Kon's left, her eyes surveying the wreckage. She called on all of the powers she could muster - X-Ray vision, super-hearing - to find her cousin. "Kal!" she called out, in unison with Kon. "Kal, please answer!"

And amongst the fire, the carnage, the bloodshed...

...was Superman. Barely alive, just hanging on, his legendary uniform in tatters and the plantsuit underneath was all but dead. It was a miracle his body was still intact, though he certainly looked worst for the wear.

"...Kon..." he whispered, hoarsely. "...Kara..."

"Kal!"

He zipped to Superman's side.

"Oh--oh no."

Superboy had seen people mangled before--even tried to put some of them back together. The war with Imperiex had been rought like that, and being in the Paradocs had been no picnic even though they weren't on the front lines.

It was different seeing his cousin this way, different seeing the Man of Steel hurt so badly.

Now he knew what it felt like, to be the one looking down at the loved one who was mangled, and all he could think at first was how he'd have given anything to never have switched places.

"Just--hang on, okay? You're going to be fine. I still gotta give you your cape back, right?" Frantically, working desperately to still the shaking of his hands, he opened his medkit.

"Kara, I need your hands. We have to get him stable enough to move him. You need to do everything I say."

"Gotcha," Kara said, nodding her head. She pushed her emotions to the back of her mind, compartmentalizing them, the way that the Amazons on Themyscira had shown her how to when on the battlefield. It wasn't a technique she particularly liked using - Kara liked her emotions and generally found deep reserves of strength within them - but she needed to be strong for Kon.

More importantly, she needed to be strong for Kal. Still, she swiftly pressed a kiss to Kal's forehead before following Kon's orders. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

Slowly, Kal shook his head, trying to get them to stop.

"No... it's too late. The radiation's too much..." he said. "You two... it's up to you now. I've gone as far as I can... it's up to you to keep going."

It hurt. It really did hurt, but he had to keep talking.

"You need to be the inspiration... for the kids... for those who doubt... they need to see that there's still hope..." He could rattle off a few names amongst those - Sherry, Sasami, Fletcher, Howard, Steve - and that was just the crew.

When he scanned Kal with his X-ray vision, his heart nearly snapped clean in half, but he didn't let his expression change.

"Put some pressure here," he instructed Kara. "And don't touch--don't touch the shrapnel. If we take it out, he'll just bleed out."

He was already bleeding out. Kon's hand was already soaked in blood as he dug around for a hypospray. He pulled off the cover over the nozzle with his teeth and spat it off to the side then injected it into Kal's upper arm.

"No pithy inspirational death speeches today, Kal. You're not dying. You're not allowed."

If only it could be that simple. If only there weren't cuts and burns and broken bones, and internal bleeding and radiation and--

Tears had finally started to pour down his face, unbidden, obscuring his vision. He shrugged his head against his upper arm to clear his vision as he worked.

"You can't go. We need you."

He hated how he sounded like a child, but he couldn't help it.

One look at Kon, and Kara was on the verge of losing it. She called upon her heat vision again to keep her tears at bay as she put pressure where Kon had instructed her to. The great thing was, given Kal's strength, Kara didn't need to hold back the way she'd need to with, say, Julian if he wasn't using his telekinesis.

She closed her eyes. "You're too young to die, and you know it," Kara said, trying to find strength in her voice. "Bruce wouldn't accept this. Neither would Diana," she continued. "And Lois..." she closed her eyes even more tightly. "Kal. You need to get past this. I can't... There's so much I need to tell you, so much you need to know." A tear, unbidden, streamed out from the corner of her left eye. "You need to be here when he save everything and bring our worlds back."

Bruce. Diana. Lois. God, part of him wanted them to be here, too.

"I will be here when you save everything... but, not like this." Kal said. "It's not over. It's never over." He could feel his strength fading fast.

"It's not over. Everyone's waiting for us. I've made it this far... now... it's your turn. Please, don't disappoint me..."

"Kal, don't you dare! Don't you dare!"

Words failed her at that moment. Instead, Kara put her head over the hands which were still applying pressure to Kal, body-wracking sobs at war with her superhumanly strong body.

"Kon. Kara. Lois..."

"...I'll be there..."

With that, the last of Kal's strength gave way, his body growing limp in their touches. There wouldn't be an Eradicator to save him or a Healing Matrix to heal him.

To save a universe, to give the crew a fighting chance.

Superman died to save them all.

"No!" Kon cried out as if mortally wounded himself. "No!"

Then all Kon could do was sob, bowed over his body.

Kara felt Kal's final breath, felt his body go limp as life left him. She cried an anguished, strangled cry.

Breathe. Compartmentalize. Mourn later. That's what Artemis would tell her to do. That's what Phillipus would tell her to do. Perhaps not Diana, but Diana was nothing if not compassionate.

She raised her head and stared at Kal's still body. With a shaky breath, she reached over and gently closed his eyes.

"Rao be with you," she whispered.

There was the sound of something collapsing in on itself, of air sucking into an empty space, and suddenly, there was a massive man (http://i56.tinypic.com/2wgerk8.png) standing near them, where no one had been a moment before. He was wearing some sort of high-tech armor, yet despite its bulkiness, he seemed to be able to move quickly and with a great deal of agility, as if it didn't bother him at all to have to carry the weight of it around.

He waved briefly with an armored hand.

"Hi!" he said brightly, in a voice that echoed strangely because of the armor, but otherwise sounded perfectly amicable. He sounded like a cheerful neighbor asking for a cup of sugar, or someone's best friend asking about their day. "The name's Nemo. I know you've had a bad day already, but I'm here to %#&% up your $&@%."

With that, he kicked Superboy in the face so hard they could hear his nose crack, sending him skidding off into the dirt, gushing blood everywhere.

This of all times, was not the time to mess with Kara Zor-El's family. "Yeah?" She sneered, her eyes flaring red, her breath coming out icy, and the ground under her feet cracking as her heels dug into them. "Your day's about to get a lot worse too, you Rao-damned babootch!" She was a blur of plantsuit, red, and gold then as she moved to strike the massive man, letting loose both her heat vision and arctic breath.

There was the sound of air sucking into an empty space again, and then Nemo was out of the way of her ice breath and heatvision and behind her, grabbing her by a handful of blonde hair and throwing her at Superboy, who was just climbing to his feet and was knocked off them again by his cousin slamming into him.

"'Babootch'? Really? This is the best insult your tiny brain can come up with? That's a few letters away from calling me your sweet baboo."

He looked thoughtful. "Then again, you are a blonde. Not much going on upstairs is there."

He conked himself on the armored helmet a few times.

"If you were really smart enough--or strong enough--you could have saved your cousin, after all."

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