The male figure was bald, his uniform etched with strange black patterns that gave off an immediate warning to stay away.
The woman beside him wore a form‑fitting dark grey and black suit with armored bracers and chest plating. A fevered chill glimmered in her eyes beneath her long hair.
"Please, please don't hurt me!"
Lana Lang, badly injured and covered in specks of blood, backed away frantically, believing they might be "evil aliens."
Before the woman's outstretched hand could grab Lana's neck, the thunder of helicopter rotors split the air.
Lana looked up, panic rising, to see not one but two military helicopters roaring toward them.
Moments later, military trucks and police vehicles screeched in behind them.
Almost instantly the air was filled with orders.
"Lie down! No resistance! On the ground immediately!"
Lana instantly complied, dropping to her knees as the soldiers encircled them.
But the two newcomers showed no sign of surrender.
With a sudden flare of heat‑ray from her eyes, the woman fired upward. A helicopter erupted in flames, spiraling downward to crash with a deafening boom.
The bald man, not to be outdone, unleashed his own heat‑vision on the second helicopter. It too was torn apart in mid‑air.
The battle erupted.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets tore from the soldiers' rifles in a relentless hail.
Yet the two figures did not dodge. Instead, they let the metal storm wash over them like raindrops.
Clink‑clank, bullets bounced off their armor with no effect.
Whoosh!
The woman blurred with super speed, appearing in an instant before a soldier behind a Humvee. With one savage punch, she sent him flying.
Before he landed, she moved again, eliminating every soldier near the vehicle in under a second.
Her eyes blazed as she lifted a Humvee and hurled it into a group of attackers. The explosion sent fire and dust rising like a tornado.
The male figure, eyes fixed on a machine gunner, surged forward with his own super speed. With one clean blow he sent the machine gun itself skidding dozens of meters away.
Then, using heat‑vision, he engulfed both the gunner and his vehicle in a blazing fireball.
Boom!
In an instant, nothing remained but ash.
Nearby, Lana watched the devastation in frozen terror. She dared not remain lying there — she slipped away quietly.
When the two warriors had cleared the battlefield and found no one left to fight, they noticed that Lana had vanished.
"Where did that girl go?" the woman asked, scanning the area with sharp eyes.
"She escaped," the bald man said, stepping away from the battlefield calmly, "but unimportant lives are not our objective. Our target is Kal‑El, not some Earth woman."
He turned and walked in the direction opposite from where Lana had fled.
Arctic Sanctuary
Meanwhile, far from the chaos, Clark Kent and Adrian had entered a cavernous space within an ice‑sculpted cathedral of frost.
Clark's eyes were wide with awe at the crystalline architecture. Snow and ice reflected everywhere, creating an otherworldly glow.
Adrian observed silently, a controlled intensity in his gaze, recalling fragments of Superman lore. This place must be the Fortress of Solitude — Superman's hidden sanctuary.
Clark's mouth hung slightly open in disbelief.
Without hesitation, Adrian stooped and snapped off two gleaming silvery icicles from the cavern floor. He handed one to Clark and kept the other.
"Ice Fortress," Clark whispered, awed by the vast space and elegant frozen chamber.
They walked toward a towering ice pillar at the center, ancient symbols carved into its surface.
Clark traced his fingers over the Kryptonian text, then stepped back.
"What is this place?" he asked.
"It is your Fortress," a familiar voice echoed across the chamber.
Jor‑El's voice came from the central pillar.
Clark didn't hesitate.
"What do you want from us? Adrian and I don't need training. Krypton is gone. The past doesn't matter anymore. I just want to go home."
Adrian watched Clark, his expression still but his posture firm.
Jor‑El's voice didn't waver.
"It is too late for retreat. The dark forces of Krypton have awakened, and they have arrived on Earth. They will bring destruction and slaughter. If you are to stop them, only you can."
Clark clenched his fists.
"I don't need this!"
Adrian, who had been silent, finally spoke.
"You know I'm not your son," he said bluntly to Jor‑El, his voice cold and direct. "I don't think this place matters to me. I have no interest in your training."
Adrian believed, with chilling certainty, that his template was closer to Homelander — a being unbound by old Kryptonian doctrine, who did not owe fealty to destiny or fate.
Jor‑El's voice seemed to shimmer with an impersonal logic.
"You have always sought to defy fate," he said. "You think you know your origin, that your power is divine. But to see this world only with your perspective shows how small you remain. If you are to grow beyond your limits, you must understand true purpose."
Adrian's brow lifted, unimpressed.
"So I have no purpose unless someone tells me I do?"
Jor‑El continued without emotion.
"You question because you do not understand. You were not born Earthling, your history is not written here. Your blood binds you to Krypton. Though you deny the connection, Krypton is your home."
Clark watched this exchange with unease.
"You and Adrian are the hope of Krypton's continuation," Jor‑El continued. "One who protects and one who is protected. Hope lies not in purity, but in the meaning of protection."
Adrian scoffed.
"Your idea of hope is amusing," he said. "I thought you'd teach Clark to conquer the world or force destiny upon him. This sermon is different, but it's still rooted in your dogma."
Jor‑El's voice remained steady.
"If your interpretation of freedom is narrow, then your understanding cannot encompass purpose."
And then, abruptly, two beams of light shot down from the high dome above them.
They wrapped around Clark and Adrian, and an invisible storm erupted — a gale of energy sweeping throughout the Fortress.
Adrian felt roots of ice and wind grab him, freezing his body with a cold that pierced even his usual resistance.
Something was wrong.
Despite his known cold tolerance, this chill struck him to the core.
His body grew weak.
At the same time, torrents of knowledge flooded into his mind — overwhelming fragments of Krypton's history, language, mythology, art, politics, and civilization.
His head spun under the weight of it all.
Clark writhed beside him, crying out in pain.
"Adrian Kent," Jor‑El's voice echoed in their minds, "I bestow upon you a name. Do you accept?"
"No!" Adrian yelled instinctively.
A cold dismissal, unyielding.
Jor‑El answered without hesitation.
"This knowledge is not meant to harm you. I only offer the secrets locked within Krypton's past and future. Your brain is capable of receiving all of it."
The flood of information did not stop. Hidden truths, unknown even to Kryptonian archives, poured in — including whispered data about Doomsday, a living Kryptonian weapon.
Adrian felt his mind stretch under the load, seeing every corner of Kryptonian history.
This was beyond power — it felt like ancestral memory.
Time lost meaning, until finally the painful torrent ebbed.
Adrian blinked, disoriented, and walked outside the Fortress, where Arctic sunlight beat down on the jagged ice fields.
He exhaled slowly, eyes closed.
Kryptonian knowledge sparked strange resonance in his thoughts — ancient technology, lost cities, political intrigue, cultural history, science beyond Earth's understanding.
Then, with a surge of force, he shot into the sky.
Boom!
His acceleration cracked the sound barrier again and again.
He did not return to Earth — not yet.
His mastery over his own body increased with each passing second, his speed turning instinctive.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In a heartbeat, he pierced Earth's atmosphere and hovered above the Arctic.
He stared down at the snow‑capped world below, breathing in the thin cold air.
Memories, histories, secrets unfurled in his mind like ancient friezes.
Kryptonian civilization — powerful, beautiful, tragic — was burned into his awareness.
But it was not only knowledge. It was burden.
Knowledge could guide or destroy.
Power could elevate or crush.
Adrian stood in the thin upper air, cold hitting him through the suit.
He exhaled again before descending.
No destiny told him what to do — he would decide.
===
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