(TSSFH) CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN - MULTI POV

Eidolon hit the ground again, skidding across concrete and metal until he crashed through the remains of a half-collapsed loading dock. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes. Rebar twisted from the impact.

He groaned, dragging himself upright, cape in tatters, face bloodied beneath the remnants of his shattered mask. One arm hung limp, dislocated or worse.

Above him, Superman hovered. Framed by smoke and sky. Hands at his sides. He didn’t descend. Didn’t try to capitalize on his advantage.

He didn’t need to.

And that was worse.

Eidolon’s chest heaved. His breath came ragged. The powers were slow—slower to respond to his summons than they’d ever been—and each one felt more distant than the last, as if the well inside him had finally run dry. 

He felt weak. Weaker than he had any right to be. 

Eidolon’s strongest strikes barely made Superman flinch, yet every punch landed by the alien dwarfed his strongest by miles. And worse: they were calculated to stop him, not kill. 

The control was arguably admirable. 

But that unbidden admiration only fueled his anger.  

So Eidolon reached inward. Past the noise. Past the normal channels of power selection. Past restraint. And something inside him shifted—not a choice, not a command, but an instinct. Desperate and primitive.

And something in the fabric of the world shivered.

Superman blinked.

Then he heard it. 

A breath—tens of them—suddenly shallow.

A thud. A gasp.

Parahumans across the city staggered. Others collapsed to the shock of those around them.

But not Eidolon. 

His wounds sealed.

His eyes reignited.

His strength returned.

With a snarl, he struck—Superman’s body rocketing through the remains of another ruined building. Dust rose. Concrete groaned.

But the alien was unharmed, brushing loose stone from his shoulder.

His jaw tightened and eyes narrowed in thought. 

Something very, very wrong.

Why was Eidolon’s breath steady, blows stronger when other parahumans were keeled over in pain? 

Then it came again.

Thump. Gasp. Whimper.

In the distance, a girl screamed along with her friends. Not from fear. But pain. Sudden, unexplained pain. The buzz of wings faltered around her for half a second, a thousand tiny lives scattering in confusion.

His head turned to the heroes at the perimeter. Their knees buckled, and they clutched at their chests as if something inside them had been pulled loose.

Confusion gave way to a stunned understanding. 

But he took a breath, stifled the instinctive horror and anger, and turned back toward Eidolon. His expression hardened.

“You’re draining them.”

Restoring his own reserves by stealing from the well of every cape nearby.

Eidolon paused. It wasn’t denial in his silence. It was guilt. Then defiance.

“I’m doing what I must. I can’t stop—I can’t be useless—”

Phones dropped behind barricades. Civilians gasped as their protectors fell beside them.

And Eidolon stood straighter. Stronger.

Superman’s expression darkened, not with anger, but with heartbreak.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing!” Eidolon snarled. “I need this. I have to win. If I’m not the strongest, then what was the point of any of it?”

The power surged again. Shards screamed as their energies were pulled and bent unwillingly toward a man no longer in control of his own desperation.

Superman landed slowly. On his feet. 

“You were one of the greatest heroes your world ever had,” he said. “But that’s not enough for you anymore, is it?”

Eidolon flinched. But it was there.

He looked up, pain etched deep into every word. “How do you do it?”

Superman tilted his head slightly.

“How do you keep going? When it doesn’t matter how hard you fight? When you know it might still not be enough?”

There was no rage in his voice now. Only quiet despair and exhaustion.

“I’ve sacrificed decades of my life standing against the Endbringers when no one else could. And now—now I’m standing here, looking at you, and realizing none of it mattered.”

Superman took a step closer, unafraid. No defense raised.

“Because I can look back,” he said simply. “Even if I fall, even if I lose, I know I lived a life I’m proud of.”

He didn’t smile. But his voice softened. Almost gentle.

“I’ve helped people. I’ve loved, and been loved. I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve learned. I’ve lived, David.”

His name on Superman’s lips struck harder than it had any right to.

“I’m more than the superhero,” Superman said. “I know who I am without the powers.”

Eidolon stood motionless. 

“David… doesn’t exist without the powers,” he whispered.

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is!” Eidolon shouted. “Don’t lie to me! I saw it in their eyes. In their words and mannerisms. The moment my powers began to fade, they stopped believing in me. I stopped believing in me.”

Superman took another step. Now they were face to face.

“And despite that, you’re still here. Still choosing to fight. That’s you, David. That’s the part they can’t erase. Not the power. The man who wants to matter. The man who knows when to do the right thing.”

Eidolon’s fists trembled. The shard-drain continued—his power clawing at others nearby—but slower, stuttering, as if even it wasn’t sure anymore.

And then Superman reached out.

Not with a blow.

But with a hand. Open. Sure.

“You don’t have to be the strongest,” he said. “You just have to be there for them. That’s enough.”

The words hung there, suspended like a lifeline.

Eidolon stared at the hand.

And for one heartbeat—

One flicker of a moment—

He almost reached back.

Almost. 

But the fear was louder.

The failure more raw.

And so the power spiked again, driven by panic, by a need to not feel less.

Eidolon screamed, his voice warping as so much energy poured from his body it lit the air up like a second sun.

Superman closed his eyes.

And moved. Not  with rage, but with resolve. 

The first blow shattered Eidolon’s defenses.

The second tore through the ambient powers coiled around him like armor.

And the third—

Superman had learned after defeating the Siberian. Destroying the corona pollentia wouldn't remove the power, only the control. 

In Manton’s case, it hardly mattered. Even if he somehow pushed past the catatonic state the second loss of his daughter had left him in, he’d never terrorize anyone again. The Slaughterhouse Nine were under a standing kill order. Every surviving member—save for Riley, who had vanished beyond even Superman’s reach—would face execution.

But Eidolon was different.

Superman couldn’t just destroy the corona and hope for the best. David had gone too far. He’d refused pleas to stop, crossed lines that couldn’t be uncrossed. And though it weighed on him like lead, Superman knew:

Eidolon had to die.

And yet Superman couldn't bring himself to deliver the final blow.

The man was obviously not in his right senses—unmoored by insecurities, driven by fear, crumbling beneath the weight of a legacy that no longer held him up. Regardless of his actions so far, this wasn’t a villain. This was simply a broken man trying to claw back a reason to exist, one desperate act at a time.

Superman stood over him, fists still clenched, every fiber of his being urging him to finish it—to stop the drain, to end the threat, to prevent more heroes from collapsing under Eidolon’s grasping desperation.

But he hesitated.

Because there was still something in Eidolon’s eyes. Even through the haze of madness, through the raw, endless hunger for power, Superman saw the glimmer of a question. A plea, even if Eidolon himself didn’t recognize it.

Is there anything left of me worth saving?

And that was the question Superman had asked himself, once. After Doomsday. After Darkseid. After the countless worlds he couldn’t save.

He lowered his fist.

“I don’t want to kill you, David,” he said softly. “But you’re making it harder to give you another choice.”

Eidolon breathed heavily, still glowing with borrowed strength, but the fire was dimmer now. Less a blaze, more a flicker. The drain had slowed.

Maybe because he was hesitating.

Maybe because somewhere, beneath the fury and fear, a part of him still wanted to be stopped.

Superman stepped back. He didn’t relax, but he made space.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t make me be the one who ends this.”

Eidolon’s lip trembled. His hand twitched, trying to summon another power. Nothing came. No flight, no strength, no forcefield. Just silence.

The shard that had fed him for decades was waiting now. Watching. As if uncertain.

“I don’t know how to stop,” Eidolon whispered.

“You start by letting go,” Superman said. “Let go of what you were supposed to be. Of what they told you you had to be. Just… be who you are now.”

Eidolon sank to his knees. The light around him began to dim. The pressure in the air faded. And across the battlefield, the gasping parahumans began to recover.

In the distance, a girl sobbed with relief as she regained control over her swarm.

Superman let out a slow breath.

It wasn’t a victory. Not yet. But it was a beginning.

Eidolon would answer for his actions; there was no escaping the consequences of what he’d done. But there was still a path forward. A chance to learn from this, to be better and face it without running, and maybe—just maybe—to correct his mistakes.

Not today. Not tomorrow.

But someday, if he was willing to change, the world might find it in itself to forgive.