CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - WILLIAM

William Manton flinched as Superman tore the van door away like paper. Light flooded the dim, grimy interior, illuminating the sweat dripping from Manton’s brow and the terror etched into every line of his face. His breathing hitched as Superman stepped closer, towering over him like some inevitable force of nature.

The tether to the Siberian surged with fury and desperation. She roared in the distance, already sprinting toward them. Manton felt her hunger, her rage, her drive to protect him. But it wasn’t enough. Not against him.

She was too slow.

Superman’s eyes narrowed as he reached out and grabbed William by the collar, pulling him out of the van as if he weighed nothing. The researcher flailed, his hands instinctively reaching for Superman’s wrist, but there was no escape from the iron grip.

“You’ve done enough,” Superman said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. 

The Siberian was almost upon them, her claws outstretched, her expression a mask of primal rage. Superman’s eyes shone red—blinding, searing. For a moment, Manton’s connection to the Siberian burned brighter than ever before, a cacophony of raw power surging through him. And then… nothing.

William gasped, his body convulsing as if the air had been ripped from his lungs. The absence was immediate and total, like a limb severed without warning. He crumpled to the ground, clutching at his chest, his breath hitching in uneven gasps as his hand reached instinctively to his temple. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.

The Siberian—his beautiful masterpiece, his perfection—flickered, destabilized, and then her black-and-white stripes faded to nothingness as though erased by an unseen hand.

“No,” William muttered, his voice trembling. “No, no, no!”

“You were never invincible. You hid behind her power, but you don’t get to hurt anyone else again.”

William’s mind raced to understand what had just happened, while his hands clawed at the ground as he dragged himself forward—reaching out to the Siberian, willing her to return, begging her to reform and envelop him in her protective embrace. But there was nothing—only silence, an emptiness where her presence had always been.

“What did you do?!” he screamed, his voice cracking and body trembling. “What did you do?”

Superman’s expression was unreadable. “I scanned your brain for abnormalities,” his tone carried neither malice nor triumph. “And when I found them, I cut them out. You’re done, Manton. The Siberian is gone.”

“What?”

“Heat vision. Focused through your pupils like a scalpel. Instant lobotomy.”

“No…” Manton whispered, shaking his head violently as if denial could reverse what had been done. His hands gripped the sides of his skull, fingernails digging into his scalp. “No, you don’t understand! She’s all I had left!”

Superman stopped a few feet away, his cape billowing behind him, his shadow casting over the broken man. “I understand more than you think,” he said quietly. “But this ends now.”

“She’s my daughter!” Manton’s voice rose to a shriek, raw and filled with anguish. Tears streamed down his face as he crumpled forward, pressing his forehead to the ground. “You’ve taken her from me!”

Superman’s eyes softened, but he didn’t step closer. “Your daughter deserved better than what you turned her into.”

Manton’s breath hitched, his shoulders trembling. The memory of his daughter flashed in his mind—a young girl with a shy smile and wide, trusting eyes. The day he gave her the vial. The day he ruined her. The day she became the ghost haunting his every waking moment.

“You don’t understand!” Manton howled, slamming his fists into the ground. “She’s dead! She’s dead, and the Siberian was all I had left of her! She was—she was perfect!” His voice broke into a sob, raw and guttural.

Superman didn’t respond immediately, allowing Manton’s cries to echo into the empty air. When he finally spoke, his words were firm.

“You’ve caused nothing but pain, Manton. To yourself. To others. To your daughter’s memory. The Siberian wasn’t her—it was your obsession, your grief turned into something monstrous. You twisted her into a weapon, and it’s time to let her go.”

Manton’s hands fell limp to his sides, his body shaking with quiet sobs. The truth in Superman’s words pierced him deeper than any shard of glass ever could. The Siberian had never been his daughter. She was a projection, a desperate man’s attempt to hold onto something he had destroyed with his own hands.

But knowing that didn’t make the emptiness any less unbearable.

“I… I just wanted to protect her,” Manton whispered hoarsely. His voice was weak, barely audible. “I wanted to keep her safe.”

Superman knelt, lowering himself to Manton’s level with a sigh. There was a deep exhaustion in his eyes, not just from the battle but from something older, something buried. “You failed her, Manton. But you can still choose to stop failing others. This is your chance to make it right.”

Manton’s body sagged, his strength leaving him in a wave of despair. The van, the battlefield, even Superman—all of it faded into the background as the crushing weight of loss consumed him. His daughter’s face—her smile, her laugh, the last tether to the only thing he had ever cared about—was all he could see.

And now, even that was gone.